Thanks for clicking on my story, for those of you who are reading/following my story The Hard Life, this is a little one shot about Abigail. For those who haven't read my other story, you might want to read it, so that this would make a little more sence.
Enjoy :D
Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs.
Your Dyslexic, Darlin'
Tears of frustration were forming in the nine-year old's eyes. Don had read the question to her twice
"Seven plus nine minus five equals what?" Don asked the frustrated girl.
"Seven plus nine." She repeated, quickly looking down at her fingers she began to count them, unfisting her hand finger by finger.
"Fifteen." Abby said hesitantly looking up at her distressed father.
"Honey, its sixteen."
"I had sixteen, but every other time I say the number I think it is, it is wrong, that's why I didn't say it."
Don let out a sigh of frustration, she was loosing her self-confidence. It had taken two and half hours of incorrect answers and correct answer with the wrong steps. Now he was at his wit's end and her brain was starting to fry.
"Why don't we take a break. Ten minutes and we'll come back and work on some, reading? How does that sound?" Leaning on the table.
Nodding her head Abby walked slowly outside, and began playing fetch with Thunder.
Don watched from the doorway, wondering what was making it so hard for his little girl understand her homework. The problem wasn't in note taking, she had show him her notes, the were clear and concise, every rule was written, every trick to help you keep the facts straight, all of it. But when you looked closely at the paper, you could tell the there were spelling errors, and one word was written five or six times. In math, she would often misinterpret a question, such as:
68
42
In her mind it said:
48
26
History, she couldn't keep the dates straight, and the little saying 'In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue' she would say 'In 1942 '. When he tried to tell her she was saying it wrong, her eyebrows would scrunch together, and she would cock her head to the side in a look of concentration.
Next was reading, Don had no idea how it was going to go, he just hoped it would go better than the other two subjects.
"Lets get back to work." Don said.
Abby reluctantly nodded her head and walked back over to her father and sat down. Picking up the literature book his daughter had been given to read, he handed it to her. "Read it out loud for me."
Ten minutes had gone by and she was still struggling with the first paragraph. She skipped over words or sentences, it was getting frustrating. "Lets try something else." Don paused, when Abby nodded her head, "How about you read it to yourself and I will read you the questions."
"Dad, the letters are all screwed up! That is why it takes so long to get through a sentence. I really have to think about ware the letter goes to figure out what the word is."
Picking up the book, he looked at the pages. There were no misspells, at least, to his knowledge.
"How about I read it out loud, then ask you the questions. Sound good?"
After reading the passage to the little girl, Don asked her the homework questions. When Abby answered all the questions with ease, he couldn't help but wonder what was going on with his baby's mind.
"Eppes" Don said answering his phone.
Two days after the problems with homework Don decided that it was time to go to the doctor and see what was going on in Abby's brain. The doctors all had ideas on what was wrong, they just had to wait for the test results to come back.
"Mr. Eppes? Its Natalie Corrine from the Doctors office, your daughters test scores have come in. If you would come in sometime within the next week so someone will explain all the options you have."
"Alright, thank you Natalie." closing his phone, Don gathered his files and laptop and placed them in his bag.
"Terry, give me a call if there are any new breaks in the case, I am going to go pick Ace up from school."
"Will do boss." Terry said smiling.
Sitting in the SUV Don looked over at Abby, who had been absolutely silent since they had been given the news.
"What do you think?" He asked trying to get her to come out of her own little world.
"I think, I should drop out of school?" She asked hopefully.
"I don't think so kiddo." Don said with a small smile
Dyslexic, meaning she could barely read and comprehend, writing was hard and math was impossible. History had been the best for her so far, only because her class read out loud to each other, but dates were beyond her. Science, that is a different story. That is the only class she was passing with an A in. Mainly because the did a lot of hands on work, and she loved nature.
Just like her mother had. Don had taken her an many camping trips and nature hikes, encouraging her to connect with her mother in that way.
But there was some good news, she is a Linguistic learner. If you read out loud, she would understand.
That was what made music come so easy to her,also she taught herself to play the violin and a few songs on the piano. She had quickly picked up Spanish after they had moved, and was fairly well spoken. When ever Don had put a CD, she could repeat what was said almost exactly the way it orignally sounded.
He was proud of her accomplishments, and he knew that she would work through this problem and set up a new study plan for herself. That was what she did when something got in her way, she either thought it out or just pushed her way through until she was on the other side.
Turing on the radio, they drove home, with Abby singing the song, not missing one word.
End
Thanks again for reading, expect a new chapter for The Hard Life sometime in the next two weeks. :D
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