Another Powerful Person with Dyslexia

NEW YORK – Words have always been Rex Ryan's biggest challenge.

Not so much saying them, of course. The New York Jets' loquacious rookie coach has no trouble speaking his mind. Reading and writing, though, have made Ryan cringe since grade school.

That's the effect dyslexia can have, even on the most confident of NFL coaches.

"It was really frustrating," Ryan told The Associated Press. "So much of school, you have to write, but I just struggled. I couldn't help it."

Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability which affects people's abilities to read, spell, write and pronounce words. According to The International Dyslexia Association, perhaps as much as 15-20 percent of the population has symptoms of dyslexia.

Ryan, 46, knew something wasn't quite right while he was growing up, but he was diagnosed with dyslexia just a few years ago when his oldest son, Payton, was tested for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

"They gave me a test, too, and there were like 100 words, not real words, but letters just thrown out there," Ryan said. "It might've taken me, I don't know, maybe 15 minutes to read it out. They brought in my youngest son, who was maybe 10 or 12 at that time, and he read it in like a minute.

"The further we went along with it, the more I realized, 'Man, oh, man. I can see where I definitely had it.'"

It's a stunning admission by a man who has exuded so much confidence and bravado since becoming the Jets coach in January.

"It's probably pretty common for someone who has communication problems or issues to be very reserved, shy or laid back," said Jets safety Jim Leonhard, who played on Ryan's defense in Baltimore last season but only recently heard about the coach's dyslexia. "Rex is the total opposite. He's too competitive of a guy to let something like that slow him down."

That wasn't always the case. Ryan remembers the anxious moments when he was called upon to read in class and the page appeared nothing more than a muddled mess of letters. And there were all the miserable scores on spelling exams.

"It wasn't like they had spell check back in those days, so it was impossible," he said. "I was a terrible student."

It got so bad Ryan would often skip school unless floor hockey or softball games were planned.

"I never wanted to embarrass myself," he said.

Adding to Ryan's frustrations were the facts that his mother, Doris, has a doctorate in education and was a vice president of the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and his father, Buddy, was a two-time academic All-American before becoming one of the NFL's greatest defensive minds. Ryan's older brother, Jim, has an MBA and a law degree.

Even Ryan's twin brother, Rob, who is Cleveland's defensive coordinator, "was pretty decent, too," he said, laughing.

"I was like, 'What the heck's wrong with me?'"

Well, nothing when it comes to coaching. Ryan, whose Ravens defenses were among the league's best the last several years, believes his dyslexia might have even helped shape his approach.

"He's a fighter and a competitor," Leonhard said, "and you can tell he probably got some of that from having dyslexia and overcoming it."

Many coaches today use colors to code their playbooks and game plans, but it's something Ryan has been doing for as long as he can remember to make things easier to comprehend.

"We can go back as many years as you want to go and you'll see it that way," Ryan said.

One set of plays might be green, while another yellow, and so on — a colorful learning tool that amused Jets defensive coordinator Mike Pettine, a former assistant under Ryan in Baltimore.

"It would drive him crazy," Ryan said. "He would say, 'Don't say that stands out! How can you read that better?' This was before I even knew I was dyslexic."

The Jets also help Ryan with TV and radio commercial spots by reading the copy to him and letting him repeat it before taping.

"If you talk to me, I can pick things up better than I can just off a white piece of paper and black letters," he said.

Still, being dyslexic isn't something normally associated with NFL head coaches. Ryan was open about it when he interviewed for the Jets job, as well as previous opportunities.

"I never wanted to paint a false picture of myself," he said, "because if I got that job, I wanted to be myself."

Despite the struggles, Ryan was able to earn a master's degree in physical education from Eastern Kentucky. And then there's all he has achieved in the NFL.

"For the weaknesses I have with spelling and all those other things with being dyslexic, I have a lot of other strengths also," Ryan said. "I want people to know that you can have dyslexia and still reach your goals."

Books for dyslexic kids

High Noon books is a great resource for kids with dyslexia. One of the problems with dyslexic kids is they are often very bright but have trouble decoding the books that they would find interesting. For example, my daughter's interest is in 6th grade content but her reading abiility is at the 3rd grade level. High noon books provide advanced content with less advanced sentence/word structure. It is also a good place to start in order to increase confidence.

http://www.highnoonbooks.com/

Confidence

Remember the words of Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent – never give it!”

One of the biggest issues for kids with dyslexia is a lack of confidence. It is understandable as they have been knocked down over and over again.

That is why as parents we need to make sure that these kids never feel inferior. I think that is our number one job. How do we do it?

1. Make sure they know they are not dumb because they have dyslexia rather they just learn different than others.
2. Make sure they know all the famous and successful people who have dyslexia.
3. Give them frequent opportunities that allow them to be successful.
4. Make sure they realize their gifts and talents and talk about how everyone has gifts and talents and everyone's are different.
5. Position dyslexia as a gift - it allows them to see the world differently and more vividly than non-dyslexics.

What is RFB&D?

Gracie uses a specilized CD player purchased thru RFB&D that has books on CD. RFB&D stands for Reading for the Blind and Dyslexics and you can literally get thousands and thousands of books on CD's for free. Gracie had the CD player at school while doing research for a report on Thomas Edison. Listening to the CD vs only reading books can give her a greater degree of knowledge while decreasing the frustration of only being able to read books at a certain level.

The player created all kinds of interest in the classroom because it was unusual and cool! One of the kids, who has been in her class for 6 months, questioned her about it. The conversation went like this:

Boy: What is that?
Gracie: My RFB&D player?
Boy: What's RFB&D?
Gracie: Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic
Boy: Oh wow, are you blind?

I almost spit out my dinner when she told me this story last nite!

Teacher Scholarships

Any teachers out there who are interested in excellent training on multisensory structured language education, here are some scholarships in the SF Bay area for rthis summer:

http://www.dyslexia-ncbida.org/scholarships.html

How to Remember the Great Lakes

"HOMES"

Huron
Ontario
Michigan
Erie
Superior

There are going to be ups and downs/Burnout

I had a meeting today with Gracie's educational therapist. She is doing great and making great progress. But our discussion brought up additional concerns around auditory processing that we have not identified as a known issue nor have we been addressing. Auditory difficulties are a part of dyslexia - for sure. Its just that we had not identified that was a problem thru testing or thru experience.

Just discussing it gave me a feeling of deflating a balloon. I had so felt that we were so right on the top of things and then something new comes up. Literally it felt like despair.

But I had to stop and listen to advise that I have given others.....it may be a race but we will all get to the finish line eventually and that is all that matters. So I need to take this information and re-evaluate our strategy because there are going to be ups and downs - no matter how hard we both try.

Also with this conversation, we agreed to decrease educational therapy sessions to twice weekly (instead of three times weekly) because Gracie is feeling burned out.
I really struggle with this because that just slows down the progress. But I have to be sensitive to burnout because this is a long journey.