Matt Maday
In fifth grade, I was an especially strong language arts student. By the middle of seventh grade, I could barely complete any homework involving reading and writing. It was understandable that I had trouble with all my homework, but I had particular trouble with English classes. My literacy problems didn’t involve a learning disability; in fact, the problems weren’t literacy problems at all. My poor reading and writing performances resulted from my failures to complete the work. I was re-reading certain sentences so many times that I could barely read a page of a book. When I was able to make it through a page of a book, I was so distracted by intrusive thoughts that I had difficulty retaining any of what I read. Sometimes I could hardly bring myself to fill in one blank on a fill-in-the-blank worksheet. I would erase a word, and then rewrite the word again, ad nauseam.
Matt Maday 