In support of National Dyslexia Awareness Week, we have created a new display board on the Great Roke, first floor corridor. It has been designed to give a concise overview of what dyslexia may look or feel like in the people around us.
Dyslexia sounds like such a scary, unassailable and frankly unequivocal term, yet in reality, there is a little bit of a dyslexic tendency in most of us. It can be thought of as a spectrum or sliding scale of factors. It is NOT however, something to be scared of or embarrassed about. A dyslexic brain can bring many, many creative ideas to the party, and the vast majority of dyslexics can find methods and coping mechanisms that mean they cope with the demands of everyday life perfectly successfully.
The cliched view of dyslexia probably includes confusing, muddling or reversing letters, terrible spelling and stumbling over reading aloud. But this is a far too simplistic a view of dyslexia, and it is this that prompted the display.
The idea is to show some fundamental areas where someone with a dyslexic profile may show signs of struggling, and then if we as a whole school community can recognise these signs, we can support each other with understanding and compassion.
Did you know…
That dyslexia impacts on the ability to sequence data effectively from learning times tables to learning to tell the time?
Or that dyslexia can have a big impact on an individual’s ability to organise themselves, their time and their belongings?
Or that they may be more easily distracted by background noise when trying to focus?
Or may have excessively messy handwriting?
Nearly everyone could probably relate to one of the above factors.
The good news is that with support from friends and family and with some simple life hacks a lot of these struggles can be eliminated or improved. From making to-do lists, to wearing a digital watch, to listening to audiobooks and typing with spell check.
As a school community, we are well versed and experienced in helping children with all levels of dyslexia, and hopefully now the children themselves can see that they have more information available to assist them in understanding the impact of dyslexia around them too.