Episode 105: Through the Eyes of Dyslexia: A Mother-Son Story

In this deeply personal episode of Literacy Talks, host Donell Pons sits down with her son Bridger for a heartfelt conversation about growing up—and parenting—through the lens of dyslexia. From early signs and school struggles to moments of breakthrough and discovery, their dialogue offers a rare, honest look at how learning differences affect families, relationships, and self-perception.

Bridger shares what it was like to navigate a world that didn’t seem built for how his brain works, how storytelling became both a refuge and a strength, and why the right kind of support can make all the difference. Together, they explore the emotional complexity of being misunderstood, the power of resilience, and what it truly means to be seen.

This episode invites listeners to look beyond labels—and to listen more closely to stories that often go unheard.

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Transcript

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Narrator: 0:03

Welcome to Literacy Talks, the podcast for literacy leaders and champions everywhere, brought to you by Reading Horizons. Literacy Talks is the place to discover new ideas, trends, insights and practical strategies for helping all learners reach reading proficiency. Our hosts are Stacy Hurst, a professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor for Reading Horizons. Donell Pons, a recognized expert and advocate in literacy, dyslexia and special education, and Lindsay Kemeny, an elementary classroom teacher, author and speaker. Now let's talk literacy.

Donell Pons: 0:46

You're listening to literacy talks, and today is an episode that's going to be a little different. It's personal, it's important, and it's a story that's been a long time in the making. The heart of another is a dark forest always, no matter how close it has been to one's own. Willa Cather, it's an author that I really love. I've always loved that quote. It reminds me that understanding another person, even your own child, is never simple. And today's episode is deeply personal. It's about my youngest son, Bridger, and you've probably heard me talk about him before on the podcast, and I never thought I'd get to talk to I'm just going to say that again, he's 23 now. He's a writer, a storyteller, and one of the most creative, thoughtful people I know. But his path hasn't been easy from a very young age. Bridger struggled to read and write, eventually diagnosed with dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia. School was often a painful mismatch for how his brain worked, and yet, from the moment he could speak, he was telling stories. And in fact, when Bridger was two, he would begin almost every conversation with this race. I'm going to tell you something that you don't know that is mostly true. I kid you not. That was the phrase. And no matter what followed, people listened. He had that kind of presence, big brown eyes, a contagious smile and an ability to spin a story so detailed and alive it could go on for an hour. I guess I'm hoping for the same kind of magic here today, even though I'm not too and I don't have the eyes or the charm, but I do have something to say, and more importantly, today, you'll hear him say it. This episode is a conversation. It's a mother and a son talking about what it was like to grow up in a system that didn't always understand how he learned and how he learned to understand himself anyway along the way, we'll talk about the teachers he missed it, the stories that saved him, and an author who becomes a mentor through The pages, Brian MacDonald, who helped him see his difference as a gift, not a flaw. Before we begin, I want to read a short passage from something I wrote years ago in the preface to a book I never quite finished. So that might be a topic of conversation for Bridger myself today, is why I didn't finish that, a book that started as a way to make sense of this really challenging journey. Here goes first. Why? Actually, I think being the mother of a child with dyslexia makes you think about a lot of things like why learning to read is so critical to academic success, and why not learning to read is so prevalent, yet still shrouded in secrecy and a certain sense of personal failure, and still, after all these years of talking, reading, studying and learning about dyslexia, I'm not convinced I'm any closer to truly understanding the beautiful complexity of how my son learns, or the many ways in which his difference can enrich my life and the lives of those around him. So today, I hope you'll listen not just with your ears, but with your heart, because Bridgers story isn't just his, it belongs to every child who thinks in ways who don't yet know, or we don't yet know how to teach, and to every parent or teacher trying to walk through that dark forest together. This is something you don't know that is mostly true. So let's begin with that introduction. Bridger, my special guest, right? So Bridger, do you remember the kinds of stories you used to tell when you were little, before you could write them down, before reading was even on your radar. You had this ability to hold a room with your imagination. Where did that come from? And do you remember it? What do you remember that? Um.

Unknown: 5:00

My memory of my earlier years are a bit spotty, but I remember being read to a lot, and the feeling, the feelings that I would have as when I was being read to, were very potent. It almost felt compelled to chase those same feelings outside of a book. And because reading was a fairly, you know, inaccessible thing for me, telling those stories was a way to get it to achieve that same feeling

Donell Pons: 5:34

that's so interesting you talking about, because you really lived it, right? You lived those stories. You were there, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Bridger, for me, sometimes I wondered if the fact that you weren't, you weren't you didn't have the page. You weren't reading the words on the page, but you were listening and hearing it, almost removed a barrier in a way, to where you were. You could access a story in a way that somebody else who's maybe looking at the page and going over the words, there's a distance between them and the story. What do you think?

Unknown: 6:04

Yeah, it for sure. You know, telling a story is a lot different than hearing it, the experience of it. And so, you know, putting myself in that seat of now telling the story, having listened to a ton of them before it was it was very different, and it came with a different kind of reward. You know, it's rewarding to hear a story. It's rewarding in a completely different way to have an audience respond to what you're telling them, and that, in a lot of ways, is more rewarding, at least at a very young age. I found that far more interesting. I still enjoyed listening to stories, but, you know, telling them was was more enriching in a lot of other ways.

Donell Pons: 6:45

That's so interesting, because you would take people on a journey. Was that the rewarding part because you really did it was

Unknown: 6:51

in the reaction. It was the shock and awe, you know. And I think you you saw that in, you know, other aspects of my behavior, where I would say things just to get a rise out of people. And you know, that would weave into the story as well. You know, what is the most shocking, unbelievable, mostly true thing I could tell you without losing you along the way, but also shock you and surprise you. And again, as I said, listening to those stories, you know that gives you. It gave me a lot. It was, it was an incredible experience, and I wanted to give that to others as well. And so it was like a give and take. I felt like it was going both ways. When I tried to tell a story that audience was always a super important piece, so

Donell Pons: 7:37

interesting, because now when I think back on it, that is so true, how engaging the whole thing was, and so young, at a very young age, to be able to do that. What were your favorite kinds of stories to tell? Did you have a favorite kind of story, or did your mind just go wherever

Unknown: 7:54

it went? I told a wide variety of stories, but what I was always drawn to was and I was never very good at telling them, but stories about the supernatural, I really, really like, I really loved, but I just couldn't find a way to tell them very well. So instead of having some supernatural element, it would be real life things that were pushed to an extreme that you almost couldn't believe them without tipping fully into the supernatural. Yeah, that was just kind of my way of trying to tell those stories, but just simply not knowing how to pull them. Was

Donell Pons: 8:31

it vocabulary that you lacked at the time? Or

Unknown: 8:35

I feel like it was for lack of a term for lack of a better term respect, because no one's going to respect this story, you know, a two year old telling you a story like, how many people are going to look at that and say, Oh, this is a folklore. You know, this is not supposed to be taken literally. People are just going to say it's a two year old and he's lying, you know. So it would have to be rooted in reality for people to take me seriously. Because when you take a story seriously, that's when those emotions happen. That's when you're the most invested. You know, regardless if it is fantasy or, you know, it has supernatural elements, you have to take it seriously. But coming from a two year old, people don't take it seriously. So it had to be rooted in reality. It had to be just believable enough.

Donell Pons: 9:25

That's so interesting, because I was going to ask you if it felt like play or something more serious, but there was a lot of thought here.

Unknown: 9:32

Yeah, it wasn't necessarily those words didn't form in my head. You know, these whole conversations about really, what was I doing? Really, what was I trying to say? This was all passively understood that I'm not going to be taken seriously. So I have to, you know, there's a rules that I have to play by because of, you know, who I am and how people will perceive me.

Donell Pons: 9:54

Okay, that's so interesting to me. So let's move into the school years, because this was all preschool and so. Course, I'm thinking, this little guy love story tells a great story. You know, maybe we've dodged the dyslexia bullet because we knew it was within the family history. Your dad had it, right? So we're thinking, Oh, geez. Well, maybe we got lucky and then we hit the school. And so let's talk about that. When did you first notice that learning, especially reading and writing, felt harder than it did for other kids? When did you realize that

Unknown: 10:24

the alphabet, I think, was the first when we started learning the alphabet, and I realized that other kids could listen, they could hear the words A, B, C, and then they'd be able to say the words A, B, C, and for some reason, I'd get stuck on B, or I get stuck on C, and it took, I mean, in talking to, you know, Dad just and what it was like doing the alphabet, you know, he told me. He said it took about like six months for me to learn. It like six months to learn A to Z, to be able to do that on my own, and that wasn't normal. I saw those students in class. I saw what they could do, and I couldn't do that. So it became very, very clear very, very early on that I wasn't there was something wrong. I'm not like the other students.

Donell Pons: 11:21

Yeah, we're talking really young. We're talking so that's Kinder first Yeah, yeah, kinder first grade. Were there moments that really stuck with you, times that stood out, where you felt really misunderstood, labeled, even

Unknown: 11:40

I remember you one time. This would have been about fourth grade, and I said, I had dyslexia, you know, that's when we knew what it was, and I had received remediation for it. And one of the other students said, Oh, really read this passage. And she pointed to, you know, the sheet in front of us, whatever we were working on at the time, and I was able to read through it, and other kids were like, you don't have dyslexia. No, you wouldn't be able to read it. And I felt like they just didn't get it. And dyslexia was always clear to me. That was never something I brought up with other people, but when I heard that, I was like, people really don't know what it is. People have no idea what I've gone through. And to even to try and explain that that to them, when they just saw me read a passage completely undoes anything I could do, anything I could say to them to give them an accurate picture of what dyslexia is. That was a very early experience, very eye opening to how people really view it, and how little they understand about dyslexia, just the average person. That was one. And there are, you know, more than a handful of experiences in a classroom where I was asked to read something by the teacher, and I frankly, couldn't, and sorry, this might continue on longer than I planned, but there was a program we had in elementary school where we would read to the younger grades. And so I remember going into the classroom like this would have been about third grade and reading to the real young students. And, you know, we'd all get into a room, and we'd all, you know, pick up a book, Find a buddy, and read to them, and I would mumble through the noise of this room. We were all reading in the same room, and it was just a, you know, a droning hum of other kids reading. And I would just mumble along and get lost in it. And eventually my partner would stop paying attention because I couldn't read to them. That feels really terrible when you're expected to do something for someone else, you're expected to help, you're expected to teach, and I can't do that. I can't offer what I'm supposed to do, and that's really defeating. That one stuck with me for a long time. Yeah.

Donell Pons: 14:01

So at this point, your teachers know you have dyslexia. At this point, you've got an IEP, it stated, but clearly they didn't know. Was there ever a teacher that knew? What was that like with teachers? What was that experience like? Did a lot of them not know?

Unknown: 14:18

A lot of them didn't, yeah, unless I said dyslexia, they wouldn't, you know, they'd never say it. And even after I would say dyslexia, or dyslexia was brought up, or they looked at my 504 later on, it was always a battle to get accommodations. That was never, I think maybe one time, one time, and all throughout high school or middle school and elementary school one time, and all that span, did one teacher actually take me aside for accommodations on a test for extra time, only one time where they took the enact the initiative to actually do it? Do. Yeah. So no, teachers did not know or care or knew what they were looking at. Yeah.

Donell Pons: 15:07

Did you have one, even one, just the one that took you aside for the accommodations? Did you have anyone that really understood or made it plain that they understood?

Unknown: 15:18

I don't remember what it was like in second grade, but I hear you. I heard you talk about my second grade teacher as someone who the one who caught it, but I don't remember what it was like with her. You know, that's a little bit too far back. But beyond that, I really can't tell you, it's really felt like no one really understood past that point.

Donell Pons: 15:40

That's so interesting when we think about the school experience with dyslexia. So something I wrote years ago Bridger, was about, as your mom, how I felt misunderstood. So I'm going to read that little bit here, and then I won't read anymore, I promise, but it's just this little section. I'm tired of being misunderstood as the mother of a child with dyslexia or a learning disability or slow processing, because apparently, it's all the same thing, and it's used simultaneously to explain why my boy struggles to read. Do you think parents and kids both feel that sense of being misread? I think we both do. We're listening to you talk. What do you think

Unknown: 16:18

it's hard to approach it, because, again, I'm not, you know, a parent, and I don't have a child with dyslexia, but you know, if your child's getting this misunderstood when they're the one who has it, you can't imagine what that's like from a parent's perspective, and how that relationship must be like, you know, because it's shared, that misunderstanding is shared. You know, when your child suffers, you suffer, right? And if that suffering is being misunderstood, you as a parent are being misunderstood. It goes both ways.

Donell Pons: 16:52

That's so interesting. It's got me thinking about our experiences and how we kind of both were having as a parent, I, on my end am trying to work with an educator that doesn't understand, and you, on your end are the student in the classroom where the educator doesn't understand, and in different ways, we're both engaging with a system that doesn't get how to work with us. Right on your end and on my end, that's so interesting to think about, and how much of that impacts and stays with people in families, right? That might have more than one child with dyslexia. Your Dad's experience with school certainly impacted the way he felt about coming to your school, didn't it? Yeah, how comfortable, uncomfortable he was to be in the school that's really interesting. Okay, I'm going to jump into something that, for me, is a really positive subject, and it's a fun one for me, it's how you so we talked about the fact that when you were young story, you were very into story, and it was oral storytelling. And then as you got older, it was interesting, because you found ways to engage with story. You would put together these books that I don't know if you remember this bridge, you're pretty young, but you would staple together large reams of paper, like stacks. That's all you wanted. Was a big old stack of paper for a printer. And then you would mess around with paper and make these books of your own. And you would write story, but you would be writing phonetically. Obviously best to your account to write so that I would then have to try to read it back to you. Do you remember any of those?

Unknown: 18:26

Yeah, I remember a few times. Yeah. Okay. What

Donell Pons: 18:29

was my favorite? Was that what I was reading it, because the obviously, some of it was phonetic spelling, so I was trying to guess at the read. And you would go, nope, that's not it, because I would read it incorrectly. I was the best. So you engage with story all through the way. And then thankfully, we didn't kill story in you, because I worried about that bridge with all those experiences in school that would kill the story right out of you, right your desire to even tell or be around a story. And thankfully, you held on to that, which I am so grateful for. And a few years ago, you found a mentor in the work of someone named Brian McDonald. He's a screenwriter and a story expert, really, who's also dyslexic, and I don't know that you told me that when you first started reading him, and then maybe you told me later, but tell us how you discovered his work.

Unknown: 19:17

I wanted to improve in writing, and I started a little writing club with being a buddy. And this is in high school, so a few years ago, and he had mentioned on the offhand this podcast that you are a storyteller podcast, I thought, you know Cheryl, I'll check it out. And you know, he was singing high praises for it. So it was like, okay, sure, I'll check it out. And, you know, the first episode I clicked on, I was like, this, he's making a lot of sense. You know, it was Brian talking to his co host, and I'm like, everything he's saying is making a lot of sense, and it's speaking to. Ideas that I already felt were true. I just couldn't give voice to them. I didn't know what it was called. And then suddenly this person shows up and is is saying exactly what I've been feeling this entire time with the things that I've already felt about story, and he's able to say it way better than I could ever in a clarity that I could never and Yeah. From then it was just Yeah. Everything just kind of clicked. After that. For story, a lot fell into place. I was really thankful to have it. And so for that podcast, you know, they've had tons of episodes, and I've, I've gone through, you know, each of those episodes. I watched, you know, them at least five times each. So I love it. I go back to it. I reference it all the time. So it was a really great resource.

Donell Pons: 20:47

Okay, so tell me this, because you are right. It really spoke to you. What was it about the way he described story that resonated, that made sense,

Unknown: 20:57

that it wasn't random. You know, it's not just about making people feel something. It's about why you're making someone feel something. That's what story is for, and story as a teaching tool. We're not just making people feel things for entertainment. People find a lot of things entertaining. I wish that was one of the things I learned earlier on. You mentioned at the beginning of this show that I would tell stories, and it was about the shock and awe, and it was about entertaining, and it was about making people feel something. But it wasn't just for entertainment. I was making people feel something because I wanted to feel something as well. I was trying to share something that I felt was super important, the things that I felt when listening to story that was really important to me, because I didn't get that anywhere else, and so to give that to someone else was It was super important. It was super powerful. And so I was doing something important, and I knew story was important. And when I heard Brian talk about stories and that it's not just for entertainment, it serves a greater purpose. It helps people solve problems in their life. It's about survival. And overall survival is about life and death. You know, there's emotions that have to be played, that have to be factored in. So when Brian's talking about that, when I first heard him, you know, the understanding the importance of story and what it's truly for that resonated with me, you know, tenfold so

Donell Pons: 22:25

beyond him being able to explain things in a way that really made sense, maybe for the first time, just the way that he approached talking about story. What did it mean for you to find out he had dyslexia? That he was dyslexic.

Unknown: 22:40

When I first heard it, I was a little surprised. And then looking back on it, was like, Well, of course, the approach that, you know, it can't all just be random. There's a lot of like, discrete facts that you I usually try and avoid. This approach of memorizing a bunch of discrete facts. Story is this? Story is that, and these things don't tend to comport with each other. That really doesn't make sense, and this may just be a dyslexic way of thinking, but everything kind of has to have a reason, and everything has to branch off of that reason, like for learning grammar rules. If I can't, if I don't really know why a grammar rule is in a specific way, I'm going to have a really hard time understanding that rule if I don't, if there's not something to compare it to, if it doesn't follow some kind of rule set that makes sense to me. So having story follow a very specific rule set, there are three acts, and each of these acts do does a very specific thing for a very specific purpose, and that there's an underlying structure that permeates all effective story. You know, having that this thing that answers all of your questions made a lot of sense to me. Instead of just disjointed parts, one connects here and there and yeah, I was never going to hold on to that. Yeah, that's just the way I think. And I think that's a fairly common approach with dyslexia, having this, you know, ultimate rule that everything branches off from

Donell Pons: 24:10

that's interesting. Okay, so you've got me thinking about a couple of things here that I kind of want to explore a little bit. That person who said to you when you were able to read the passage, and they said, Oh, you don't have dyslexia. Does your mind ever go to boy? If they could see me now, they never would believe I have dyslexia. Does that ever do you?

Unknown: 24:29

Yeah, it's a blessing to have remediation, but it to be, you know, as well off as I am now, and that's a great thing. I'd never trade it for anything. You know, it's great my abilities now, but they come with a cost, and that cost is you lose, you lose part of being that community now, because when I'm talking with my friends and they have dyslexia, it's like, Well, geez, I'm relying on, you know, 10. Year old memories in order to try and relate to you about this thing that I experienced, you know, back in elementary school. That's really hard. I don't have a lot of current, present experiences that I can help resonate you with. So I'm having to rely on, you know, memories in order to, you know, share some common understanding with people with other Dyslexics, and so a lot of times it feels like stolen dollar. You know, when people say, Oh, but you're dyslexic, oh yeah. And it's like, well, yeah, but not really, yeah. It's hard, you know, you you get to be your own person, but you don't really fit in both worlds. You don't fit in the Dyslexic world and you don't really belong in the non dyslexic world. You don't really have a place. I guess I don't get me wrong. It's great being able to read as well as I do. It's a wonderful thing. And again, I wouldn't trade it for anything, but it's not all sunshine and roses. You know, you don't get to feel part of something anymore, even if that thing that you were a part of was a struggle. That's something,

Donell Pons: 26:08

yeah, that's so interesting, because I hadn't really thought about that, because your your dad, is so proud, obviously, of all that you've been able to achieve. And, you know, he has said many times, I never thought that I would have a son with dyslexia who reads like this, who writes like this, who wants to write, he finds it incredible, but he also doesn't understand it. And there's a distance between the two of you, isn't there? It's almost like two different dyslexias,

Unknown: 26:32

isn't it? Yeah, it doesn't feel like we're having the same experience, and we're not. So it's very hard to have that. Again, common understanding, the shared empathy for each other, because he can't empathize what it's like to read at my level, and it's very hard for me to rely on such old memories to empathize with his experience.

Donell Pons: 26:52

Yeah, that's so interesting. I hadn't heard you articulate it quite like that before, huh? That's it. You're straddling two worlds, aren't you, in many ways. So obviously, your relationship with writing is unique. You love a story. You actually live in story. But the act of writing itself hasn't always been easy, and I'm not even implying that it's easy today.

Unknown: 27:19

Yeah, when has it been easy, right?

Donell Pons: 27:23

And as any writer knows, it's never easy, Yeah, but how do you write now? What's your process like, and is it evolving?

Unknown: 27:33

It is evolving, yeah, earlier, like in my early years, it would be writing down everything phonetically, you know, and kind of brute forcing it really. And so I had to take a lot of there were a lot of creative liberties that I otherwise would have taken at a young age that I didn't because I didn't know how to spell that word, I didn't know how to begin to spell that word, or to formulate that on a page. So I would just reject it, you know, choose something else that I could find, that I could kind of maybe spell, that someone could maybe guess at. But now I don't have those same restrictions, and, well, it opened up a lot of opportunities for me. I still find myself trying to perfect it. So I feel like the writing phase for me, most of the writing I do is just notes and refining those notes. It's usually just asking questions. I'll just write down a conversation that I'm having with myself. It's like, Why does he do this? Well, because of this, why does he do that? Because and it'll just eventually lead down a chain. And, you know, 100,000 words later, I've got something that maybe kind of looks like something, but it's a lot of writing and perfecting those conversations that was always part of my writing process. I just couldn't write them down. I was always having those conversations in my head, but now I had the liberty of going back through those conversations, it's like, well, why? Why did I choose that? And I can just go back and find it exactly in my notes. Oh, it's right here, because I answered the question like this. That's was a Liberty I didn't have before. So, you know, learning how to read and write gave me a lot of opportunity, and it also gave me the opportunity the luxury of wasting a lot of time with notes, when I would otherwise just refine this whole entire process in my head, and I wouldn't have to go back and, you know, look at the notes or buy it a certain thing when, when you don't have the option of writing, it frees you up for a lot of stuff. There's definitely a lot of benefit that comes with that you don't get paralyzed by your notes as often you get paralyzed in a different sense, like you have this one reoccurring question that gets kicked around in your head, and you don't save all the drafts from it. And so when it gets to the page, people are like, wow, you. You, you know, this was the this is your second draft. This is your first draft, really. This looks like a finished product, but all of this just happens in the open now. And I think the drawback of that is I get more paralyzed because it feels more finished on a page. You know, my notes have to be perfect now, because I'm writing it down, it has to be finished, right? If I'm, that was always a thing that was ingrained in me from a very young age. If you're, if you're at the point where you're writing, it has to be finished. And so I take something that's obviously not finished and I put it on a page, and it's like, well, it has to be done now. So I look at my notes as if they have to be the finished thing. And that's probably the most paralyzing thing about writing all of this down. I should probably cut that out of my workflow, at least some of that, because it's not doing me any favors. But that's the point about it now.

Donell Pons: 30:49

And we talked about how it's been an evolution, I think you've hit on something really important, though, and that is when, typically, when we're teaching writing, and all through the years we've discussed writing in one way or another, because it's a part of my life. It was part of a career that I had prior. So writing has been something we've talked about a lot as a family, I think, more so than maybe other families, and maybe less than other families, who maybe have many people that are writers in the household. At any rate, we're somewhere in there. And so you've had more discussion about writing, I think, than than a lot of people, but it's interesting that when we teach writing, you're absolutely right the drafting idea, even if drafting was difficult for other reasons, because of dyslexia, whatever else, the the actual formation of letters was challenging, we don't really teach that very well, do we? When we do the writing process, the drafting is part of writing.

Unknown: 31:39

Yeah, the saying that writing is rewriting. That's partially true. Again, it's the idea like writing, like typing or forming letters, is not writing. It's the idea that you're trying to achieve. That's the writing part, and that's always gets missed, mixed up all the time. People can write endlessly about absolutely nothing at all. That's not the writing process. When I talk about writing or putting words down on a page. I'm purely talking about the refinement of ideas. It's not your word count that gets you there in the end. It's how refined is your idea by the end of it, and whether that takes you know as many words as it takes you know, however long or short that may be, that's the true writing process that happens with that refinement. But it's not words.

Donell Pons: 32:23

It's interesting. Okay, do you dare share with us what are you working on right now? Creatively,

Unknown: 32:31

I'm working on a story about your dad, actually,

Donell Pons: 32:35

yeah. So this is news to me. You heard it here.

Unknown: 32:39

I don't share what I'm working on, because they know you don't. Most of them never get finished, so I'd rather not talk about it. But yeah, I'm working on a story about you're at least inspired by your dad. Okay, yeah, interesting. It's a fun one. Got supernatural elements. The thing that I always like, I think I can finally pull it off now, okay, hopefully I learned something since I was two.

Donell Pons: 33:06

You have definitely learned something. What's interesting, I want to point this out, too, is you're not afraid. This is what I really like. You're not afraid to say, Hey, I wrote a bunch of stuff. It didn't really go anywhere. But you've learned something every time you do that. And I think you're okay with that, you seem to be okay with

Unknown: 33:23

that. Yeah, it took a long time, but the growth aspect of writing, I now value more than the finished product itself, which is back a little backwards, because the finished product, it does have great value, but if you only approach it from I'm only getting something from the finished product, then you're never going to start because you'll inevitably fail a lot more times than you'll succeed. And when those are your odds, the act of getting a finished product and only gaining something from the finished product doesn't make any sense. That's a risk you'd never take. So in order to be okay with those risks, to get back on the horse, every time you fail, every time an idea falls through or it doesn't happen, you have to feel like you're getting something out of it. And so that process is always more important, and that's why I don't often share what I'm working on is because, more oftentimes than not, that product always, you know, it follows through, and I don't have something finished to show for it, but I always feel like I'm, I have to be getting something out of it. Otherwise, what's the point? Yeah, but that it took a long time to find that, to actually truly believe that was always something I heard and I knew, and it made sense, and I'd say it, but I didn't truly believe it until, you know, five years ago ish, when I was like, I was ready to give up writing completely, and just Yeah, it's not for me. It's not going to happen. Yeah, but like, I had to, I felt almost compelled to keep writing you say, like you brought up earlier. I'm glad story wasn't beaten out of you. I don't think story can be beaten out of me. I don't think any amount of abuse could happen, because that's my default mode. That's the thing I'll always return to. That's not something I'm trying to fight against, to push for, to strive for. It's just there. I don't think you can kill it. Yeah, so, you know, a lot of what my ideas about writing had to come from. It kind of make my peace with all the process I didn't, all the processes, all the things that I didn't like about it. And you know, one of those truths that I had to make peace with is that you gain experience every single time, because otherwise it's it's just going to drive you crazy. You're going to keep doing it, and it's going to keep driving you crazy. So you better make peace with it. And I made peace through understanding that I was always gaining experience regardless of a finished product

Donell Pons: 36:04

or not. Gosh, okay, that's very insightful and very meta. So that moves me into my next thought. Let's imagine a teacher's listening to this right now, a teacher with a student a lot like you. What do you want them to understand? I Hmm,

Unknown: 36:23

that they're worth it. They're worth the time and effort it takes. Because, from a teacher's perspective, it does take a lot of time, and it does take a lot of effort, and it's not so it's not your first choice to teach a student with disabilities. It is hard, and I recognize that it's a very difficult thing, but I want you to understand that it's worth it, that child will surprise you and will offer more to those around them, to society as a whole, if you put in that effort, if they really have that drive, you know, they can go on and do amazing things. I'm not saying that I am going to be that guy to go on and do amazing things. I'm not there. But, you know, there's a lot of people with dyslexia, and are you really going to tell me that none of them will go on to do incredible things, and they don't have to go out and invent the latest and greatest whatever, and change somebody's life, but to the people around them, they matter. They're worth it. To those around them, if you just take a moment to understand, you know these they matter in their community, to those that love them, and it's not your first choice to take time, to take that extra time and extra resources that they need. It is hard, it is difficult,

Donell Pons: 37:45

but they matter. They make a difference. What would you tell your 10 year old self? I

Unknown: 37:50

don't think I could have told them anything that would have changed it, because, you know, the person I am today was the effect of everyone else around me who was there every single day. That's what really changed me. It was you. And it was taking me down to the U of U Reading Clinic. It was giving me the intervention, the help that I needed. I don't think any one moment, I don't think a single moment of me going back and saying something and giving it a piece of advice would have changed that, because I would have to be there. It would have had to be from someone that was there every single day, in their corner every single day. That's what changes them. It's not just this one off moment. You have to be there again and again and again and again. So I don't think I could say anything, and I don't think it would have changed the outcome. It has to be continued.

Donell Pons: 38:40

Yeah. See, look at you. What do you wish people understood about dyslexia or about being a creative person in a system that doesn't always make room for difference? What do you wish more people understood about that?

Unknown: 38:57

I feel like a lot of that just comes from the A it feels a little bit like a lack of empath. Well, it is a lack of empathy, but it's not, I don't mean that to sound like mean, these people don't have the experience of what it's like to have dyslexia. That's totally okay. That's, you know, that's a perfectly reasonable thing not to have an experience for if you're non dyslexic, I'm not faulting them for that. It's, it's thinking that because someone can't write, or because someone can't read, that all of the other judgments that we make around that it's like, well, they can't possibly be smart. They can't possibly, you know, do these great things. I wish we'd stop tying intelligence to just reading and writing, because that feels like the pinnacle of intelligence is what you read and it's what you write, and it's how you write and it's how you read, and just. Abilities alone, it feels like a definition issue with that. So allowing Dyslexics to exist in a space and be creative in a space where it's not really tolerated or not appreciated, I should say it comes from a definition of intelligence, and we have to decouple that from being able to read and write, because at a young age, you understood that my intelligence was not in how many words I read or what I was reading or what I was writing, but it was the stories I was able to tell in the medium that I was able to work in that was available to me. It's the medium. Doesn't necessarily make the artist. It's that art in whatever medium they choose, like you can have greatness there again. I don't want to pat my own back, but what I was saying wasn't great, or the stories I was telling was not greatness. But there was something there. There was a spark there. It was something and you were able to recognize that. So in whatever medium that someone works in, recognize the talent, recognize the spark, whatever that is. I think that's a really important thing to walk away from. Don't write it off because of the medium. It's the thing that they're trying to do in the medium that should be analyzed through that lens.

Donell Pons: 41:13

So interesting because that's pretty deep. Actually, what you're saying is pretty deep, but you can take it on the surface of what you're saying, totally understood. But what you're really asking us to do, what you're what you're saying and pleading with, is saying, hey, look, view individuals, view people as more than just the situation that they're in. In essence, really, who are they at the heart? What is it they're offering?

Unknown: 41:42

Yeah, and if that's what, if they're offering is oral storytelling, then take it at the take it in context. It's for the context of oral storytelling. What is it doing? Right? And then we can start to analyze, you know, someone's intelligence from that, not that you should, but that there's more than just the medium. The medium itself doesn't make the greatness. The greatness comes from more than that. And again, to add on to that, just a little bit, if someone can't do something, and if it's really hard not to do that thing, like it's it's really hard to get through school and to never write, you have to write at some point. So if someone doesn't have the ability to write, they probably have a good reason to do that. Right? If I go through school and someone can't speak, they probably have a good reason. My gut instinct isn't, oh, they just don't like speaking, it's they probably have a really good reason for not doing that when it's not easy to get through class and to never write something, it's not easy to get through school and to have never read something, those are not easy things to do. Those are really, really, really hard things to do. Like to get through that as a really rough experience. So if someone has those deficits, just assume, on face value, that they have a really, really good reason for those deficits, because it's not at all easy, right? Lazy is being able to write but turning in a half baked assignment every single and it's just kind of whatever, and I not doing it at all. That is. It's insane. Yeah, they have to have it. Yeah, they have to have a really good reason for that. So don't immediately assume because someone can't read or can't write, that it comes from that laziness. It's not easy to not read, to not write, it's not easy to be illiterate. In a modern society. Is not an all easy thing. It's not easy emotionally at all. So just if there was anything that I want the audience to take away from that, specifically the non dyslexic audience, is that it's not easy when someone has such a great deficit like that, it isn't it is not an easy thing, and they have a good reason for it.

Donell Pons: 43:59

Kate, you just that, just that alone approaching so it shifts your thinking around, instead of looking at a situation like that and saying, oh, imagine this kid's making it hard for me yet again, or they're making it difficult. Instead shift it to say how difficult it must be to be in that person's shoes, being the one who's unable to give you that written whatever to read, that whatever you've just asked them to read. It's not easy to be that person doing that right now. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, because it

Unknown: 44:31

looks like it doesn't require much. Like, Oh, you don't have to write the assignment. You're not gonna Oh, that must be so easy for you, because it's difficult for me to write. It's like, no, it's even harder not to write. It's even harder to go through every single parent teacher conference meeting and have them talk about you like that. It's not at all easy. It's it's difficult in different ways, and it's in a lot of ways, much, much harder than just, you know, being able to write but not. Liking it, yeah, but just that simple test, you know, if I was this student and if I wasn't doing this, how hard would that be on me? How difficult, and more oftentimes than not, the answer is really, really difficult. It would be very, very hard on you as a student

Donell Pons: 45:17

that's super insightful, just that right there, and not just about reading and writing. You've got me thinking about a lot of things where we make assumptions about people who don't seem to be doing the thing, and our immediate thought is, oh, they're just being difficult or whatever. But boy, that's a real that's a real shift in thought process, isn't it for us? Yeah, to think it's not easy to be that person who a isn't able to maybe physically lift that or do that thing too? Super interesting? Yeah. Okay, so you always said you're the most insightful one. What did I say? Thank you. You do try. You deliver too. That's the thing. You deliver. Every time I have Yes, I have appreciated that you granted me this time, because, you know, I've been after you for a while, and just the other day, I randomly asked, just on the off chance, and I just threw it out there. Gosh, would you be willing to have a conversation with me? It's dyslexia Awareness Month, and when you said, yes, what did I do? I jumped on it, didn't

Unknown: 46:22

I? Yeah, you jumped on it. Very excited. Again, a fire in your eye.

Donell Pons: 46:27

I've jumped right on that. Well, this has been delightful. Bridge. Is there anything else you'd like to say you didn't get to touch on anything left unsaid? You said some great things. By the way, when

Unknown: 46:38

I was a kid, I never really you guys would tell me that you know, maybe you know, one day at the end of this you'll forget what it's like to have dyslexia. You won't even know what it's like. And I never believed that until you know you live with this thing every single day, and it's a chip on your shoulder every single day, and it's a problem every single day, and it feels like when it's your every single day, it'll never leave, and that will be your life, and that's the best it's gonna ever get, and you'll be at the same level forever. And so when you guys would tell me that you know, one day you'll forget about it, one day you won't know what it's like to have dyslexia or to, you know, have it as bad as you do, it seemed like a lie, and I couldn't believe it, and you guys were right, because eventually you live with that chip on your shoulder, and then it gets a little lighter and A little lighter and a little lighter, until eventually you don't know it's even there. Till eventually your biggest problems won't be dyslexia. You'll still have problems, they just won't be dyslexia. And as far as I'm concerned, those are good problems to have, and eventually it does. Eventually, if you work hard enough at it, you'll you won't remember what it's like. That's a really hard thing to convince someone living it every single day. But it can happen. So don't just remember that it can happen. You know, eventually the biggest problem in your life won't be dyslexia, if you keep working at it.

Donell Pons: 48:28

Wow, wow. And you are a testament to early and heavy intervention, a real testament to that. So I put that plug out there too, as we're trying to push legislation to get in earlier and push harder. What a story that is. Wow. That's powerful. I've always said that being Bridgers mother has forced me to rethink everything I thought I knew about learning and about teaching, and even after all these years, I'm still learning from this boy who once said, I'm going to tell you something you don't know. That is mostly true. You're right, because what you've taught me is something most people don't know, not really. That brilliance doesn't always look like we expect it to, and that different isn't deficient, and that the kids we call struggling readers may, in fact, be telling stories we just don't know how to hear yet. So if today's episode resonated with you as a parent, an educator or someone who learns a little differently, I hope you'll share it. Start a conversation, ask a question. Tell a story, because someone out there is waiting to feel seen. Thanks for listening and thanks for talking to me.

Unknown: 49:48

Bridger, thank you. I had a great time.

Narrator: 49:54

Thanks for joining us today. Literacy talks comes to you from Reading Horizons. Where literacy momentum begins, visit reading horizons.com/literacy. Talks to access episodes and resources to support your journey in the science of reading.