I am convinced I have either inattentive type ADHD or dyslexia. Whenever I sit down to read, even something I like, I have trouble concentrating. It takes me so long to read in comparison to other people. I consider myself a fairly good learner, so I don't think being slow has anything to do with a lack of ability to understand what I'm reading. If a passage is straight forward, I can easily comprehend it... but it still takes time for me to do it. If the language is more archaic, or just long and wordy, I can't seem to even retain the basics of what is being described. I drift completely.

I have little to no trouble with spelling, so it doesn't seem probable that I would have dyslexia... but I know it runs in my mom's side of the family. The only reasoning that would lead me to believe that I am dyslexic is that... in the same way that most dyslexic people can't organize either sounds or symbols, I have difficulty comprehending sentences unless it in a simple straight forward order. Sometimes I have to read a paragraph up to three times before being able to piece together what was described, even if I understand what every word meant. Also, when I'm trying to tell people simple stories about something that happened in my life, I have trouble finding the words to tell the story accurately out loud even though I understand exactly what I'm trying to say in my head. Often times people will ask me something, and I'll leave out peices of basic information without even recognizing it.

It has to be something because I was given an assignment that, according to my teacher, should have take an hour to complete. That includes 3 or 4 hand outs,(about two to three pages each) and about 4 text book passages (about 4 to five pages). I just read one of the text book passages written by one of the colonists who settled in America and wrote down the accounts of John Smith and the Native Americans (to give an idea of how difficult the reading was) and it took me 30 minutes to comprehend what was happening. I'm not talking about the deeper meanings, I'm just talking about putting together where people were, who people were, and what they were doing. This is a basic level English class... something has to be hindering my reading ability, when I'm a bit above average as a student, but I'm failing to comprehend as well as the average student.

As you can see, my grammar is pretty good (though I've been told I can be wordy/verbose), but I have trouble putting together thoughts in order to speak well... and I feel like I can't concentrate on reading for very long or put it together. If anyone can point out even the smallest answer or steps to overcome this, I would be grateful.