Dyslexia - it’s not what your think

Hello, my name is Amelia and firstly thank you for taking an interest in my blog! My chosen theme is Dyslexia, I want people to have a better understanding of how this affects children and their ability to learn and also change people’s perceptions of children with this learning disability.

There are several points that form my advocacy for this topic, these are:

• To Raise Awareness, helping people to understand what dyslexia really is and how it affects children.
• To Change People’s Perceptions, through a better understanding of dyslexia more people will change their attitudes to dyslexia and make sure that they are given the right environment to learn and be successful.
• To Reduce Bullying, children who are different are often singled out and made fun of, I have witnessed a lot of nastiness and unkindness throughout my school life towards my friends with dyslexia and I would like to see if I can stop some of that by doing the above steps.

I think you should support my advocacy because:

• 1 in 10 people now have dyslexia in the UK and if those people don’t have a good education they will find it hard to build a good lifestyle for themselves.
• It is unjust and unfair when people are bullied and misjudged.
• All children should have an equal right to learn in whatever way suits them.

Here is a brief story about how dyslexia affected Ki. Ki was diagnosed with severe dyslexia at eight years old. Her primary school up until that point refused to believe she had dyslexia. She received very little support from them. While at school she also experienced bullying for many years due to not being able to read or write, which affected her greatly.

She left primary school not able to even spell her own name properly and with very little self-confidence. Once in secondary school things did improve. She was able to get a specialist tutor to teach her how to read and write, but after three years the extra support stopped. The knock on effect of this led her to truant from school, and only passing one GCSE in art. Her interest in art and music helped her a lot, and inspired her to become a songwriter. Also her experiences with dyslexia inspired her to set up ‘Resolution Daes’, which is a music project to help raise awareness and support for people with dyslexia. She is now currently organizing her projects’ first tour.

If you agree with my advocacy and support my aims please comment below leaving a response answering some questions.

1. Had you heard/thought about dyslexia and how this affects people before
2. Would you now tell your friends and family about this issue?
3. If you saw bullying against a person with dyslexia would you now try and stop it?

If you could leave your hometown/country (if not UK) that would be a huge help!
Thank you!