Dyslexia Resources & Insights

Featured Artist: Prairie
Prairie, one of our assessed students, is not only thriving but also an extraordinary artist. We invite you to explore her captivating work on her personal website. We understand that some of her stunning creations are even featured on gift cards!

• [Link to Prairie's website: "Prairie"]

Young Talent: Marina V
Nine-year-old Marina V is a wonderfully imaginative storyteller and a gifted artist. She excels in various mediums, creating delightful drawings, vivid paintings, and intricate sculptures and dioramas, with a particular flair for dragons!

Marina's Dragon Drawing
This drawing features Marina's dragon alongside many other creatures, showcasing her vibrant imagination.

Marina's Castle & Creatures
Marina crafted this detailed castle complete with a dragon, a unicorn, and a knight on horseback. Ladybugs add a charming touch on the right side of the piece.

Short Story: "A Dog's Life" by John Mills
"A Dog's Life" is a heartwarming short story penned by John Mills, a resident of British Columbia. John has enjoyed a successful career as an arbitrator in the province for nearly five decades. Our family has grown up listening to John's captivating tales—some rooted in truth with a touch of artistic flair, others as wildly imaginative as a Mark Twain narrative. He began writing as a hobby years ago, developing a concise, "Hemingway-esque" style.

This particular story, exploring the profound bond between a man, his dog, and life's inevitable changes, moved our family to tears. We sincerely hope you find as much appreciation for it as we did.

• [Click here to go to "A Dog's Life"]

Featured Memoir Excerpt

"High School Dropout to Harvard" by John Rodrigues

We recently received a captivating email from John Rodrigues, a dyslexic gentleman currently crafting a memoir about his life. We were immediately charmed and amused by his gentle humor and vivid recollections, which evoked memories of author Jean Shepherd's laugh-out-loud short stories that inspired the 1983 film "A Christmas Story." We eagerly anticipate the continuation of his compelling narrative.

Below is a first draft of Chapter One from his upcoming book, tentatively titled "High School Dropout to Harvard."

"Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work." -Mark Twain

Chapter One: Broken Glasses

Early Days & Anxious Beginnings

I was born a hefty ten-pound baby boy at St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton, California—a detail my poor mother still recounts with vivid descriptions of her pain during my birth. According to my parents, I was so restless during delivery that I managed to cut both my lip and my mom on the way out, requiring stitches for us both. Even from the very beginning, I simply couldn't sit still.

Growing up, a persistent feeling of "offness" nagged at me, a sense that something was unbalanced or didn't quite fit. Since this feeling seemed unique to me, I kept quiet, trying to conceal any differences from other kids. My parents, it seemed, had little patience for my quirks. I constantly broke things, my ability to judge distance and the necessary force to apply when setting objects down always seemed askew. I believe I set a world record for the number of drinking glasses I cracked, broke, or dropped as a child. Every time I reached for my juice or water, I'd misjudge the distance, opening or closing my hand too early or late. This inevitably led to tipping the glass onto the table or floor. This was doubly problematic at home: not only did I usually shatter or crack a glass, but I'd also send a small wave of liquid spreading across the table towards the carpet. I'd frantically grab a napkin to intercept the spill, but for some reason, I was always just a hair too late, watching helplessly as it rolled over the edge and onto the carpet. This was invariably followed by a chorus from my parents: "Why can't you drink something without spilling it?" from my dad, and "Why can't I ever have anything nice in this house?" from my mom.

The Lasting Impact of Childhood Frustrations

These well-meaning but hurtful comments only amplified my anxiety when I used a glass. To this day, I feel a prickle of unease when I reach for one. Thankfully, at home with my wonderful wife, we use clear plastic cups from Crate and Barrel – they never break! It's incredible how something so simple can bring me so much joy. The anxiety and fear my parents unwittingly instilled in me became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I look at today's kids with envy, with their fancy superhero and cartoon character plastic cups. Where were you when I needed you? We had nothing like them growing up, just endless sets of promotional glasses from fast-food chains and cheap ones from discount stores. I broke them as fast as we collected or bought them. Even now, I get a strange rush of excitement when I deliberately break a glass. Could I be secretly Greek?

Childhood Landscape & Family Roots

I grew up in Orange County, California, back when it was primarily orange groves. We lived in a small town called Fullerton, a mere 15 minutes from the happiest place on Earth, Disneyland. We inhabited a happy little suburban bubble. My brother Mike, a year older than me, and I kept our mom and dad on their toes from the moment we learned to crawl. Our home on Michael Street, at the end of a cul-de-sac, was perfect for playing touch football and baseball in the street. With many other kids on our block, my brother and I just had to step outside to find a dozen playmates.

My parents were an intriguing blend. My mother was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana—a French-Creole and American Indian (Choctaw and Creek) woman who grew up on a farmhouse with two brothers and two sisters. They even had a small movie theater on their property that showed second-run movies and Saturday morning cartoons. My grandfather, a very frugal man, insisted on employing only family members in his theater, often for cheap or free labor. My mom and her sisters managed the concession stand, aunts and uncles sold tickets, and her brothers ran the projectors. My mom inherited his knack for being good with money, a trait my dad, unfortunately, did not share. My father, on the other hand, was a product of the Bronx, New York. He grew up in tenement buildings, experiencing extreme poverty. He endured physical and verbal abuse from his mother and was separated from his father, who died when he was a teenager. My father also battled a stuttering problem growing up, which made him reluctant to speak to anyone.

Building a Home & Unforgettable Journeys

My parents met at a party in Fullerton, California. Both worked at the hospital after college, my dad as a male nurse and my mom as a lab tech. Upon deciding to marry, their first priority was scraping together enough money for a down payment on a house. At the time, Orange County, largely undeveloped and filled with orange groves, was one of the most affordable places to live. They bought a small house on half an acre, with just enough for the down payment and little else. The house was in such disrepair that my mother cried on the back porch the first time she saw it. With a new house but no funds, they faced the challenge of furnishing it. While most houses in Orange County looked similar from the outside, ours was an eclectic assortment of mismatched furniture, silverware, and plates, looking like something from a bad movie. My brother and I joked that if anything matched in our house, our parents would demand we change or remove it immediately.

Most of our furnishings were treasures discovered in second-hand stores and garage sales, explaining why nothing matched, from chairs and sofas to silverware and end tables. The only consistent item in our house was the green shag carpet, which covered most rooms. Our home was a pirate's paradise, brimming with unique finds from all over Southern California. Fred G. Sanford would have been proud.

Believe it or not, for many years, our living room table was a picnic table/park bench. One day, my dad simply appeared with it and moved it into our dining room. My mother never questioned its origin. Growing up, I often wondered if a park somewhere had a missing picnic table. This picnic table served as the centerpiece of our empire for years. Eventually, it moved to the backyard when my parents finally acquired a traditional dining room table with matching chairs. I actually missed that old table; I always felt closer to my family sitting around the picnic table than in individual chairs.

During summers, my parents would load my brother Mike and me into our white Volkswagen camper for cross-country drives to places like Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Texas, or Louisiana. One constant on these trips was my dad striking up conversations with everyone—at gas stations, diners, campgrounds, state parks, you name it. The amusing part was that he'd become so engrossed in conversation that he'd forget things. Miles down the road, he'd suddenly remember. A frequent trigger for his memory was other cars pulling alongside us, pointing to the back of our camper. Sometimes, they'd roll down their window and yell, "Your gas cap is missing!" This happened so often that a significant portion of our family vacations was spent sifting through old boxes of lost gas caps until we found one that fit. I still recall my mom's exasperated refrain after the third or fourth incident on a single trip: "For God's sake, Doug, not again!"

The Kindergarten Dream and First Grade Reality

I absolutely loved kindergarten and my teacher, Mrs. Green. I have many distinct memories from my life, and among my earliest school recollections is Mrs. Green's kindergarten class. She was truly amazing; her class was filled with art, music, colors, shapes, and building blocks. I vividly remember constructing with red cardboard blocks, singing and napping on the carpet, climbing to the top of the eagle's perch on the monkey bars, and wearing letters pinned to our shirts. My parents still cherish a clay handprint I made when I was five.

I consider kindergarten the crowning glory of my K–12 education. Everything that followed felt like a downhill slide, and it wasn't until I reached college that I rediscovered the same amazing experiences I had in kindergarten. This is precisely why I loved college so much and excelled there. I believe kindergarten and college share a similar spirit of exploration, allowing you to follow your educational curiosity in any direction. Visual thinkers, like myself, thrive in such environments. In contrast, the system from first through twelfth grade was so regimented, offering little room for individual academic curiosity. This rigid system also assessed everyone based on a narrow, linear framework, failing to account for diverse types of intelligence.

Abraham Schmitt articulated this best in his book "Brilliant Idiot" when he stated, "My entire world collapsed at that moment. There was no other measure of a person's worth or intelligence than success in school." This precisely describes my own experience.

I was a happy, confident, fun-loving little kid until first grade. In first grade, everything changed dramatically for me. It was no longer fun and interactive—the perfect environment for visual learners like me—but instead, it became boring and repetitious. We spent most of the day sitting still in rows, engaged in drills across various subjects. I detested this method because it directly opposed my natural learning style, and I simply couldn't sit still. It was incredibly frustrating and tedious to endure this day after day. I was an energetic child who learned best by hearing, seeing, touching, and interacting with the material. Suddenly, none of these methods were available to me. I hated first grade; it felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under me. How could kindergarten be so much fun and first grade such a nightmare? It made no sense. Even worse, I couldn't keep pace with this linear method, constantly feeling like I was swimming against the current, always struggling to keep up with the other kids. My self-image, which had been so strong in kindergarten, plummeted. I went from being the best student in kindergarten to the worst student in first grade. I failed first grade and had to repeat it. Thus began my painful relationship with our K–12 public education system. What was supposed to be the launching pad for my academic career, I fell flat on my face.

This page highlights a diverse group of individuals who have achieved remarkable success across various fields, all while navigating the unique challenges and strengths associated with dyslexia. Their stories serve as powerful testaments to the fact that dyslexia is not a barrier to greatness, but often a catalyst for creative and unconventional thinking.