The Horrible Jumbling of Words or ...
Nov. 15th, 2004 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat(As an aside: I considered whining about my shopping excursion and call-waiting, but figured I spare you. Suffice it to say? I hate both. Evening Shopping excursion, last hour and a half, was made mildly endurable by the unexpected appearance of my pal Wales, who also despises shopping, and purchasing a $50 dollar wool coat to replace the one that is falling apart. Call waiting? Sigh. It's rude people. I preferred Busy signals. I understand why people think it is a necessity, but it is still rude. And I preferred life without it. Heh. Aren't you glad I spared you?)
The Horrible Jumble of Words...
While I was growing up people used the words dyslexia, learning disability, mentally challenged, stupid, slow learner pretty much interchangably to describe someone who could not easily decipher letters or sounds or had difficulty learning.
People take the oddest things for granted. Hearing and quickly deciphering words and syallables. Being able to remember the lyrics to a song. Deciphering an accent or the tone of the words used. Being able to quickly read a book in one sitting, just a few hours, and write a review on it. Being able to learn a language, any language. Being able to speak without a stutter or a lisp.
Hearing consonants. Trusting that what you heard was correct and not having to double-check. Being able to take notes during a lecture. Knowing when you copy words from a book, a black-board or a computer screen you are copying them correctly. Taking a multiple choice test without the fear of circling the wrong letter by accident or jumping down a row on the computer form. Hitting a pool ball and seeing how far it is from your stick. Tying your shoes. Knowing left from right automatically without having to double-check.
When you hear dyslexic? What is the first thing you think of? Is it - oh they flip letters and numbers around? If so, you have no idea what dyslexia is.
I remember in College, a researcher asking a friend of mine what it was like to be dyslexic, for her to explain how she saw the world differently than she did. She stared at him for a moment, then said: Why don't you explain how you see the world to me? For me, it's normal. This is what I've always seen. I don't know anything different.
This is a difficult post to write, partly because it is personal and thus tough to put into words effectively, but I think it is an important one. So bear with me, if you are reading this. I hope you are, because I want people to understand what it is like to have a learning disability. To know it does not mean you are stupid. Some of the most brilliant minds of our time, had learning disabilities - one was Albert Einstein. It can be compensated for. All it means is those of us who have it, who see and hear the world differently, have to work a little harder at communicating, translating and deciphering what we see and hear than others.
[Updated to add the following analogy, which hit me on the way home from work today: A good way of understanding dyslexia is - if you have ever had to convert text, scan a document, import a document from html/ASCII/MAC or PDF file to a Word/Windows or some other format = What usually happens? If your converter program is anything like mine - sometimes the translation is perfect. Every word exactly the way it was before. Sometimes just the spacing is off. Sometimes a few words are garbled. Sometimes one paragraph but not another one. And sometimes the whole document is pure gibberish and you have to find another way. That in a nutshell is life for someone with dyselxia or audio/visual coordination difficulties. The brain sometimes translates the data feed to it perfectly, sometimes not at all - depends on the situation.]
Those of us who live with a visual and/or auditory coordination ephasia(sp?)
otherwise known as dyslexia, live in the looking glass world. I hope through this post to show how I've learned to compensate and deal with this world.
Forgive me if I ramble...
I remember as a small child being taken to psychologist and taking a series of educational tests. I also had my hearing tested extensively. Why? I could not repeat certain sounds and had difficulty learning to read. I loved books. Adored them. Slept with them. Loved listening to my parents read them. But I could not figure out how to do it myself. I also couldn't quite get the trick of tying my shoes or telling time. Until someone took my hands and showed me that the loops told a story (something about hiding a rabbit). Why? Because whenever I tye my shoes, I might as well by looking in at shoes in a mirror instead of looking at the shoes in front of me. That's the best I can explain it. Telling time was also a problem. Clocks made no sense to me. Often I reversed them - again like looking at time in a mirror. It took me forever to grasp what a quarter of meant. I needed to touch it. For years I had digital watches. Same problem with left and right - I reverse the two all the time, which is why you will seldom see me without a watch on my wrist - I use it as means of determining which side is which. My left is my watch hand. Depth perception? Believe me when I say that to me objects appear often closer than they are, which may be one of the reasons I despise driving. I drive very well.
I just hate it when other cars are on the road with me - I can't tell how far away they are.
How do I compensate? I decide to err on the side of caution. When driving? I make sure there is enough space between me and the car ahead or behind, and never tail gate. Don't tend to play sports with balls, preferred long-distance running and swimming as a child.
I double-check every number I put down. Often two or three times. If someone gives me their phone number - I'll often annoy them by repeating it back to them as they give and after wards. I also ask people to spell their names and will spell them back. I never assume people can spell mine.
Math gave me problems - since I tend to flip numbers more than words. I only tend to flip words or letters when copying them down, hearing them and transcribing, or writing. Not reading so much. Hearing - yes. Reading - no.
Numbers on the other hand? Flip all the time. So double check. And formulas?
Even worse. I was always flipping x and y in algebraic equations. Geometry I could make sense of, except when we got into determing area. I'm great at patterns - it's how I compensate actually - I quickly hunt for the pattern in the shapes or spaces or words, what makes the most logical sense. And most of the time? I am completely unaware that I do this. It's not conscious. Compensation techniques are conscious, they are techniques learned over time to cope with a looking glass world.
My biggest problem has always been deciphering spoken words. Pronounciation. I could learn how to read and write French. But I could not speak or translate spoken French - so I barely passed it. Took me until High School to speak English clearly without a lisp - my trick? I took Speech and Theater courses. Working in theater, acting a part, memorizing words, the repetiton of the words, helps you learn how to pronounce them. I learned in effect to subvocalize. Subvocalization is basically repeating whatever someone says under one's breath. Or in one's head. Often you will frame a sentence with a parcel of what they said - to see if you heard it correctly.
Example:
1. Todays assignment is to read 150 pages of Tom Sawyer, 50 pages of the Fall of the Roman Empire, and write a 50 word essay comparing Roman times to present day.
Me: So that's 150 pages of Sawyer? 50 pages Fall? and 50 word essay Roman/Present day?
Over time I've found ways of stopping people in mid-sentence, "wait - is that 50 or 150?"
Don't fear annoying people. It's better to have it clarified than make a mistake. I learned this the hard way.
For television? I will tape favorite shows and use close-captioning. Without close-captioning, I just wait to see the context. I've learned to figure what missing words are through visual context and context of sentences.
Example: Cat Steven's Song: The Peace Train...to me it sounds like the Beace
Train. I don't hear the P. Hard consonants? I often can't decipher.
When I pronounce a word, if it is a lengthy or difficult word - I will invariably mispronounce it. Often I will try to find a synomyme I can pronounce or I'll tell the person I can't pronounce this and will spell it (but I only do that with people I trust.) I've been known to make up words - or what we call Miss Malapropisms, it runs in my family. Dyslexia is by the way genetic - it is inherited. That's right your ability to read fast was not a learned trait, but one inherited from your parents. What I do is combine two words that sound similar. OR I've heard the word, but am spelling it from how it sounded to me. A better way to explain it might be - that the word somehow becomes scrambled after I hear it, I understand what was said, but the computer in my head jumbles it somehow. This is why I will often repeat what people write or say in my head, on paper, or out loud to double-check it. Yes, I am known to read to aloud or my lips may move at times while reading something - it is again subvocalizing, double-checking what I am reading, making sure it does not get jumbled.
How did I learn about my learning disability? Ah. Not right away. I went through hell first.
In Sixth Grade a Teacher blasted me for my Bibliography and gave me a D on the report I'd worked my ass of on. She told my mother that I should have written the Bibliography perfectly - it was all on the board. There was no excuse but laziness.
In Eighth Grade - I got a D on a Biology Test that I had studied hard for and knew all the information cold. Why? The teacher wanted to save paper and had us renumber the test. I ended up skipping a whole set of numbers and didn't know it. My Guidance Counselor caught it. But the teacher refused to let me retake the test and still gave me a D.
In First Grade - I could not read, they were using the new "phonetic" reading method. It wasn't until my Second Grade teacher pulled out the old sight and see, Dick and Jane books that I was able to learn how to read.
It wasn't until College, a poetry class, that I learned I was dyslexic. My teacher, caught me compensating while reading a poem aloud. I had skipped a whole stanza, skipped back and corrected myself, without missing a beat, completely unaware I'd done it. She pulled me aside and asked if I knew I was dyslexic and explained what I'd done.
I didn't completely believe her. Since I didn't see words as backwards. But
at home, when I checked out my old first and second grade handwriting samples and early writing, I noted that there were letters reversed. Especially the consonants.
But I managed to hang in there. My undergrad did not have multiple choice tests and tended to issue reports or papers as opposed to timed tests. Also we did not have huge lecture halls. My largest class was 30 people. This helped tremendously. Since learning was usually through discussion or reading or film and not via lecture. My only stumbling blocks were the science and math courses I took which did test via multiple choice or through lecture, and the dyslexia did come into play. But that was only three of my courses. It wasn't until I took the GRE's that it hit me. Didn't hit me as bad with the SAT's, since the school I went to was less interested in Standardized Test Scores and far more interested in the essays you submitted and extra-curricular activities. (My two essays were on: How the Civil War was about Economics not Slavery, and my Summer in France with a French Family). I'd also had Honors Social Studies, Theater, Speech, and Track on my record. This counter-balanced poor grades in Math and French. English I'd struggled in, but by the time I graduated from high school, I'd managed to get a B+ from an incredibly challenging teacher. GRE's? Horrible experience. Again, I didn't make any allowances for the learning disability or the possiblity that I colored in the wrong little circle on the computer test. At that time I didn't know I could. My scores made it impossible for me to get into a good graduate school. While I'd gotten distinction in English and graduated with honors, the English profs discouraged my parents from encouraging me to pursue a PhD in anything. They said I was too bright to be satisfied teaching community college and the kids at the University level wouldn't have the patience to handle my mispronounciations. Also there was the language problem. You have to be able to learn at least two other languages for a PhD.
So...I went to Law School. Taking the Stanely H. Kaplan course first. I did better. 65% percentile. Not bad. To compensate for the learning disability I used a piece of paper underneath each line of the computerized sheet to keep my place, wasn't highly effective, and at times time consumning, but all I could do. I did not know I could have allowances made.
Law School was where I hit the wall. Up until Law School my compensation techniques were working brilliantly. Then Whammo! Lecture halls. Computerized answer sheets. Multiple choice. Timed tests. Without exception every course that had more than 50 students in it, had a timed multiple choice test, was taught mostly by lecture, and dependent on what you heard at lecture, I did miserably in. By miserable I mean a C or lower. Every course that was "hands on", involved writing a paper, counseling clients, or working with maybe 15-20 students? I did very well in. B+ or higher. My third year, terrified of the Bar, I sought help. Was sent to the prestigious Menninger Clinic - where I went through a grueling series of educational tests and it was determined that I had a visual and auditory coordination disorder that I'd been sucessfully compensating for up until law school. They recommended that I be given extra time on timed tests. Circle the answers in the booklet not on the computerized answer sheets. And given a private room or a room with no more than four students to help with distractions. All of these recommendations are required by the Americans with Disabilities Act by the way. If you are a test-giver or teacher and know that you have a student with a learning disorder and do not make these allowances, you can be fined or sued under that act. And you deserve to be. I'm sorry, but you do.
I survived the Kansas Bar. I did not get a high grade. I passed. And I'll never take another one. Why? Even with those allowances, the multiple choice portion of the test was hell. Also if I were to take the test again - I'd have to apply for the same allowances again, not a fun process. Also not worth it.
My current job is a Contract Administrator. I do very well in it. My learning disability has not stopped me from getting a job, an education, learning, or writing. What it has done is taught me not to take things for granted, taught me patience, made me more detail-oriented and organized, careful, and provided me with an understanding of those who are equally challenged. It's in a sense provided me with an unique perception on the world.
Okay must go to bed now. Hope that made sense and wasn't too rambling. No time to double-check.
The Horrible Jumble of Words...
While I was growing up people used the words dyslexia, learning disability, mentally challenged, stupid, slow learner pretty much interchangably to describe someone who could not easily decipher letters or sounds or had difficulty learning.
People take the oddest things for granted. Hearing and quickly deciphering words and syallables. Being able to remember the lyrics to a song. Deciphering an accent or the tone of the words used. Being able to quickly read a book in one sitting, just a few hours, and write a review on it. Being able to learn a language, any language. Being able to speak without a stutter or a lisp.
Hearing consonants. Trusting that what you heard was correct and not having to double-check. Being able to take notes during a lecture. Knowing when you copy words from a book, a black-board or a computer screen you are copying them correctly. Taking a multiple choice test without the fear of circling the wrong letter by accident or jumping down a row on the computer form. Hitting a pool ball and seeing how far it is from your stick. Tying your shoes. Knowing left from right automatically without having to double-check.
When you hear dyslexic? What is the first thing you think of? Is it - oh they flip letters and numbers around? If so, you have no idea what dyslexia is.
I remember in College, a researcher asking a friend of mine what it was like to be dyslexic, for her to explain how she saw the world differently than she did. She stared at him for a moment, then said: Why don't you explain how you see the world to me? For me, it's normal. This is what I've always seen. I don't know anything different.
This is a difficult post to write, partly because it is personal and thus tough to put into words effectively, but I think it is an important one. So bear with me, if you are reading this. I hope you are, because I want people to understand what it is like to have a learning disability. To know it does not mean you are stupid. Some of the most brilliant minds of our time, had learning disabilities - one was Albert Einstein. It can be compensated for. All it means is those of us who have it, who see and hear the world differently, have to work a little harder at communicating, translating and deciphering what we see and hear than others.
[Updated to add the following analogy, which hit me on the way home from work today: A good way of understanding dyslexia is - if you have ever had to convert text, scan a document, import a document from html/ASCII/MAC or PDF file to a Word/Windows or some other format = What usually happens? If your converter program is anything like mine - sometimes the translation is perfect. Every word exactly the way it was before. Sometimes just the spacing is off. Sometimes a few words are garbled. Sometimes one paragraph but not another one. And sometimes the whole document is pure gibberish and you have to find another way. That in a nutshell is life for someone with dyselxia or audio/visual coordination difficulties. The brain sometimes translates the data feed to it perfectly, sometimes not at all - depends on the situation.]
Those of us who live with a visual and/or auditory coordination ephasia(sp?)
otherwise known as dyslexia, live in the looking glass world. I hope through this post to show how I've learned to compensate and deal with this world.
Forgive me if I ramble...
I remember as a small child being taken to psychologist and taking a series of educational tests. I also had my hearing tested extensively. Why? I could not repeat certain sounds and had difficulty learning to read. I loved books. Adored them. Slept with them. Loved listening to my parents read them. But I could not figure out how to do it myself. I also couldn't quite get the trick of tying my shoes or telling time. Until someone took my hands and showed me that the loops told a story (something about hiding a rabbit). Why? Because whenever I tye my shoes, I might as well by looking in at shoes in a mirror instead of looking at the shoes in front of me. That's the best I can explain it. Telling time was also a problem. Clocks made no sense to me. Often I reversed them - again like looking at time in a mirror. It took me forever to grasp what a quarter of meant. I needed to touch it. For years I had digital watches. Same problem with left and right - I reverse the two all the time, which is why you will seldom see me without a watch on my wrist - I use it as means of determining which side is which. My left is my watch hand. Depth perception? Believe me when I say that to me objects appear often closer than they are, which may be one of the reasons I despise driving. I drive very well.
I just hate it when other cars are on the road with me - I can't tell how far away they are.
How do I compensate? I decide to err on the side of caution. When driving? I make sure there is enough space between me and the car ahead or behind, and never tail gate. Don't tend to play sports with balls, preferred long-distance running and swimming as a child.
I double-check every number I put down. Often two or three times. If someone gives me their phone number - I'll often annoy them by repeating it back to them as they give and after wards. I also ask people to spell their names and will spell them back. I never assume people can spell mine.
Math gave me problems - since I tend to flip numbers more than words. I only tend to flip words or letters when copying them down, hearing them and transcribing, or writing. Not reading so much. Hearing - yes. Reading - no.
Numbers on the other hand? Flip all the time. So double check. And formulas?
Even worse. I was always flipping x and y in algebraic equations. Geometry I could make sense of, except when we got into determing area. I'm great at patterns - it's how I compensate actually - I quickly hunt for the pattern in the shapes or spaces or words, what makes the most logical sense. And most of the time? I am completely unaware that I do this. It's not conscious. Compensation techniques are conscious, they are techniques learned over time to cope with a looking glass world.
My biggest problem has always been deciphering spoken words. Pronounciation. I could learn how to read and write French. But I could not speak or translate spoken French - so I barely passed it. Took me until High School to speak English clearly without a lisp - my trick? I took Speech and Theater courses. Working in theater, acting a part, memorizing words, the repetiton of the words, helps you learn how to pronounce them. I learned in effect to subvocalize. Subvocalization is basically repeating whatever someone says under one's breath. Or in one's head. Often you will frame a sentence with a parcel of what they said - to see if you heard it correctly.
Example:
1. Todays assignment is to read 150 pages of Tom Sawyer, 50 pages of the Fall of the Roman Empire, and write a 50 word essay comparing Roman times to present day.
Me: So that's 150 pages of Sawyer? 50 pages Fall? and 50 word essay Roman/Present day?
Over time I've found ways of stopping people in mid-sentence, "wait - is that 50 or 150?"
Don't fear annoying people. It's better to have it clarified than make a mistake. I learned this the hard way.
For television? I will tape favorite shows and use close-captioning. Without close-captioning, I just wait to see the context. I've learned to figure what missing words are through visual context and context of sentences.
Example: Cat Steven's Song: The Peace Train...to me it sounds like the Beace
Train. I don't hear the P. Hard consonants? I often can't decipher.
When I pronounce a word, if it is a lengthy or difficult word - I will invariably mispronounce it. Often I will try to find a synomyme I can pronounce or I'll tell the person I can't pronounce this and will spell it (but I only do that with people I trust.) I've been known to make up words - or what we call Miss Malapropisms, it runs in my family. Dyslexia is by the way genetic - it is inherited. That's right your ability to read fast was not a learned trait, but one inherited from your parents. What I do is combine two words that sound similar. OR I've heard the word, but am spelling it from how it sounded to me. A better way to explain it might be - that the word somehow becomes scrambled after I hear it, I understand what was said, but the computer in my head jumbles it somehow. This is why I will often repeat what people write or say in my head, on paper, or out loud to double-check it. Yes, I am known to read to aloud or my lips may move at times while reading something - it is again subvocalizing, double-checking what I am reading, making sure it does not get jumbled.
How did I learn about my learning disability? Ah. Not right away. I went through hell first.
In Sixth Grade a Teacher blasted me for my Bibliography and gave me a D on the report I'd worked my ass of on. She told my mother that I should have written the Bibliography perfectly - it was all on the board. There was no excuse but laziness.
In Eighth Grade - I got a D on a Biology Test that I had studied hard for and knew all the information cold. Why? The teacher wanted to save paper and had us renumber the test. I ended up skipping a whole set of numbers and didn't know it. My Guidance Counselor caught it. But the teacher refused to let me retake the test and still gave me a D.
In First Grade - I could not read, they were using the new "phonetic" reading method. It wasn't until my Second Grade teacher pulled out the old sight and see, Dick and Jane books that I was able to learn how to read.
It wasn't until College, a poetry class, that I learned I was dyslexic. My teacher, caught me compensating while reading a poem aloud. I had skipped a whole stanza, skipped back and corrected myself, without missing a beat, completely unaware I'd done it. She pulled me aside and asked if I knew I was dyslexic and explained what I'd done.
I didn't completely believe her. Since I didn't see words as backwards. But
at home, when I checked out my old first and second grade handwriting samples and early writing, I noted that there were letters reversed. Especially the consonants.
But I managed to hang in there. My undergrad did not have multiple choice tests and tended to issue reports or papers as opposed to timed tests. Also we did not have huge lecture halls. My largest class was 30 people. This helped tremendously. Since learning was usually through discussion or reading or film and not via lecture. My only stumbling blocks were the science and math courses I took which did test via multiple choice or through lecture, and the dyslexia did come into play. But that was only three of my courses. It wasn't until I took the GRE's that it hit me. Didn't hit me as bad with the SAT's, since the school I went to was less interested in Standardized Test Scores and far more interested in the essays you submitted and extra-curricular activities. (My two essays were on: How the Civil War was about Economics not Slavery, and my Summer in France with a French Family). I'd also had Honors Social Studies, Theater, Speech, and Track on my record. This counter-balanced poor grades in Math and French. English I'd struggled in, but by the time I graduated from high school, I'd managed to get a B+ from an incredibly challenging teacher. GRE's? Horrible experience. Again, I didn't make any allowances for the learning disability or the possiblity that I colored in the wrong little circle on the computer test. At that time I didn't know I could. My scores made it impossible for me to get into a good graduate school. While I'd gotten distinction in English and graduated with honors, the English profs discouraged my parents from encouraging me to pursue a PhD in anything. They said I was too bright to be satisfied teaching community college and the kids at the University level wouldn't have the patience to handle my mispronounciations. Also there was the language problem. You have to be able to learn at least two other languages for a PhD.
So...I went to Law School. Taking the Stanely H. Kaplan course first. I did better. 65% percentile. Not bad. To compensate for the learning disability I used a piece of paper underneath each line of the computerized sheet to keep my place, wasn't highly effective, and at times time consumning, but all I could do. I did not know I could have allowances made.
Law School was where I hit the wall. Up until Law School my compensation techniques were working brilliantly. Then Whammo! Lecture halls. Computerized answer sheets. Multiple choice. Timed tests. Without exception every course that had more than 50 students in it, had a timed multiple choice test, was taught mostly by lecture, and dependent on what you heard at lecture, I did miserably in. By miserable I mean a C or lower. Every course that was "hands on", involved writing a paper, counseling clients, or working with maybe 15-20 students? I did very well in. B+ or higher. My third year, terrified of the Bar, I sought help. Was sent to the prestigious Menninger Clinic - where I went through a grueling series of educational tests and it was determined that I had a visual and auditory coordination disorder that I'd been sucessfully compensating for up until law school. They recommended that I be given extra time on timed tests. Circle the answers in the booklet not on the computerized answer sheets. And given a private room or a room with no more than four students to help with distractions. All of these recommendations are required by the Americans with Disabilities Act by the way. If you are a test-giver or teacher and know that you have a student with a learning disorder and do not make these allowances, you can be fined or sued under that act. And you deserve to be. I'm sorry, but you do.
I survived the Kansas Bar. I did not get a high grade. I passed. And I'll never take another one. Why? Even with those allowances, the multiple choice portion of the test was hell. Also if I were to take the test again - I'd have to apply for the same allowances again, not a fun process. Also not worth it.
My current job is a Contract Administrator. I do very well in it. My learning disability has not stopped me from getting a job, an education, learning, or writing. What it has done is taught me not to take things for granted, taught me patience, made me more detail-oriented and organized, careful, and provided me with an understanding of those who are equally challenged. It's in a sense provided me with an unique perception on the world.
Okay must go to bed now. Hope that made sense and wasn't too rambling. No time to double-check.
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Date: 2004-11-16 04:31 pm (UTC)Yes - have the same problems. I'm fine as long as it is logical. There's a decipherable pattern or rhythm or story to it. Or as you state below it is interesting - I'll focus. If it is random or thrown at me? I'm at a loss. I can not remember a joke to save my life. And while I can write a story, I have difficulty orally telling one, without somehow switching the events or telling things out of order, unless it's written down in front of me. (Weird that, considering as a listener I can't follow stories told out of order.) I've been known to write down what I'm going to say before making a business phone call.
I'm lucky - for the first time in my life I have a boss who is actually good at training people. She uses different approaches. One day she tried *telling* me how to do a procedure, noted I just wasn't getting it and finally handed me an example of what she wanted me to do. Once I could see it - I understood. Usually what she does is show me: she'll get a job, then have me watch her do it, then let me try and check my work. Hands on learning. Years ago people used to have "apprenticeships" as opposed to "tests". You apprenticed with an attorney, doctor, printer, engineer, merchant for a couple of years, watched what they did and learned from them. A mentoring relationship.
I wish we still had that.
While books can teach you a great deal - hands-on experience is a much better method.
The only problem I have reading is when I'm bored. When I was in school I'd much rather have sat through a numbingly boring lecture than try to read something that was boring. With the lectures there was always that thread of logic I needed, so I could take a few notes (or not), know what was covered, and be done with it. When I was trying to read something boring for class the whole page would start to look like gibberish.
I identify. If I'm tired or bored the words will blur together. I've had to work hard to overcome it - especially while reading contracts.
I think a good way of explaining how dyslexia works is well what happens when you scan something into your computer - sometimes it comes out perfectly, sometimes partially garbled, sometimes complete gibberish. While our brains are certainly more complex than a computer's, the same thing can often happen. I find that it is easier if I'm interested in what I'm reading. If I need to analyze it. Find a problem. OR it is an interesting story. If it doesn't grab me, I'll often find that I've read the same page twenty times and still haven't the faintest idea what I've read. Again - it's a bit like scanning a document into a computer - sometimes it is clearly translated, sometimes gibberish.