Post by Trev Williams on Oct 13, 2008 10:33:01 GMT -1
I was asked to write this report for a teachers website, but I thought I'd post it here too..
My dyslexia experience
At school, I always found difficulty reading (and still do). Spelling and my handwriting were also a struggle, but since computers have become more standard this has helped. I didn’t know I had dyslexia at school. I just knew I found it difficult, at secondary school I was put in something called Brown Study, which was like a catch up English class, concentrating on elementary spelling and basic reading. In the third year when groups were split I managed to get into the top set for English GCSE, I guess on my writing ability, I was the weakest one in the group by a long way, but someone thought it was a good idea. One of my proudest moments was in this English class having a piece of my work read out which was written in my GCSE mock exam by hand, my teacher said it was great example of how to end a piece of written work and read out the last 2 paragraphs.
I think if teachers understand a bit about dyslexia, it can help a lot. I guess it’s better to recognise that someone with dyslexia will take longer, and perhaps need more help with for example written work, and to give positive feedback for their effort as well as ‘achievement’. My English teacher didn’t push me to read allowed, or ask me spelling when they were doing spelling tests; he knew I couldn’t do it. I got a B grade in GCSE.
At university, where I studied music, I was diagnosed with dyslexia (I think learning difficulties of a dyslexic nature is more accurate). This meant I got some support, a computer, a text to speech program, a scanning program which recognised the text of a document and converted it into a word document (this wasn’t that great but that was 6 or so years ago so this might have improved). I also got a bit of extra time in exams and extra tuition for essays. I told my year tutors, and they were supportive as well, even checking spelling on some of my final critical evaluations of my compositions and giving them back to change without making a fuss (this was actually open to everyone but I was one of the few who took it up). I went on to get a first class BA hons degree.
There is stigma around learning difficulties generally, and often society can perceive these people as stupid, or worst still lazy. It can be embarrassing to ask for help and intelligence is often measured as the ability to regurgitate information, rather than the ability to work around a problem, or even to understand how something works. But with the right support, encouragement and understanding these people can go on to achieve really great things.
Trev Williams
My dyslexia experience
At school, I always found difficulty reading (and still do). Spelling and my handwriting were also a struggle, but since computers have become more standard this has helped. I didn’t know I had dyslexia at school. I just knew I found it difficult, at secondary school I was put in something called Brown Study, which was like a catch up English class, concentrating on elementary spelling and basic reading. In the third year when groups were split I managed to get into the top set for English GCSE, I guess on my writing ability, I was the weakest one in the group by a long way, but someone thought it was a good idea. One of my proudest moments was in this English class having a piece of my work read out which was written in my GCSE mock exam by hand, my teacher said it was great example of how to end a piece of written work and read out the last 2 paragraphs.
I think if teachers understand a bit about dyslexia, it can help a lot. I guess it’s better to recognise that someone with dyslexia will take longer, and perhaps need more help with for example written work, and to give positive feedback for their effort as well as ‘achievement’. My English teacher didn’t push me to read allowed, or ask me spelling when they were doing spelling tests; he knew I couldn’t do it. I got a B grade in GCSE.
At university, where I studied music, I was diagnosed with dyslexia (I think learning difficulties of a dyslexic nature is more accurate). This meant I got some support, a computer, a text to speech program, a scanning program which recognised the text of a document and converted it into a word document (this wasn’t that great but that was 6 or so years ago so this might have improved). I also got a bit of extra time in exams and extra tuition for essays. I told my year tutors, and they were supportive as well, even checking spelling on some of my final critical evaluations of my compositions and giving them back to change without making a fuss (this was actually open to everyone but I was one of the few who took it up). I went on to get a first class BA hons degree.
There is stigma around learning difficulties generally, and often society can perceive these people as stupid, or worst still lazy. It can be embarrassing to ask for help and intelligence is often measured as the ability to regurgitate information, rather than the ability to work around a problem, or even to understand how something works. But with the right support, encouragement and understanding these people can go on to achieve really great things.
Trev Williams
