City Hall Clock To Be Red Tonight To Raise Awareness

If you are wondering why the clock on City Hall is lighted red tonight it has nothing to do with a Downtown business promotion but rather the special light is being displayed to raise awareness of dyslexia.

Dyslexia is a learning disability which makes it more difficult for children to read and comprehend as easily as other children Kirsten Downey a Moose Jaw resident and Dyslexia Canada board member told MJ Independent. It is something which has touched her family personally.

“Our youngest son was diagnosed with dyslexia when he was in grade one and that has started us on this journey advocating for him.,” Downey said about her involvement to not only raise awareness but also help other families and individuals facing the challenges being a person with dyslexia delivers.

Challenges which can often label a person with dyslexia as stupid, lazy and worse.

According to the Yale Centre For Dyslexia and Creativity “dyslexia is defined as an unexpected difficulty in learning to read. Dyslexia takes away an individual’s ability to read quickly and automatically, and to retrieve spoken words easily, but it does not dampen their creativity and ingenuity.” The neurologically based condition makes it difficult to read, write and spell.

Dyslexia Canada’s stats state the number of people who have one form of dyslexia through a wide spectrum of challenges is 15 to 20 percent of the population. There are no local Moose Jaw stats.

“It is more typically characterized as difficulty to decode or sound out letters or blend them and break words into syllables,” she said.

Downey said her youngest son was diagnosed when he was in Grade One through special tests.

“You have to have an ed psych done. So an educational psychologist goes through a battery of tests and then they do the diagnosis,” she said adding “it affects you for life but there are ways of teaching that can minimize the impacts.”

Being diagnosed is essential, Downey said.

“If somebody isn’t diagnosed and they don’t receive the right types of interventions then they often go through life thinking it is themselves they label themselves as stupid. They are more likely to have increased rates of suicide, mental illness, incarceration, they have less ability to participate in the job market so there is a wide variety of impacts,” she said.

For some children dyslexia leaves them frustrated and acting out as they cannot comprehend what they are being asked to read and learn.

“If you can imagine a child not being able to read what is put in front of them if they don’t understand what is being requested of them in that moment often they are acting out because they can’t do it and they are frustrated.”

Being a person with dyslexia does not indicate whether or not the individual is intelligent or not.

“Often you have people with very high intelligence who are dyslexic,” Downey said.

To help raise awareness the month of October has been declared Dyslexia Awareness Month. The City of Moose Jaw is helping out by illuminating City Hall’s clock red. Awareness that is geared to encourage understanding as well as helping families looking for answers.

The clock will be red to symbolize what many people have gone through in school when their assignments and tests were covered in red ink marking all of their mistakes. This the name “Mark It Red” campaign was created to mark the awareness campaign.

“Obviously we are trying to increase awareness. Hopefully with that increased awareness there is greater understanding in the community that these children or these people are very intelligent people that just haven’t be able to learn to read. And we are also hopeful to promote structured literacy which is based on the science of reading and using that approach is very effective for children,” she said.

“Maybe this might tweak with a parent and (they may say) maybe this is what is going on with my child and maybe I need to reach out and they know where to go and get services,” she said adding Dyslexia Canada is also fundraising in October. Donations to the organization go towards such things as helping families (peer to peer connections). Donations can be made through the Dyslexia Canada website.

Downey said her family’s story shows there is hope despite the challenges they face in Moose Jaw where only recently major events have occurred to help people with dyslexia.

“For example my son could not read a single word, not a word at the end of Grade One. And that is despite us working with him pretty significantly. But now at the end of Grade Four last year after we were able to get the right supports in place for him he was reading at grade level,” Downey said.

For her son Downey said the COVID - 19 pandemic was a major blessing in disguise.

“Previous to COVID the only time we could get the right types of interventions was during the summer. So we would often spend four, five or six weeks of the summer trying to get that intervention going for him. Staying in Calgary and going to Calgary trying to get this intervention. But with COVID a lot of that went on-line and so we were able to find a tutor in another province that could work with him and then from there one of his teacher at the school saw what was being done and she went and got training and she was able to work with him as well.”

“He had a phenomenal year last year and he really had significant growth,” Downey said.

Despite the difficulties she said there has been major changes in the community with the Moose Jaw Public Library now offering books geared towards children with dyslexia as well as the arrival of the Learning Disabilities Association of Saskatchewan (LDAS) with a Moose Jaw. Click the link for their Facebook page.

“They (LDAS) are using structured literacy in town and so if someone has a dyslexic child or they believe their child is dyslexic they can go to both get diagnosed as well as to get tutoring…now we are going there once a week to get some intervention. Other families can set it up but it significantly more affordable then some of the other interventions we were doing previously,” she said.

Despite the LDAS and other tutors being available the help is often provided based upon who can afford it and there was a barrier for those of lower economic means to receive the help they need.

“That really does create some problems in that it really is the families that have the means to go and invest this money into their kids to be able to get these interventions and the intensity that these children need…there has been budget demands on the school systems and so it is difficult for them (schools) to give the services they need for all of these kids.”

Downey declined to get into a political debate on the issue as Dyslexia Canada is working in a collaborative role to make things better and not wanting to get into finger pointing and assigning fault.

The Moose Jaw Public Library has been very responsive and has recently brought in new children’s books to assist children to read and comprehend better.

“They have gone and purchased some decodable books…decodable books are controlled text. So they really control the words that are in them so people who are just starting out on how to read as well as for dyslexics (people with dyslexia),” Downey said.

The rise of celebrities who have been affected by dyslexia who are speaking out about the challenges they have faced has served not only to inspire others with dyslexia to see their potential but the celebrity power has helped people understand what dyslexia is all about, she said.

Awareness of dyslexia and the impact it has on people’s lives has in the last decade with the likes of Dale MacKay who went from a high school drop out to a top chef in Canada, former NHLer Brent Sopel who started a foundation and actor Henry Winkler who is better known as “The Fonz” on Happy Days who has revealed his struggles as a person with dyslexia and how he succeeded as an actor, entertainment producer and a children’s author.

For more information or to reach out for assistance for your child or grandchildren check out Dyslexia Canada’s website.