Chatsworth : Top ‘Dyslexic’ a Calendar Model

He’s only 19, but Steven Goldberg already has a patent for a wind turbine he designed in eighth grade. In his spare time, he writes software programs and designs three-dimensional video simulations of robots. And though he might seem an unlikely choice, he’s now a calendar model.

The Chatsworth resident and USC freshman is June’s “outstanding dyslexic” in a 1996 calendar produced by the Los Angeles County branch of the Orton Dyslexia Society.

His mother “called and said, ‘These people want to put you in a calendar,’ and I laughed,” Goldberg recalled. “I thought she was kidding.”

Goldberg, who shares the $10 calendar with professors, athletes and celebrities such as Cher and Tom Smothers, described the honor as “really cool” and hopes that it inspires others who have struggled with a disorder that makes reading and writing difficult.

During his childhood, he said, “I remember being very frustrated and just wanting to give up.” The dyslexia was diagnosed before he entered seventh grade, and Goldberg attributes much of his academic success to his family. “They always pushed me along,” he said.

At USC, where he is pursuing a degree in computer science, Goldberg records lectures on tape and limits note-taking to words that will stimulate his thinking later--”food for thought,” he calls them.

He once aspired to become a patent attorney but now fears it would mean giving up the hands-on research and experimentation he loves. Instead, he’s mulling a career as a professor.

And while Goldberg is proud to be included in the calendar, he’s not sure he’ll use it as intended. “I don’t know if it will be continuously June or not,” he joked.