Eavan wrote a sensational, creative, complex story with word choices that blew me away.  Because she can listen to books at 8x the speed, audio books are her happy place.  Possessed of a blissful imagination, she would lose herself in her books.  Along the way she might do a latch hook rug, or color in an adult coloring book, but always with the tablet in her hand,  earbuds in her ears, and a great story going.

The next academic year, we went wholly to creative writing for Eavan Marie. My goal was that Eavan be able to represent and express herself in writing; creative writing was just that portal.  And oh my, was I truly rewarded.  This sixth grade, moderate dyslexic who truly hated writing two paragraphs weekly, wrote nine pages single spaced, and shared eloquently the fictitious story of a sheep ostracized for his optimism, and his ultimate redemption within the herd because of his caring personality.  She wrote:

•     One bright, June morning Leo was wandering about alone imagining himself to be among the bright, fluffy clouds.  He was eating grass and romping about with all of his imaginary friends.  Suddenly, his mother’s harsh voice broke in  . . . Leo jumped guiltily . . .
•     Merlin, who felt compassion for Leo because he too had been shunned by the herd, wanted to help Leo, a fellow outcast.
•     The shepherd, resolved that his four year old would not be victorious in this clash of wills, picked up his daughter, and carried her back to there (sic) house.”

But the best news was yet to come. I asked her to just write ONE traditional narration over our five week block that fall. She and I worked together, spent our tutoring time together, instead, on her creative writing.  But because a fire was lit, her confidence soared and unexpectedly trickled down past the creative writing into the narration writing.  Her product, her one narration, was unquestionably the very best work she had ever done.  In her first draft.  Just one year before, she and I had to sit together for weeks and weeks to try to use the mechanics of a paragraph correctly, to understand sequencing of thoughts.  That fall, however,  in our first block, she wrote her one narration and it was impeccable.  First draft!  First draft!  No edits?  From weeks and weeks of edits to no edits because we found a portal she was excited about.  And that is exactly where the bar is at for teaching our kids subjects that are especially hard; we need to be creative, we need to listen, we need to follow the clues.  There are no two dyslexics even remotely alike, and if we just get out of the way even a little, the magic happens.

Incidentally, do you think the plot line of Eavan’s story was a coincidence? A sheep was outcast for optimism but then redeemed much later by his herd for his kindness. Sounds close to home for a dyslexic child today.