I have a distinct memory of sitting in my dance class at 6 years old, heart pounding. The teacher went around the circle and asked each student her name and how to spell it. I knew that my name – Breanna – had different spellings, but I couldn’t remember the names of the letters. As she neared me, I got more and more nervous for fear of being found out. I was so afraid that the other girls would know that I could not spell something as simple as my name. I fled the room before the teacher got to me, my eyes filling with tears as I searched for my mom.
I want to share my story with you and how that story has shaped me and led me to do what I currently do professionally. I hope that this will resonate with you if you have a child who is struggling or maybe just know a child who is struggling.
I am one of six kids and we were all homeschooled for most of our school years. My mom describes homeschooling my two older brothers as a breeze. It was almost like before she taught them anything, they already knew it. This ease of teaching all changed when I came along. Learning to read was impossible for me. By the age of 8, I was a complete non-reader. I could write my name because I knew what it looked like as a picture, but did not know the letter names, much less the sounds they made. Learning to count to 10 was a laborious process.
Even though my parents knew I was bright and talking to me you’d have no idea learning was difficult for me, they knew something was really wrong. I was diagnosed with severe auditory processing dyslexia and it really was one of the most severe cases. And while this was many years ago, I distinctly remember the feelings associated with it. A learning disability impacts a lot more than just school; it impacts the way you view yourself. I remember the frustration, tears, and the feelings of being dumb. There was constant fear of someone finding out my secret, which created a constant anxiety in me. I remember praying that God would help me to learn to read and asking my mom why, if I asked God for something good, would He not give that to me?
After trying many different approaches without success, my parents found a learning specialist named Dianne Craft who made the first real breakthrough for me. Using what she taught us, within just a year I was reading above grade level! I went on to go to high school without accommodations, went to college graduating with honors, and received a Master’s degree in Education and Human Development. (By the way, you can brag about your accomplishments when you’ve had a learning disability; it is sort of a rite of passage 😉.) This was all unimaginable for me when I was a child! And I love to share this because there is a real stigma that a learning disability can’t be remediated! That is just not my experience, or the experience I’ve seen for other kids. There is hope! I whole-heartedly believe there is healing for this!
I only lightly considered working with struggling learners as a career option. It was hard for me to imagine choosing to work with struggling learners when that subject had been so painful for me. I did not necessarily want to associate myself with that past struggle when I had worked so hard to separate myself from it.
Yet I still felt a call to it all along the way. I decided to half fulfill this prompting by helping people in a different capacity, which led me to major in Psychology in college. But the more I learned about the educational system and met people in college who were still struggling, the more I knew this was work that I needed to do. How could I be so selfish to keep the life-changing answers I had been led to to myself?
So, after working separately for a few years, in 2016 my mom and I decided to open Connect Education where we work with struggling learners and their parents. We offer private consulting, and we work with a private Christian school twice a week.
We were recently introduced to the phrase: Misery to Ministry, which feels so appropriate to my story. My journey has made the work I do so much more meaningful for me. My heart goes out to you and your struggling learner.