In third grade, I stopped growing — no, not in height, but in reading, writing, math and just school in general. I felt miles behind, like I was running, stumbling, trying so hard to keep up with all my friends, but they moved with such ease, gliding through school.

English is hard. It’s not phonetic. ‘Sounding it out’ isn’t really a thing, and it never made sense to me. But no one else seemed to see it that way.

The state-mandated STAAR test felt like a trap from a terrible dream. Every other kid finished the exam in one hour, maybe two; whereas I filled the four-hour block.

I read as fast as I could while kids scoffed and groaned because no one could leave until everyone in the class turned in their tests. Afterwards, people casted their dirty looks at me, annoyed I made them stare at a wall for two hours.

My third-grade teacher recommended that my mother enroll me in summer school because I was so behind in reading and writing — something my brothers never had to do.

The next fall, the school counselor pulled me out of class. They were going to test me for a learning disability.

Spoiler alert: I was dyslexic.

After my diagnosis, the school’s dyslexia therapist, Mrs. Candi Rains, sat with me. She took out a small dry-erase board and drew an A and a B on opposite sides.

“This is how other people think,” Mrs. Rains said as she traced a line from one letter to the next.

She added more letters and sketched a line from A to C to D to B.

“But this is how your brain thinks,” she explained. “It still goes from point A to point B. It just takes extra steps to get there.”

It finally clicked. Moving at a slower pace wasn’t an intellectual issue; I wasn’t stupid. My brain just worked in a weird way.

Things didn’t just magically get better with therapy and accommodations, though. The Texas public school system holds a curriculum designed for neurotypical students, not for me. Classes are riddled with busy work and tests that are mentally draining for kids with learning disabilities.

This isn’t a rare hot take either. According to the Houston Chronicle, “parents say informal accommodations have been systematically failing them for decades.”

Neurodivergent students are disadvantaged, but recently, the Texas Education Agency updated its official Dyslexia Handbook with changes to require full special education plans for students with dyslexia.

The problem is that the success of the new changes relies on children being properly diagnosed. According to Education Week, “the prevalence numbers vary, but research tells us that there are too many unidentified and quietly struggling dyslexic students in our K-12 classrooms and schools.”

The number of students with dyslexia who fly under the radar, never getting diagnosed, is important to recognize.

The National Institute of Health estimates that 6 to 17% of school-age children have dyslexia and that the prevalence of the learning disability is growing. The NIH urges the importance of raising awareness among teachers, reforming diagnostic processes and promoting an inclusive education.

There are alternatives to public school for students like me. There was a K-12 private school in Dallas that was purposed for the treatment or accommodation of students with learning disabilities, but the cost of attendance is on par with ACU tuition.

So maybe I could’ve gone through grade school with material better suited for me, but it would have been like paying 12 more years of college tuition — something my family, and many other families, can’t afford.

It shouldn’t cost a fortune for kids to get an education that makes sense to them.

The only way to truly accommodate students with learning disabilities without sending them to different schools is to create inclusive curricula. Standardized testing creates extra unnecessary hurdles that neurodivergent and even some neurotypical students find exhausting.

I’m not saying we should abolish tests or change the entire curriculum. I just believe students will benefit from an education that doesn’t allow timed tests to hold such heavy weight in their grades and learning.

Yes, students with dyslexia are legally entitled to testing accommodations for extra time, but many students stray away from applying for the accommodations because of the stigma surrounding them.

According to the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, “it is difficult to describe the agony these young men and women go through in deciding if they are going to apply for accommodations.” No one wants to be separated and seen as different.

Do you take the extra time and risk being seen as weird or stupid or someone who’s cheating, or do you not take the time and risk tanking your grades?

Lowering the amount and significance of testing relieves dyslexic students of the heavy weight of these dilemmas and protects those who are never diagnosed.

I know ridding the system of regular testing has been successful in creating fewer obstacles for students like me because I’ve been fortunate enough to experience a higher education that rarely calls for testing.

As a journalism major, I pursue more of a hands-on education. We spend time writing and creating, and our classes are geared toward experience when we’re in the field.

I no longer feel there is a heavy, immovable barrier between me and success that doesn’t exist for my peers. I know that I can thrive alongside them.

I still am dyslexic, though. I still factor in taking four hours longer on an assignment than my friends, and I still take more time to fully comprehend material and instructions. However, the determining factor of my grades is not weighed on inevitable low test scores.

My experience at ACU has validated my concern with heavily weighted standardized and timed testing because it has shown me a new perspective on life outside a test-dominated curriculum.

In our country, compulsory education requires all children to attend school. Within this requirement, there should be efforts to ensure that all kids are granted equal opportunity to success.

Promoting an inclusive learning environment is a burden that lies in the hands of the people who make education mandatory — lean towards curricula with more tactile learning over testing.

We cannot tackle every issue with dyslexia all at once — but we can take small steps, and that can start with an education that’s not riddled with anxiety-inducing tests.

There are students out there who feel behind — who are also running, stumbling, trying so hard to keep up with all their friends. Everyone deserves the right to an accessible education, and regular testing does not allow for that.