NOTE: This post is about Thomas and dyslexia. If you’re curious about other posts I’ve written on the same subject, go to the upper right-hand of your computer screen and type ‘dyslexia’ in the search box.  

We have been struggling with Thomas’ dyslexia since the first time he went through the first grade. Despite his record of very good grades, nothing has ever come easy for Thomas. Each A, and B and even some C’s are the result of lots of extra work put in by Thomas, various heroic teachers and us here at home. We’ve had our ups and downs, but by far our biggest struggle has been lack of continuity from teacher to teacher, grade to grade because of an absence of a specific education plan for Thomas. This is why we were so please to have had our first official 504 meeting yesterday.

A 504 plan is a specific plan of instructional services to help keep Thomas and his various teachers on the same page, class to class, year to year. It provides for special instruction on dyslexia coping skills and allows Thomas certain classroom accommodations that utilize those skills. This plan will be evaluated and updated periodically, but will follow him throughout his educational career until deemed unnecessary. Voila, continuity!

We’re not asking for special treatment just because we want Thomas’ life (and by extension ours) to be easier, but because we want his life to be full. As I’ve said before, T is wicked smart and wonderfully imaginative. We want Thomas to have every chance to learn, to feed that voracious mind that wants to know EVERYTHING and to learn to cope in the real world after school. We want to give Thomas every tool available he can use to live up to his full potential. I think yesterday was another step in the right direction.