“I knew from the beginning. My mother is also dyslexic. And so...

“I knew from the beginning.  My mother is also dyslexic.  And so are my two brothers.  So I began going to therapy very early.  It was more than just writing backwards.  I’d switch up letters and syllables.  Sometimes I’d invent words.  Reading was so difficult that I’d avoid it unless absolutely necessary.  Books were nothing but pages and words to me.  I was never able to ‘escape’ into the world of a book.  I could never get into that bubble.  I tried my best on literature assignments, but my grades never improved.  So I focused on math and science instead.  But when I was sixteen I had a French teacher named Monsieur Meyronnet.  He was young.  It was his first year of teaching.  And one day he asked me to stay after class.  I was sure he wanted to talk about my poor grades, but instead he told me that he recognized my enthusiasm.  He said that he understood my difficulties.  And he promised I could overcome them with reading.  He gave me a list of books, and he suggested we read them together.  Every day we’d meet during lunch and discuss what we’d read the night before.  I wanted to impress him so I always read more than he expected.  When we got to the end of the list, he started letting me choose the books.  I finally learned what it meant to ‘escape’ into a book.  My writing got better.  My speaking got better.  Now nobody knows I’m dyslexic unless I tell them.  Monsieur Meyronnet ended up moving to the South of France.  But I’m still reading.  I’ve read over fifty books in the past two years.  And whenever I finish one, I send him an email with my thoughts.”
(Paris, France)