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Living with L.D.

Molly

My name is Molly . I’m thirteen and in the eighth grade. I love to read. My favorite authors are James Patterson and Stephen King. I listen to C.D.s with my headphones on. I wear out a pair just about every month . I love learn new things. My passion is forensic science... blood splatters, bone fragment and brain matter. I also am L.D.

L.D. means learning disabled. That means I learn differently, I sometimes have problems learning. Before we found out what was up, I had a lot of trouble in school and I hated it. I could read, but I could not spell. I forgot things a lot. I could not remember the names of things. Math facts...ugh. I used to get so mad when I had to write prompts. It broke my mom’s heart when I said that I hated school. After a couple of years of struggling and fighting, my mom said, “Forget it” and had me tested. My teacher didn’t think there was anything wrong with me, but Mom wanted to know for sure.

One of the special ed teachers came and took me to do some tests. Then another lady came and did some different ones. Another one came and we did activities together. After all of that, they had a meeting. They found out I had L.D.

At first I was like, O.K... whatever. Finding out I had L.D. was weird, but things happened to help me. I got help from one of the resource teachers. I also use a calculator for math, an electronic dictionary because my spelling sucks, and later on when I learned to type, an Alpha Smart. It makes my life so, so much easier. Teachers could read my writing. I cold read my writing, too.

It made me feel weird because kids would make fun of me because I would go to get help. They thought was dumb. Some still make fun of me, but I don’t really care. I know why they make fun of me. It’s because they don’t understand, some are jealous because I get to use a calculator and a word processor, and some are just buttheads who have to make fun of others to feel big about themselves. When I walk in the halls with my Alpha case over my shoulder, I hear kids say, “there goes one of those kids in the small classes“, or “she must be stupid because she has one of those things on her back that the kids in the small classes have “. They don’t know that I am really smart. I learned to ignore it, but sometimes I can’t. I get them back with words that they don’t understand. Then it is my turn to laugh.

I always have to explain my L.D. Sometimes my friend and I, who also has L.D., think that we should hang signs around our necks and on our Alpha’s that explain it to other people. I have a speech memorized that I tell people.

Some teachers are impossible. Like last year, when I was in seventh grade and had to explain to my English teacher. She didn’t really understand that I needed to type my assignments. She didn’t want to believe me, so my mom called. She told my mom she would have to see if it was acceptable in her classroom, and the journals had to be a certain color. She really made me feel bad, but mostly, she made me mad. It was an interesting year in English. We would joke and call her my “evil English teacher”. All my other teachers were great about it. They always let me type and, if the printer was down, they would let me print at home and bring it the next day. I still made the honor roll all 4 quarters. Two times, I got all A’s and 1 B.

This year is great, no evil teachers who are like the Evil English Teacher. With the kids in my classes, it’s easy, because most already asked about my Alpha last year. They always ask me where I got my Alpha, and I tell them from school. But again, there are those that think that I don’t deserve it because I do well in school. Living with L.D. is really not that different from being normal except that I will always use a calculator, and electronic dictionary, and an Alpha Smart or something like it for the rest of my life because of my L.D. And, my handwriting sucks. Basically, I am different, yeah, with L.D. but I like it because I won’t be like everyone else. different It’s like this Avrial Lavinge song says,” I want to be anything but ordinary, please“. I think that if I stayed in the lines all the time, thought in the box, my life would be so boring.