Customer Reviews

My Dyslexia

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I am a speech-language pathologist specializing in reading and written language disorders. Our company, Lexercise.com, has been working hard to make affordable, professional evaluation and treatment available online to dyslexics no matter where they live. I have written a post for the Lexercise.com blog encouraging dyslexics, parents and practitioners to read My Dyslexia.

Schultz title, My Dyslexia, lets readers know that he is describing is HIS journey with this occult and often poorly understood condition. Schultz says that his self-awareness "was fashioned by years of psychotherapy and self-analysis and introspection necessary to the writing of poetry." He describes the confusion of trying to understand "where my dyslexia stopped and some bizarre emotional problem began."

This isn't a new story. There are many other accounts written by dyslexics. Contemporary research journals document the negative academic, social and emotional cascade associated with dyslexia. But Schultz uses his poetic, narrator's voice to tell a particularly compelling and moving personal story. His descriptions are concise and visceral, just what you'd expect of an award-winning poet. He describes his childhood with a mother, who believed in him and saw his talents, yet didn't know where to turn for help: "I can well imagine the disheveled logic and desperation that went into her not seeking help for me, except for the remedial help forced on her by my school."

One of my favorite descriptions is of the moment when Schultz first experienced reading: "The process of leaping over my own incapacities to the excitement in the narrator's voice...."; "I seemed to be 'listening' (not reading) to a voice in my own head, to a personage invented by my own fantasies."

Schultz occasionally departs from his personal narrative to draw conclusions: "There is one final clue to dyslexia in children and adults alike: the fact that they are in pain. Dyslexia inflicts pain. It represents a major assault on self-esteem." He quotes the International Dyslexia Association, concluding that many teaching and learning methods "only serve normal learners and are 'detrimental to the at-risk learner' who needs a more 'systematic, structured, multi-sensory approach.'"

Schultz says that he didn't understand that his own "breakdown" was "linguistic and phonetic" until recently, when his son, Eli, was diagnosed with dyslexia by a neuropsychologist, and he recognized the same symptoms in himself. Yet he says, "Even with modern science and technology, every dyslexic must forge his own 'strategy for survival.' " Really? While persistence and self-determination are certainly omnipotent for dealing with any personal challenge, it certainly doesn't sound like Eli has had to completely "forge his own strategy." In fact, Schwartz beautifully describes how Eli is thriving with "self-knowledge and support."

For the sake of the one child in five who suffers from dyslexia, I hope one message that readers take from My Dyslexia is that the path Schultz has made possible for his son, through professional evaluation and treatment, is faster, surer and less painful than was his own torturous path, through "years of psychotherapy and self-analysis and introspection."

Finally, in purchasing My Dyslexia for my Kindle I was startled to read this message: < The publisher has requested not to enable Text-to-Speech for this title.> Of all books, it seems like this one should have Text-to-Speech enabled! I wonder why the publisher would request not to enable Text-to-Speech for a book about dyslexia?

In "My Dyslexia" Philip Schultz provides a detailed and highly moving account of what it's like to have a dyslexic kind of brain, and to grow up in a world where such brains are neither understood nor valued. Schultz beautifully illustrates many of the cognitive advantages often associated with dyslexia, and which "dyslexic wiring" is actually intended to produce. In our book The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain we describe these advantages in detail as we have witnessed them in our work as physicians specializing in learning differences, and as described in the neurosciences literature. In reflecting on his own strengths, Schultz attributes the amazing creativity that fuels his award winning poetry largely to the habits his dyslexia has forced him to develop of searching for new solutions to challenges that non-dyslexics deal with unthinkingly. While this training by adversity is clearly important, a growing body of research also suggests that many dyslexic talents--like Philip's remarkable poetic strengths in areas like metaphor and analogy, his ability to assume the perspective of narrators with points of view very different from his own, and his remarkably vivid memory for personal experiences which he is able to reweave into new events and episodes--are also supported directly by the same sorts of brain wiring differences that result in dyslexia-related learning challenges. Schultz's story provides a marvelous portrayal of the kind of late-blooming and highly divergent pathway to maturity that dyslexic individuals typically follow, and of the uniquely creative talents that they can enjoy when given time, encouragement, and opportunity to blossom. One absolutely key message of this book is the contrast Schultz draws between his own early struggles, and the far more secure and positive experience his son has enjoyed due to his early recognition as dyslexic and the understanding and support he has received. While this book will be valuable for anyone who is dyslexic, has a dyslexic child or loved one, or works with dyslexic individuals, its message will be especially valuable for teachers who work in early childhood education, and who have not yet understood the tremendous potential that exists even in some of the children who look least promising in the early grades. We can't recommend this book highly enough!

I discovered the author reading his opinion piece in the New York Times, "Words failed, then saved me". I downloaded the book thinking I could read it with my dyslexic daughter and ADHD son, but when I tried to read my favorite passages to my wife, I was unable, not because I'm dyslexic, but because the emotion overwhelmed me. This poet explains dyslexia like no medical doctor ever could.

My Dyslexia should be required reading for ALL current and prospective teachers and school administrators. Mr. Schultz gives insight into both how his brain decodes language and the psychological effects that difference created for him. It's a slim volume, but worth every penny for someone who works with people with learning differences (me), is the parent of someone with a learning difference, or is an educator who will inevitably encounter a student with a learning difference. (20% of the population, no matter how your local/state dept. of education tries to deny/ignore it.)

I'm also a poet and there are also some great tips for writers, both novices and Pulitzer Prize winners.

Thank you for this wonderful book Mr. Schultz!

As an educator who works with children who find learning to read difficult (I direct the Reading Clinic at Kent State University), I have been using poetry for years with great success. Poetry is a wonderful genre for teaching various reading skills and gaining a feeling of success and accomplishment as children are able to read and perform poetry for their parents and others. As Mr. Schultz indicates, poetry is also a superb way to help children learn to love language. Mr. Schultz writes that "poetry should be a matter of passion, not survival." I agree. However, I have found that for many children who struggle in reading, poetry can be a lifeline to literacy. Thank you Mr. Schultz.

This is a little gem of a book. I read the whole book in less than two hours but learned so much about the experience of having dyslexia. Even though Philip Schultz won a Pulitzer Prize for `Failure', a collection of poetry, he did not learn to read until he was eleven years old. He did not even find out that he had dyslexia until he was 58! He learned that he had it when his son was diagnosed with it.

Before reading this, I wondered how a man with dyslexia could become a poet. For me it is a very difficult task to write poetry and I don't have to deal with dyslexia. But then, I remembered my friend who is a child psychiatrist who is dyslexic. Because of the tremendous amount of reading that she had in medical school, she hired a reader but she made it through because she was very determined and incredibly intelligent. Philip Schultz has those same qualities.

Mr. Schultz related the effect of having dyslexia in school and not knowing that he had it. His mind was his enemy. To escape teasing from his classmates, he stole coins from his father's vending machine proceeds to eat in a restaurant every school day. He ate the same thing each time even though he hated it. He couldn't read the menu; he ordered what he overheard being ordered. He thought of himself as being a dummy because he was put in a slow class and that is what other kids called him.

His life was filled with emotional pain and anxiety. His mind was truly his enemy. Then in his sophomore year, he fell in love with books. He still could not read them without a huge struggle but he loved them.

This book tells of the emotional journey that Mr. Schultz struggled through until he found that his brain was different from others. He found out that instead of being a dummy he was intelligent. Don't let the size of the book deceive you, he packed a lot of suffering and then finally relief and self-acceptance in it.

I recommend this book to family and friends of anyone with dyslexia and to people with it whose minds are their enemies.

I received this book from GoodReads but that in no way influenced the content of my review.

It was bought due to lives of some people I have known. I was simply blown away by his writing, I'd turn a page and upon reading I'd say to myself and sometimes out loud "Wow". I can't believe how the story would make feel so enlightened and so glad that I purchased such a God send, as far as I'm cocerned. It remains a book that I have shared with others and they have thanked me for the opporunity to read it.

My Dyslexia by Philip Shultz

Please read this. These kids get lost because schools don't know to look for this. Compare this to your childs report. Good luck to all of you!

Gifted Children with Learning Disabilities : Lost Treasures

Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D.

Anyone who went to elementary school in the fifties knows the scenes described in Philip Schultz's memoir "My Dyslexia." My own classrooms resembled the ones he describes in Rochester, New York: children rigidly segregated by supposed ability, with the "unteachable" children in a far corner, to which teachers regularly turned their backs. Schultz could not seem to learn to read, and, in addition to the verbal abuse and physical bullying he endured in and out of school, he developed a deep sense of himself as stupid. Convincing himself that he is not stupid does not come as a moment of revelation or through the understanding offered by a kindly teacher. It is the continuing struggle, with attendant anxiety and shame, of a lifetime.

This is not, I think, a book for young adults, as some reviews have suggested. There is too much sorrow. Schultz does contrasts his own education as a dyslexic with the far more enlightened education of his dyslexic son, but this note of hope is a minor strain in a book that is really a detailed examination of how his brain, a very creative one, works. Anyone who ever struggled with a learning difficulty in the days before such difficulties were identified will appreciate and recognize his story.

The book is also not a memoir in the usual sense. It is not an autobiography. Neither is it a linear narrative. It twists and turns through Schultz's attempts to understand why he thinks the way he does and to understand the source of his undeniable creativity. As a book, it has much more in common with the neurological case studies of the writer Oliver Sacks than it does with the literature of uplift and inspiration. It is a short work of great power, and it is not for children.

M. Feldman

This is a short, powerful and honest book about dyslexia. I am somebody who has struggled with dyslexia growing up and now has a son who is reliving the struggles I had. I totally related to the author's story and read many of the chapters twice. This book also provides insight into how a person with dyslexia often understands the world in a different way that involves less language, but more context, meaning and ambiguity. And that strength enables people with dyslexia to be more perceptive and creative.