Understanding My Dyslexia
We never cease to be amazed at the courage of SPELD NZ students. Once they’ve had the support they need, their confidence soars. Sometimes they write and present speeches at her school to help others understand them. Here’s once such inspiring example from 12-year-old Zoe Pollard.
Before I start telling you about the dyslexic mind, I want to tell you about the struggles we dyslexics have, for example, getting mixed up with left and right, following instructions, spelling out words, reading fluently, staying organised and telling the time but every dyslexic struggles with different things.
The brain is in two parts, the left side is facts and works like a calculator and the right side is the creative side. Most people use the left side for reading and writing but people with dyslexia mostly use the right side of their brain, so that can make it harder for them to learn to read and write but it can also make them extra creative. If you said spell the word cat, most people might see the letters c a t in their mined but people with dyslexia might see a picture of a cat.
This can make it harder for a person with dyslexia which can sometimes make them feel not as smart as other people around them. However dyslexia is not about intelligence – in fact many famous dyslexic people, like Einstein, are very intelligent.
If I asked you who is the smartest brainiest person who ever lived, most of you might say Albert Einstein and you’d be right, but did you know that Einstein got kicked out of his school because his teachers thought he was too dumb!!! And now you’re probably wondering how he became known as the smartest person who ever lived – it’s because he had a secret superpower and today I will be telling you about this superpower which is called dyslexia. Other famous people who have this superpower are Tom Cruise, Picasso, Winston Churchill and even I have dyslexia.
People with dyslexia can also be great inventors, for example Walt Disney who created Disneyland and some of our favourite Disney characters and movies, Thomas Edison who invented the light bulb and the photograph, Alexander Graham Bell who invented the telephone, Steve Jobs who invented the Apple iPhone, iPod, iPad and Mac, the Wright brothers who were known for inventing the first powered flying machine aka the plane, and Steven Spielberg who created Star Wars.
And to believe all these people were dyslexic just proves that even if you are dyslexic you can do or create incredible things but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. I mean it took Thomas Edison 1000 tries before he created the light bulb and it took Steve Jobs two-and -a-half years to make the iPhone.
I was seven when I figured out I had dyslexia. Some of the signs of dyslexia that I had were struggling to spell words and writing numbers the wrong way. I was a slow reader and I never really improved. I was lucky cause I had a mum that taught dyslexic kids and she taught me all the vowel sounds and how to spell words in a different way to the teachers in my school which helped me improve in my reading and writing.
There is no cure for dyslexia but nowadays there are all kinds of things on computers like programs and apps you can use. For example, I use StepsWeb, Writers Toolbox and predictive text.
Before you might think of teasing someone who has dyslexia or struggles with reading and writing, just think of a few things we would be without if it weren’t for dyslexic minds, like we might never have had the light bulb, the Apple iPhone, Disneyland, Star Wars and the ability to fly planes and helicopters. So even though people with dyslexia may struggle with reading and writing don’t forget that us dyslexics have a secret superpower.
By SPELD NZ student Zoe Pollard
