Blog Stop and Review: Counting to D by Kate Scott

Today I have the talented Kate Scott here talking dyslexia, which happens to be what her debut novel, Counting to D, is about.  Ms. Scott has overcome severe dyslexia herself.  That’s the subject of our intriguing guest post, in fact: How Bad Can It Be? 

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been under the misconception that dyslexia consists of transposing letters and numbers or seeing words and symbols backward.  Not so.  Enjoy the guest post, and be sure to read my review of Counting to D before you go!

From the blurb:

The kids at Sam’s school never knew if they should make fun of her for being too smart or too dumb. That’s what it means to be dyslexic, smart, and illiterate. Sam is sick of it. So when her mom gets a job in a faraway city, Sam decides not to tell anyone about her little illiteracy problem. Without her paradox of a reputation, she falls in with a new group of highly competitive friends who call themselves the Brain Trust. When she meets Nate, her charming valedictorian lab partner, she declares her new reality perfect. But in order to keep it that way, she has to keep her learning disability a secret. The books are stacked against her and so are the lies. Sam’s got to get the grades, get the guy, and get it straight—without being able to read.

Dyslexia—How bad can it be?

By Kate Scott

After reading Counting to D, Sarah commented to me, “I wasn’t aware how serious dyslexia could be.” And Sarah, trust me, you aren’t alone. Very few people fully understand what dyslexia is, let alone how serious it can be.

In Counting to D, the main character, Sam, describes her condition like this: “Dyslexia is an inability to comprehend the symbolic representation of sound. Basically, that means my ears work fine and my eyes work fine, but there is something messed up in my brain that makes it hard for my ears and my eyes to communicate. I can see the letter c on a paper, and I can hear the sound ka, but I can’t understand that they’re the same thing.”

Some people falsely believe dyslexics see things backwards or have another visual problem. This isn’t true. Many early readers (dyslexic and non-dyslexic alike) transpose letters as a natural part of the process of learning to read. However, dyslexics stay at the early stages of letter recognition for a very long time, and this makes them more likely to transpose their letters for far longer than non-dyslexics. The problem isn’t with what they are seeing, though—the problem is with how the dyslexic brain processes what it’s seeing.

Dyslexia affects the part of the brain that decodes the symbolic representation of sound. It is actually a form of phoneme blindness, a condition that makes it virtually impossible to sound words out. In this case, “blindness” is a misnomer. As I said, dyslexia occurs in the brain, not the eyes. But even though dyslexia isn’t a visual condition, I’m going to use visual blindness as a comparison for how bad it can be.

About 75% of the adult American population wears glasses or contact lenses. Some people need glasses only for reading, others only for driving. Personally, I’m faced with a very blurry world every time I take off my glasses. At my last eye doctor’s appointment, my vision was tested at about 20/60. To be classified as blind, a person needs a vision of 20/200 or worse, but even within the legally blind population, there are variations in visual ability. Some people can see color and light, while others live in complete darkness.

Recent studies have indicated that as much as 10% of the population could have dyslexia. While 10% isn’t as high as 75%, it is still a lot. Like visual impairment, the severity of a person’s dyslexia can vary greatly. With proper support, most dyslexics are able to catch up to their peers’ reading abilities relatively quickly. To extend the visual blindness metaphor, these dyslexics aren’t “blind.” They just need some glasses.

But then, there are those like me. I have a very severe case of dyslexia. While Counting to D is fiction, Sam’s academic experiences closely mirror my own. I was born with almost complete phoneme blindness. It took me nearly 500 hours of private tutoring to learn the most basic principles of phonics. Even now, decades later, my spelling is still crap.

So how bad can dyslexia be? Bad. It can be bad. My visions is 20/60, and I can see fine with my glasses on. But when I was in junior high, I seriously considered teaching myself brail because I thought it might be easier than learning to read the traditional way. I still think I was probably right about that. However, I stuck with the squiggly lines on paper, and in the end, my hard work paid off. I can read now, and I can write. I’m even an author.

BUY THE BOOK:

AMAZON

BARNES & NOBLE

INDIEBOUND

Stalk Kate Scott:

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/katescottwrites

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/katescottwrites

Website:  http://www.katescottwrites.com

About the author:

Kate Scott lives in the suburbs outside Portland, Oregon with her husband Warren. Kate was diagnosed with dyslexia as a young child but somehow managed to fall in love with stories anyway. Counting to D is her first novel. When Kate isn’t writing, she enjoys listening to audiobooks, camping, and spending time with her friends and family. Kate also spends a lot of time doing math and sciency things and is a licensed professional engineer.