"Cartwheels: Finding Your Special Kind Of Smart" ($11.95 in paperback from Et Alia Press) is narrated by Sloane and features whimsical, colorful illustrations by fine-arts major Lindsey Witting.
"I am six years old," Sloane says. "I love to make up dances and put on shows. I play soccer and take gymnastics. I especially like to do cartwheels. I do cartwheels EVERYWHERE." But something seemed amiss. A year earlier, in kindergarten, while "the other kids were putting sounds together to make words," Sloane was having difficulty.
One of her teachers told her to "Pay attention. Focus. You know this!" "But," she says, "no matter how hard I looked at those letters ... I never could remember which sounds were supposed to go with which letters....."
In first grade, Sloane didn't want to read; she just wanted to do cartwheels. One day she met with "a really nice lady; Mom and Dad said she was going to ask me to do some things that showed my special kind of smart. We talked and did puzzles."
Then came the diagnosis of dyslexia. How to communicate it to Sloane? Your brain is smart, her parents told her, and "it could crack this reading code ... I just had to learn it in a different way."
Gradually she is able to make sense of letters and their sounds; now reading is sometimes actually fun. (A word to parents at the end of the book says perhaps one in five people have difficulty "decoding" sounds, letters, and words. There are many strategies since each brain is different, but "early intervention is key" to enable kids to "find their own special kind of smart.")
It was sometimes hard as Sloane worked with a special ed teacher, "and sometimes when my brain was too full, I would even get up and do cartwheels." But not, Sloane cautions, "in the classroom!"
