My Why
Kenley McKenna
"There was a giant picture of a coconut tree on our classroom wall in Kindergarten. Each child’s name was written on a paper coconut which traveled up the tree each time the child learned 10 sight words. When you learned 100 sight words, your coconut reached the top of the tree, and you got ice cream! My friends’ coconuts shot up the tree in the first few weeks of school! Zoey went to 50 overnight while Kelsey and Jordan were already at 80 by Christmas! Sadly, as the weeks and months of the school year passed, my coconut stayed at the bottom of the tree. I just couldn’t remember my sight words, no matter how hard I tried. I practiced every night, but we had reached the final quarter of the school year, and my coconut now sat alone at the bottom of the coconut tree. I gave up on the thought that I might get to have ice cream at school. But when my teacher told me I would never be a good student, I decided I would do everything I could to prove her wrong. I told my parents about the class coconut tree, and they immediately took me to a doctor for testing. At the age of 6, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I started attending reading therapy three days a week and was finally learning how to read! But this time there were no sight words. Instead, I was being taught to decode the words using language rules and other tools that made a lot of sense to me. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was learning in the Orton-Gillingham method. It changed my life and that's why I believe in the mission of RCF and why I created and published a coloring book for children with dyslexia. My coloring book “D is for Dyslexia” features 26 fun and inspiring designs for children (and those who love them) to color and enjoy while recognizing the unique strengths and frustrations dyslexics face. All proceeds collected from the sale of my coloring book will be donated to fund teacher trainings through RCF. Through my empowering work in the field of literacy, I am no longer blind to my own potential and see the good I can do in the world. I am excited to continue this journey with RCF until every child can read and thrive!"
