£78 million pounds is the alleged cost of specialist Dyslexia teaching in the UK. Waste of money. Yes says MP Graham Stringer:
"Certified dyslexics get longer in exams," he said. "There has been created a situation where there are financial and educational incentives to being bad at spelling and reading.
"It is time that the dyslexia industry was killed off and we recognised that there are well known methods for teaching everybody to read and write."
First of all, I have to declare an interest. I am dyslexic. I believe that I was born that way and that my children might faces similliar problems. Secondly, I wouldn't be wrting this blog where it not for the help of the 'dyslexia industry'.
At primary school a visting physiotherapist was taken aside by a teacher who asked why would it be that the child with the highest reading age in the class was the 2nd worst speller and was still unable to read his own handwriting. Was there anything physically wrong with him?
Luckily for me her sessions at the school, which were for children with serious medical conditions such as Spina Biffida etc, took place during 'reading time', too basic for me so i found myself playing games with people with degenerative diseases and the physically handicapped.
Great Fun.
What quickly emerged was that I was phyiscally ok, (the intial idea was it was motor co-oridination, a hand-eye problem) and seeing that i could throw, catch etc perfectly., I was referred to a Education Psychologist who eventually issued a diagnosis of dyslexia. From then on I recieved specialist support from my secondary school, it had a specialist teacher attached, and privatly via the Dyslexia Institute (saints each and everyone of them).
For my exams i recieved 25% extra time and the use of a computer. While the extra time was rarely used, the computer allowed me to do my exams. I doubt i would of passed my GCSE's if i had to have hand written them, (ive now got 13, 4-0levels and a BA).
I never really learned how to write, in the sense of forming letters, but my spelling imporved alot via the phonetics system but crucially it was the confidence and ability to identify my strengths that allowed me to move on. Computers solved the letter formation problem, teaching + spell checkers eased the spelling issue and if you don't like my bad paragraphing, overlong sentances, missing words or dodgy grammer then you can just fuck off, that includes you Mr Stringer... but it would of been a lot worse otherwise.
P.S Stringer (MP Blackley, Manchester) mentions the sucess of Niguragua in achiving " literacy rates of nearly 100%". The UN Human Development Report of 2007/2008 lists Nicaragua has having a literacy rate of 76%. (CIA says 67%)
A man who lets rants in his local paper about education, (who has not spoken about, asked about, or sat on any comittees about education, while in parliament), while citing figures he does not source and are plain wrong - must be a politician.
In two minds about this whole dyslexia thing but I guess I cant be too sceptical as I have Irlen syndrome and use an overlay for reading / have to adjust my computer settings blah blah. I am also a TERRIBLE speller, my handwriting is diabolical - it improved slightly when I had handwriting lessons but not by much! But despite that I too am an excellent reader and was always well ahead of my class and continue to read through books like they're going out of fashion!