WHY I  WROTE THE BOOK

The writing of this book arose out of a genuinely perceived need for a book that parents and teachers could identify with, find both readable and easily accessible.  Its aim is to impart upon the reader some useful knowledge about how to get help from their LEA and furthermore, how to understand, teach and communicate better with dyslexic children.

I have assumed the reader to have no previous knowledge or experience of dyslexia.  I am continually reminded by parents who having previously purchased a book on dyslexia by some eminent psychologist or other, that the leap from magazine article to an authoritative and complex text is too wide a gap to be expected to jump.  Parents quite rightly complain that they purchase a book to achieve a sound understanding of the subject matter not to be made to feel inadequate or stupid.  Bearing in mind that many of the parents purchasing the book will be dyslexic themselves, I have tried to address this problem and hope the book is easy to read in every possible way.

There is an idiotic idea held by a small number of teachers and other professionals that dyslexia, either does not exist or is so difficult to detect that it should be simply ignored.  This is in fact not true, because, although it is true that both the diversity and combination of each child's learning difficulty is individual to them, all dyslexic children share enough common attributes to enable them to be easily diagnosed as dyslexic.  Sadly, there are still teachers out there teaching our children who maintain these outdate beliefs.  I once heard such a teacher say 'Dyslexia doesn't exist it's just an excuse used by lazy children to get out of having to do any work'.  Practically everyone has met such a teacher.

The recent growth in dyslexia awareness, has produced an uncompromising move towards parent teaching programs usually based on multi-sensory learning.  However, the absurd notion that parents entertain that their child is in some way unlike any other child, still endures.  Hopefully this book will dispel all such beliefs and help to convince parents that they are not alone.  The inescapable truth is that there are hundreds of thousands of dyslexic children in the UK.  Furthermore there are an incalculable number of dyslexic children across the English speaking countries of the world.

Although, there will invariably be exceptions.  Generally, of the children I see, there seems to be two distinct types of dyslexic child.  One is a boisterous happy go lucky type of child that often describes himself as being driven by something that he does not understand and which he finds hard to control.  The other seems to be the quiet daydreaming type that always appears to be lost in his own thoughts and seems unfocused and slightly sad.  In many ways, one seems to be a mirror image or opposite of the other.  What is true of the behaviour of one is not usually true of the other.  For example, one may never stop talking while the other rarely speaks.  One works his way around the room trying out everything at hand, while the other sits motionless gazing into space daydreaming the time away.  One may be bold while the other is shy.  One may love watching sport but hate participating in it, while the other loathes watching sport but loves competing in it, and so on.  What is perhaps not very surprising is that in my experience the slightly sad quiet daydreaming type of child out numbers the boisterous happy go lucky child many times.  After all school is rarely a happy place for children with learning difficulties.

Unfortunately, the quiet sad daydreaming type of child is the type that teachers tend to look out for and fits the stereotypi