Who has Dyslexia by Dyslexia Toby © 2019

Some of the world’s greatest past and present inventors and Entrepreneurs  were born dyslexic.

The World needs all the creative people it can get, dyslexics have allowed the World to evolve.

Just look at Steve Jobs, if he was born academic we probably wouldn’t have the apple computer.

Tomas Edison, sent home from school with the word stupid pinned to (the inventor of the electric light) his jacket, think of us as stupid and you would be so wrong.

Many dyslexics have a creative   f lair and end up in that vocational area. Dyslexics have a rare gift, they think holistically in a very three dimensional way.

Dyslexics are usually great problem solvers.

Industry actively seeks dyslexics to work on problem-solving and product development.

I have worked with some real clever students over the year’s .Take a look at Sean, he knows so much about history both local and global and can chat for hours with accurate detail.

But when it comes to him reading about the subject he has great difficulty. How does he know so much, he has great auditory and visual skill?

Sean finds reading tough, he like many replace words and often try to guess other words. He will often guess wrong.

He hates to read out aloud in class, however he is okay with shared reading in a one to one situation.

Reading takes much longer for Sean than others in his class.

Sean’s retention rates are far lower than they should be. Spelling really is the key to being able to read, many schools have strayed from word families and the use of phonics as tools to help those with dyslexia.

Dyslexics have great long term memories and poor short term memories. Sight words don’t hit the mark for dyslexics.

When Sean writes he has to look up at the board several times to spell multi-syllabic words. This hampers his retention. He ends up remembering parts of words and struggles to remember sentences.

Learning to read is so different to learning to speak

Many clever people around the World struggle to read, Jamie Oliver the World renowned Chef has just read his first book.

Specialist have long understood that many struggle to read. We learn how to speak from a young age, from those around us. Learning to read requires a completely different skill set.

I am surprised how many schools teach only the one alphabet when in fact there are two when it comes to sounding out letter sounds within words.

Reading uses a far greater range of skills when compared to speech. It has to connect letter and form sound patterns. Reading or sounding out letters and words really helps.

One of the things we do with Sean and all our students is to work on sounds.

This helps improve reading and at the same time increases retention rates as we are using, speech, hearing and sight. This is co-ordinated by your brain. We also encourage tracking with the fingers as this adds another dimension.

I also have dyslexia and went through school having no idea why I struggled. I went on to qualify as a teacher and still have dyslexia and always will but I now know I can deal with it.

There is so much light at the end of the tunnel for you and your children.

You just have to look at so many others that have gone before and made great strides.

I would ask teachers to recognise that all students are different and for a very good reason.

This information is for guidance purposes only



All our articles are for information only and guidance…professional advice should always be sought. Dyslexia Toby © 2019