UC Question: how you have worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced (Dyslexia)

WITH DYSLEXIA AT SCHOOLS

The greatest educational barrier that I have faced and am still faced with is dyslexia. I was tested for dyslexia while I was in elementary school in an effort to find out why I wasn't able to keep up with the rest of my class. With this information my family and I were faced with the decision to either hold me back a grade or not. Knowing that I was struggling to keep up, I decided to move along with the rest of my class on the condition that I would have to do extra work outside of school. While I received help from teachers, tutors and my family the person who has helped me the most in achieving my academic success is my grandmother.

My grandmother is a retired elementary school teacher who has worked in an English as a Second Language school, and with countless of children with different disabilities. Because of this she knew exactly what it would take for me to get to where I am today. She would spend hours with me after school and during summers to make sure that I was getting more instruction in reading, writing, and spelling. In addition to the regular homework that I had for class we would do various activities to work on my reading and spelling such as phonics that correlates sounds with groups of letters.

In elementary school I started off not enjoying reading or writing, but with the help of those around me, and especially my grandmother, I was able to learn how to read, write, and spell and catch up with the rest of my class by the time I went to middle school. In my last year of high school I was able to take advanced world literature and composition, and at Saddleback College I have taken honors principles of composition. In all, growing up and living with dyslexia is hard but I have never let it set me back in life or deter me from my academic goals.

Amanda, I learned more about how your grandmother helped you overcome you Dyslexia as opposed to learning how you accomplished things that helped you to overcome your dyslexia during the early stages. It is important that you highlight how you took the lessons from your grandmother and used it to overcome the reading disability as opposed to what she did to help you get over it.

The essay prompt asks you how you overcame the obstacle, not how other people knew how to help you get over it. The target of this discussion is to show a sense of resilience that college students needs. Remember that you are going to be entering into a world that is cut-throat, competitive, and fast paced. Your illness could hold you back in most of your classes so you need to prove that you will be capable of removing dyslexia as an obstacle to your college career.

Try to better define how you got over dyslexia. That sort of therapy did you have to undergo? When did you start to get over it? How do you continue to find obstacles based on your dyslexia? Does this hinder you or do you already know how to get around your reading limitations? How do you do that? Those are additional information that can help you better illustrate the learning obstacle you have and how you keep managing to skirt the problem.