Kaitlyn's Last day of school

On the Last day of school (Yes it was only 3 weeks ago for us) Kaitlyn had me come in and take pictures of her class. It was a really sad day for Kaitlyn as she is really good friends with her class mates and wont be in class with them next year.

We found out this year that Kaitlyn has severe dyslexia. When she started reading in Kindergarten in Arizona I knew something wasn't right when she couldn't read the word "ax" even

though she knew very well what the

letter "a" and "x" said. I tried talking to teachers about it then but since it is my first child and not knowing what it is like to have a child learn to read I was pretty unsure of myself.

All I knew was I struggled horribly in reading growing up. In fact in college I would stay up all night long trying to read 1 chapter in my accounting book. I didn't know why reading was so hard for me then but after I got married and I learned more about reading disorders I wondered if it was dyslexia. Sometimes I wondered how I ever graduated with my accounting degree.

I knew if any of my children had it I wanted to get what help I could for my child. I have continued to watch both Brianna and Kaitlyn closely. They are very different children when it comes to learning to read. Brianna so easily grabs the concepts and reads so quickly where Kaitlyn struggles at remembering the sounds the letters are suppose to make.

I talked to Kaitlyn's Teacher about it last year but they said they thought Kaitlyn just needed to learn the new language and she would be fine. That is where there was another difference. Brianna was completely fluent in Dutch and Kaitlyn was still struggling to learn.

This year Kaitlyn's teacher came to me and said, "We think there is something wrong and would like to test Kaitlyn for dyslexia" and asked if it was o.k. Can you imagine my answer.... YES test her. The test came back that she has "severe dyslexia" and had lots of suggestions of what was needed for her education. One of them being that she needed to repeat this grade and relearn her reading skills differently since she was so far behind in her reading.

Kaitlyn is incredibly sad not to be going to the next grade with her friend. I am hoping we made the right decision for her to help her improve, gain confidence.

My last struggle is dyslexia makes it very difficult to processes language and her we have my little girl in a foreign country and in school in a different language. Sometimes my heart just breaks thinking about how hard it has to be for her. I love this opportunity to live abroad and to have my children learn a new language. I just didn't expect it to be so hard on my oldest.