Thank You, Mr. Falker By Patricia Placco - 830 Words

But Mr. Falker caught her arm and sank to his knees in front of her. â€Å"You poor baby,† he said. â€Å"You think you re dumb, don t you? How awful for you to be so lonely and afraid.† She sobbed. â€Å"But, little one, don t you understand, you don t see letters or numbers the way other people do. And you ve gotten through school all this time, and fooled many, many good teachers!† He smiled at her. â€Å"That took cunning, and smartness, and such, such bravery.† Then he stood up and finished washing the board. â€Å"We re going to change all that, girl. You re going to read-I promise you that† (Abadiano, 2001, p.41). This is an excerpt from the book Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Placco. This book is an autobiography about a girl with dyslexia. Everyone told her she was dumb and could not learn – except Mr. Falker. Only he took the time to teach her to read and she went on to become a children’s author. Dyslexia, a commo n name for reading disorders, is common among students, and unfortunately many have similar experiences to Ms. Placco. How many of these children could feel like they can learn and even learn to read if teachers were more aware of the issue and better equipped to help these children? (QUOTE FROM THANK YOU MR. FALKER) SOME STATISTIS ABOUT READING DISORDERS AND ITNRO TO DYSLEXIA. This raises the questions, what is dyslexia and how can we help students with dyslexia in the classroom? First, what is dyslexia? A common name for reading disorders, dyslexia is