Jen, Adult learner and homeschooling mom
I’ve never been officially diagnosed with dyslexia, but I’ve struggled with reading and spelling all of my life. If I’m reading a sign with a recognizable logo in a particular font or color, that’s different. But with daily reading I have to read one word at a time and it takes some energy to process the text. It’s not necessarily hard, but I’ve noticed I have to exert more effort than other people do.
Spelling is something I need help with too. I find that when I re-read writing I produced before I was using computers, I would always miss out on words and just not realize I was making omissions.
One of the things I like most about the Touch-type Read and Spell Course are the subjects. They have technical terms and definitions from science and math that you can practice typing. The vocabulary is something I can really benefit from. I also tried the spelling tests.
In high school we had to take a typing class. I loved the idea of pushing buttons. I didn’t learn it the correct way, but I did learn to type pretty early on. I learned to copy; actually typing my own work wasn’t as fun. I know I knew how to hit the backspace key really well, to fix the errors I was making!
As I’ve been doing typing modules in TTRS, I’m realizing that I’m typing a b when I know it’s a d. I’ll go to the wrong letter, probably because of my dyslexia, so I am planning to re-learn these keys. I originally started on Level 3 of TTRS because I knew the keyboard, but now I’d like to go back and take the modules where b and d are introduced, just to re-train my muscle memory.
I was an average student at school because I always found coping mechanisms to help me. However, I feel like no one really respected the ideas I was producing in my writing, until I got to high-school/college level and could use a computer and spell-check.
I would also get anxious if I ever had to read out loud and I wouldn’t really read unless I had to. But that all changed when I had kids. We were reading Dr. Seuss books all of the time and this was a huge help with my reading fluency.
There’s a section of Touch-type Read and Spell I let my son try and it was really interesting to watch him. He had such a high level of success with the program that I created an account for him.
He’s a fourth grader going into fifth grade. I like how he feels so accomplished after he does his typing. I homeschool him and TTRS starts at a great foundational level for him.
He’s so happy to go and do it. He’s learning a new skill, and he’s working on his spelling so it’s a program we can both use!
