Being dyslexic

I am dyslexic and I was dyslexic has a child, but the problem them was that dyslexic did not officially exist, I was just stupid, or so everyone though because I could not read anywhere near as well as I should have done for my age.

When it came to secondary school and streaming came into play I started in C group and gradually, but oh so gracefully, made my way down to D, that was for my form class. D might of well as stood for dunce because there was nothing lower in reality, only E which was reserved for the complete no hopers as far as the Education Authorities were concerned.

They soon found out that the work in D stream was far to easy for me in certain subjects, not the easy ones but the ones most kids found hard, biology, physics, chemistry and geography. I was moved up to C then again up to B in these subject, but I was still left in D for dunce as a form class. I found the work in B easy and could have held my own in A, but how could they justify me being the D form and A for such important core subjects, it must of been hard enough for them to put me in B, I was the only one in my year that had to span this gap in groups.

Drama was a nightmare for me because we all had to read books, plays etc out loud in class, non of this running around pretending to be trees that they do today. I could hardly read simple things let alone Shakespeare, the embarrassment was terrible and I dreaded that lesson the most.

The instructions my parents received was to make me practice more and I can vividly remember my mother trying to teach me to spell soldier. I could not get it and she believed if she shout then perhaps I might under stand better, but that did not work either much to her surprise. She them gave up, thankfully, and resigned herself to the fact that I was just dim.

I left school at 16 and got a job in a show jumping yard, they worked me like a slave for the short time I was there, which was no more than 36 hours. I only was allowed to sleep for about 4 of those 36 and did not get any pay either.

I then went back to school to get some exams, I passed them all except English Language, I must have been a good guesser because I could hardly understand the questions. How I passed O levels, where it was all written and no tick in the box like GCSEs, I will never know. I passed all my secretarial exams too, the typing with flying colours the shorthand was a bit iffy, I did not use Pitmans, I invented my own, but managed to get up to 60 wpm dictation speed, the lowest level of examination papers at the time, but hey ho you try composing a letter and speaking at 60 words per minute, not easy, most bosses couldn't do it.

Everyone was surprised at my results, but none more so than me. I did not read any of the books for O level English Literature, I did watch the film of Romeo and Juliet though, that was obviously enough in my case.

My good exam results got me a job at the BBC as a secretary, dyslexic and secretary should not even be in the same sentence. I was awful but my boss was so kind he never made a fuss about all my errors and my 2 hour lunch breaks spent shopping in Regent Street.

I then got a job with British Airways, no real trouble there except for reading out the announcements, the safety ones were prerecorded on long haul so I never had to do that, but on short haul they were read out live every flight. The pursers seemed to always home in on me for the job, they must have sensed my loathing for the task, and humans being predators homed in on it and nearly always gave the job to me. You were not allowed to say 'no' you just had to do it. My version of the announcement was always very different from the written version, but it proved nobody ever really listen to them because nobody ever noticed my improvisation. I tried my best to learn them off by heart but there were so many for all the different aircraft it proved to be impossible for me to learn.

My Saturday job in an Estate Agents did not require much reading thankfully, just chatting and I was good at that. I used to do a lot of photo copying, and some how managed to staple the two sheets of paper together upside down and back to front on more than one occasion for someone house paticulars, I can't put that down to dyslexia can I.

I knew that my son was dyslexic from the ago of 3, it was crystal clear to me, when you are one it's easy to spot another. There were no tests available for him to take until he was 7 and when he did he passed them with flying colours. He was a grade A, top of the class dyslexic. His IQ was also tested at the same time and it was 139, and that was without being able to read. I tried to get him into a special school for dyslexic kids but my son was very concerned about the stigma of attending such a school and did not want to leave all his friends and have to make new ones. I had to way up the situation and because we were not offered a place at the special school, but I would have fort for one and got it for him if he had been at all open to the idea, I decided to follow my sons wishes. He attended the local secondary school. which claimed to have a special unit of 12 for dyslexic students. It turned out to be a group of 12 that were overseen by the deputy head and no more than that. He stayed there for a couple of years until I managed to get him into the Church secondary school, they offered no help in theory but in practice they secured him an almost full time helper who was attached to him and enabled him to keep pace with the lessons. It worked very well for him, the lady was dedicated to helping him and clearly did not do the job for the money alone, she put so much into helping him, far more hours than she was paid for. He too like me was placed in a low form class and was put up into much higher groups for the 'difficult' subjects, the ones most kids struggle with.

He excelled in all the sciences and geography as well as all the creative subjects. But when it came to his exams he was not allowed a reader, well, they might as well have written the papers in ancient Greek, because that is what the question would have looked like to him. He got A for art and below average or below for almost everything else, simply because of the lack of reader. He wanted to go to art college but they would not take him because his other grades were not high enough. A for art did not seem to count for much. He had friends get into the course he wanted to do with only C's for art but higher grades in other subjects... makes you wonder what bright spark makes the decisions about what grades are needed for what courses. Creativity should be a compulsory requirement.

He was so disheartened that he went and got and job in a local printers and never pursued his talent for art. After leaving school with the pressure to perform taken off, his reading improved little by little and he can now do a pretty fair job and can extract information that he requires from a book or magazine article. He does make the odd clanger and completely miss reads the words sometimes, resulting in turning the sentence on its head at times, but that does not happen too often and he can laugh at himself now.

My daughter is not at all dyslexic, what a difference, it all comes so easy to her, you don't need to teach her anything just give her a book or two on the subject and she will be an expert before the end of the week.

I home educated her from 11, and wished I had done it from the beginning and would, if I had my time again, home educated both my children from the start.

People know more now than they did even five years ago about dyslexia, it is such a complex thing and every child experiences it differently. One day you might be able to read a certain word and the next not be able to. A child psychologist once taught my son a trick of how to learn how to spell certain words using coloured pens with different thickness nibs. when the words were learned he could them spell them either forwards or backwards, not an easy thing to do, give it a try, but some how his brain could do it as easy as pie. That was a real ego boost for him and something that his 'brainy' chums could not do.

You are dyslexic for life, there is not cure as far as I know, and if there were I don't think I would take it, I like the way I am and I like the way my son is too and it makes me appreciate my daughters talent with words even more.

There are seven forms of intelligence I believe, it is about time that education put equal emphasis on all of the seven forms rather than just focusing on one and making that the be all and end all as a way of assessing brain power.

Thank heaven for spell check or you would probably not be able to understand my page at all.