The day in the life of a 7-year-old (undiagnosed) dyslexic child.

The world as I see it.

7:30  Mum calls to me to get up.  I try and ignore her.  'Just 5 more minutes please' I beg.  I hate getting up.

8:00  I drag myself out of bed.  I have to rush to get ready as I'm running late, I can’t find any of my books.  I don't want to school, I really don't.  I hate mornings.

8:15  I walk to school with some sort-of friends.  I try to walk slowly so I can delay getting there.  I wish I was walking home.

8:30  I sit down in my seat.  It's at the back, by myself.  I wish I were invisible so no one can see me.  I wonder what we are going to be doing today.  Sir walks in.  He begins by talking to the class about something.  I switch off.  All the smart kids have really good comments, I wish I could say something clever.  I keep quiet so that they can't laugh at me when I something stupid.

9:00 We begin maths.  We get on with each of the work sheets by ourselves.  I'm way behind everyone else but I try not to let them know.  I stare at the sheet and it's full of foreign symbols, I could stare at them all day and it wouldn't mean anything.  I try to copy Jenny's answers.  Sir comes over, please not to me, please not to me.  I can sense him above me, looking at my answers, I hold my breath and wait for the red pen to come out.  He asks me how I got my answer.  I can feel everyone staring at me.  I go red.  How did Jenny get this answer?  I don't know.  I can hear the children mumbling loudly 'Billy's thick'; 'Billy's a cheat'.  Sir tries to explain to me, I don't understand a word but I pretend to.  He goes on then to another kid.

I hate maths.

11:00 Now it's break, I try to hang around with some kids but you can tell I don't belong.  They are playing some memory game; they're all so good, they know I'm rubbish so they don't bother to include me.  I pretend not to care.  I wait for the bell.

11:30 Sir is showing us acetates.  He's going to the next one and I'm not even half way down.  He's going to fast.  I just can't keep up.  I can't hear what he's saying because I'm trying to copy down the writing.  Everyone else has finished writing.  Panic.  I know he's going to ask me a question.  I switch off and think about playing football when I get home, or playing on my game boy...

1:00 It's lunch time.  I sit in the toilet waiting for it to pass.  Then I have an idea.  I go to sir and tell him I'm ill.  I say I've just been sick.  He gives me a funny look and calls Mum.  I wait.  I'm sort of happy now.  I know the medial room fairly well - there are 15 cracks in the ceiling and 57 tiles on the floor.  Mum doesn't look too happy to see me either.

But I'm happy when go home - it Friday - a lifetime until Monday.

This was written in conjunction with a 15-year-old dyslexic child, about his experiences at school before his dyslexia was diagnosed.  Sadly his experiences including avoidance of school and bullying is not uncommon amongst such children.  It is not, as is commonly believed, due to lower intelligence, but rather a biological condition known as dyslexia.  This difference in a part of the brain means that dyslexic children learn differently and often mainstream teaching methods do not take this into account.  The result being the experiences described by Billy, underachievement in exams and thus possibly not fulfilling full potential in the employment world.

Many dyslexic children are highly intelligent, they are innovative thinkers, creative and excellent at problem solving, given the right encouragement dyslexic children can go on to excel.  However, early childhood experiences can rob them of confidence in their skills if schools and teaching methods are not dyslexia friendly.

Indicators of dyslexia include;

Written Work

• Has a poor standard of written work compared with oral ability

• Has poor handwriting with badly formed letters

• Has neat handwriting, but writes very slowly indeed

• Produces badly set out or messily written work, with spellings crossed out several times

• Spells the same word differently in one piece of work e.g. wippe, wype, wiep, wipe

• Confuses upper and lower case letters

• Difficulty with organisation of home work

• Appears to know more than can be committed to paper

• Is persistently confused by letters which look similar particularly b/d, p/g, n/u, m/w

• Produces phonetic and bizarre spellings

• Has poor pencil grip

• Makes anagrams of works, e.g. tired for tried, breaded for bearded

Reading

• Makes poor reading progress, especially using look and say methods

• No expression in reading, comprehension poor

• Is hesitant and laboured in reading, especially when reading aloud

• Misses out words when reading, or adds extra words

• Fails to recognise familiar words

Numeracy

• Finds difficulty remembering tables and/or basic number sets

• Finds sequencing problematic

• Can think at a high level in mathematics, but needs a calculator for simple calculations

• Misreads questions that include words

• Finds memorising formulae difficult

Other areas

• Confuses direction – left/right

• Has difficulty in learning foreign languages

• Has clear processing problems at speed

• Misunderstands complicated questions

Behaviour

• Is disorganised or forgetful e.g. over sports equipment, lessons, homework, appointments

• Is immature and/or clumsy

• Has difficulty relating to others; is unable to ‘read’ body language

• Is excessively tired, due to the amount of concentration and effort required

For further information on how to make your school dyslexia friendly please contact the British Dyslexia Association, Helpline; 0118 966 8271, e-mail; info@dyslexiahelp-bda.demon.co.uk.

www.bda-dyslexia.org.uk