Proud to Be Dyslexic | Dyslexia Inspirational Story

Bristol Evening Post ‘Seven magazine’ 4th April, 2003Share

Having been branded a dunce at the age of six, Antonio Farruggia left school virtually illiterate. He’s now close to completing a PhD on a subject close to his heart – dyslexia. Tom Henry meets this remarkable man who has embraced dyslexia and made it his great strength.

As names go, Antonio Giuseppe Farruggia is somewhat harder to commit to paper than John Smith. Even as I write it, I’m not entirely sure if I’ve got the Giuseppe right. Is the ‘I’ before the “e”, or the “e” before the “i”?

He laughs about it now, but this is the sort of scenario 38-year-old has had to face ever since he started school. When other kids were clumsily learning to spell their names, Antonio was drawing a blank over his own, and eventually it has to be abbreviated to “Tony” to make it easier for him. When elementary reading lessons began, Antonio could not grasp the differences between the “ch”, “th” and “sh” sounds and he began to fall behind“

The one person who should know is Mr Farruggia himself – but even he, I feel, is not entirely confident. Recently, he was asked to write out his middle name at an office counter, but he just couldn’t remember how to spell it. With a queue of increasingly impatient people behind him, he had to ring his dad to ask him.

That was it from then on,” he says. “When I was 10 I was still on the Peter and Jane books. I just couldn’t get it, and yet when I was about six years old I went to Sicily one summer with my parents and I came back speaking Sicilian. Instead of the school recognising and encouraging me, the teacher folded up a piece of paper into a cone, wrote a ‘D’ for ‘dunce’ on it, put it on my head and made me stand in the corner for three days.

“I was crying and crying, and it was a horrible feeling to know that you’re missing out on what the rest of the class is doing. I fell badly behind after that, and by the time I came to take the exam for secondary school, I had a definite knack for trouble.”

Antonio was dyslexic, of course. He was one of the unlucky generation which the education system failed because his difficulties with reading and writing were not spotted by teachers who considered he was “thick”, “unteachable”, “backward”, “slow”, “remedial” or, in one phrase Antonio vividly remembers, had “bad blood”.

“It was because my dad is Sicilian,” he laughs. “I think they’d been watching too many episodes of the Godfather!”

Nonetheless, leaving school almost illiterate was no laughing matter, his frustration at falling behind resulted in him becoming extremely aggressive. He joined a gang in Birmingham, and violence became a way of life for several years to come until he eventually channeled his energies into boxing, and through a boxing coach who became a sort of mentor, he went on to train other youngsters.

Remarkably, Antonio is now in the middle of exhaustive research for a PhD in the condition which disrupted his early life. He is now able to see that dyslexics are not “handicapped”, but instead have talents, abilities and ways of learning that are different from what we might describe as “normal” and it is this positivity that will eventually lead to him being called “doctor”, not “dunce”.

“After I left school I ended up in the building trade and I moved around the country doing flooring for new Sainsbury’s stores,” he said. “I could get the concept of the design in my mind very easily, and I was able to create come lovely flooring which really gave me confidence.

“I eventually set up in business on my own, but the recession came and I lost a lot of money. I decided to change career and because I’d had experience coaching boxing to youngsters I applied for some youth work jobs. But I needed a qualification and so I applied to a college. The entrance exam I took was scribble, but to my surprise I was offered a place.

At first, Antonio felt like a “fraud”. Although his literacy had improved since school, thanks to his own effort, he still struggled with the written work, and would still misinterpret what he was told. “We did quite a lot of role play,” he said, “and one of the assignments was to act out a scene which involved working in Paris . I had all these images of France going on in my head, but when I was figuring out what I was going to do I looked around the class and everyone else seemed to be doing something different.

Eventually, the penny dropped. “I was supposed to be working in pairs, not Paris! I’d completely misread the instructions.”

Despite such elementary mistakes, Antonio’s determination to succeed saw his marks go up. He passed the course, then went on to take a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in education and community youth work. Now there was no stopping him. Although he wasn’t sure himself, a friend in the world of academia encouraged him to go on a PhD course.

As a result of his research Antonio is now of the opinion that dyslexia is something to be embraced, not overcome. “I’m not broken and I don’t need to be fixed,” he asserts. “I have got confidence in the fact that I have a different way of expression than other people. We can’t all play or read music, for example, and if you cannot so it is accepted and understood. However, we are only taught to read and write in one way, and it’s a case of ‘one-size-fits-all’.“But we are all individuals and we all do things in different ways. A lot of my research is based around the ‘person-centred’ approach to the teaching of dyslexics, which finds out what the child is interested in and teaches skills based around that core interest. “The perception a person holds of their own dyslexia is far more important than what a professional tells them it is. Personally, I’m proud to be dyslexic. It’s something special, something different, and for me it is about exploring that difference and celebrating it.”

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From Dunce to Degree | Dyslexia Inspirational Story

Birmingham Evening Mail, The Life Mag. 16.04.00 by David Jones
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Education experts have made great strides in the teaching of dyslexic children, but understanding of the condition has been a long time coming. Birmingham youth worker Antonio Farruggia tells DAVID JONES how he conquered his dyslexia to gain a degree

“I WAS in my first year at school when I first realised I had difficulty reading. At the age of four, the other kids were already progressing more quickly than I was. The first problem I remember was not being able to tell the difference between ‘ch’, ‘sh’ and ‘th’ when I read them on the page.

Of course, I was too young to say anything and there was very little awareness of dyslexia in those days so I was just left to struggle – and that was just the beginning of my problems… By the time I sat the entrance exam for secondary school, I’d stopped trying altogether. I was messing about all the time and getting into fights. I think a lot of it was out of sheer frustration because, looking back, I know I wasn’t ‘stupid’ at all.

…the prospect of having to read out loud in class would fill me with terror. I would start messing about in the hope that I would get thrown out – anything to avoid having to read. On the few occasions I did have to read to the class, it was a nightmare. I would be okay for a sentence or so then I’d stumble and I would feel myself starting to panic, which just made it worst. Then my vision would go blurry and the words would start jumping around the page. All the time I could hear the other children getting restless or giggling – it was so humiliating

Of course, he teachers went through all the traditional options to try and get me to improve. I was sent to an educational psychologist and it didn’t take long for them to stick me in the remedial group. It didn’t help my reading and writing, but I met an amazing bunch of kids. We were all stuck with this label that we weren’t as cleaver as the other kids but it seemed everyone in that class was good at general knowledge, quizzes and so on. It seems clear now that it wasn’t the kids who were failing – it was the education system that was failing them. Looking back, I reckon there must have been a lot of dyslexic kids in that group, but there just wasn’t enough awareness of dyslexia to realise the type of specialised teaching we needed.

Eventually I left school with no qualifications and very low self-esteem. I was a complete rogue really, always getting into trouble, drifting from one labouring job to another. Fortunately, there was one teacher who took an interest in me in my final year at school and got me into weight-lifting. He suggested that I go along to the Birmingham City Amateur Boxing Club, so I did and I immediately found somewhere that I felt I was wanted. I started going regularly, working out on the weights and helping the youngsters who used the gym. It really gave me a sense of self-worth and the feeling I had something to offer. If it hadn’t been for the club, I could easily have ended up in prison

Since then, I’ve interviewed hundreds of dyslexic people for my research and I’m now doing a part-time PhD looking at the links between crime and dyslexia…

What I really want to do now is set up a support service for dyslexics and their families so that I can use my research to help as many people as possible. I’ve got a real passion for learning now and I want to put that to good use. I don’t know how ‘clever’ I am – I suppose that’s what I’m finding out, and if I can spare anyone else the pain I went through as a youngster whilst I’m at it, then so much the better.”

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Confidence Building in Dyslexic Children

The majority of dyslexic children have come to the conclusion that hey are stupid!

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Build Confidence in Dyslexic Children

The Basics

In any school in any week of the year a dyslexic child experiences a huge amount of failure. With sequencing difficulties, any form of writing or math/s is going to present severe problems, and the dyslexic child cannot fail to notice that almost all of the other children are able to do the work which he or she finds so hard. Why can’t he read and spell? He must be dumb, thick, stupid. It’s the conclusion that anyone would reach in similar circumstances, and it badly needs changing before any corrective teaching is going to be effective.

However good our methods with phoneme awareness, finding interesting books and word games are, this basic foundation for each child of a secure self-confidence has got to be addressed before any real progress can be hoped for

The difficulty with dyslexia is that it is not visible. If the child had a broken arm, everyone would be rushing around giving extra consideration. ‘Of course he can’t write – his arm is broken! There’s nothing wrong with his intelligence.’ But no-one ever says ‘Of course he can’t spell – he has inherited a different pattern of brain circuits! There’s nothing wrong with his intelligence.’

Teachers, parents and the dyslexic child himself come to the clear conclusion that he must be slow-witted.

What I am suggesting is a little cognitive therapy by the teacher, if possible in conjunction with the parent! Not as hard as it seems. The assumption in the child’s mind – that he is stupid – is inaccurate, and it needs correcting if he is to re-establish the self-confidence he needs to learn. This is not going to be achieved simply by telling him that he’s as intelligent as the next person. Well-intentioned people have been telling him that for years to no effect. He needs evidence, and he needs to re-construct the picture he has of himself in his own mind. Only in this way can he see his difficulties as a dyslexic learner in the proper context of a person – like anyone else – who has both strengths and weaknesses. Most dyslexic people have great strengths in the areas of physical co-ordination and/or creativity and/or empathy with other people. His strengths may lie in some of these areas, and he will know that lots of other children are weak in exactly these same areas.

The following exercise has a great effect on children, and can be carried out by a parent, or a teacher, or, if at all possible, both together with the child, who needs to be on his own (not in a group situation). Take a sheet of paper and make two columns: in one column put ‘Things I am good at’ and in the other ‘Things that I am not so good at’

• Things that I am good at
• Things that I am not so good at

Take about five or ten minutes of discussion with the child for you to write a list of things that the child is – from an objective point of view – successful at. These will include such skills as swimming, sports, caring for pets, making a collection, dancing, drama, singing, art, painting, drawing, and so on. In the ‘Not so good’ column let the child tell you the things like spelling and writing that he really finds hard. The list will look something like this, depending of course on each child’s interests:

• Things that I am good at
  • swimming
  • diving
  • basketball
  • looking after my rabbits
  • drawing
  • painting
  • collecting stamps
  • getting on well with other children
  • clearing the table
  • making people laugh
  • softball
  • being friendly to grandpa
  • knowing about space and the planets
  • etc.
• Things that I am not so good at
  • spelling
  • reading
  • writing
  • math/s

The evidence is staring the child in the face: there are far more things that he is good at than things he has difficulties with. He can’t possibly be stupid. He is clearly a successful person.

But he may well say that the things he is weak at are the things that matter in life. If you can’t spell, how can you pass exams and get a job? This is the stage at which you have to argue – not tell – and say such things as ‘What do you value people for – because they are good at spelling? Of course not. You value people for all sorts of qualities, especially their ability to be friendly, get on with you, consider your needs, think of other people before themselves and so on. It’s up to you to keep the argument going until the child can really begin to see himself in a new light – as a successful person who just happens to have been born with a small handicap. Like being color-blind. It’s not his fault. It’s not because he doesn’t try hard enough (as, unfortunately, many teachers will have told him).

Seeing himself in a new light can be a turning point for the child – whatever his or her age – and this new-born self-confidence can lay the foundation for the special kind of learning he needs to build up the spelling and writing skills that his fellow pupils find so much easier to acquire.

But it’s not an over-night change, and it needs carefully nurturing over the coming month. The list should be carefully preserved and pinned up at home in the kitchen for all to see. He needs praise, gold stars, credits, and certificates over the coming weeks for things he does in school – of a non-cademic nature – which are commendable: helping a new pupil to settle in, co-operating well in a games session, coming up with a fresh creative idea for art, and so on. The certificates he receives for these valuable activities may be the first he has ever received in his entire school career.

John Bradford
June 2001

Confidence Building in Practice

I began this activity by talking about a new session my learners would be having with me, which is Positive thinking. I modelled on the board my list and the children called out ideas. At the beginning of this activity this particular learner said, ‘I’m not good at anything’.

My reply was ‘Yes you are. You are good at football’. This made him realise that – yes – he can do things. With some discussion he managed to make a list.

Things that I am good at:

• Football
• Running
• Drawing
• Helping my friends

Things that I am not so good at:

• Reading
• Writing stories

At the end of the session he felt quite confident about the things he isn’t so good because I was able to bring to his attention that he can read just not as well as he is wanting to at the moment. We talked about books he had read and group reading activities where he sometimes helps other children with words like they help him.

The following day it was group reading. He put his hand straight up to be the first to read and he read steadily and more readily accepted help from the other children. (S. B-W., Somerset, UK)

Recognizing low self-esteem

A J is the typical 14-year-old boy—great athlete, “cool” with the girls, and loves to clown around when the pressure is on. I believe that underneath that façade what he projects is fear of failure in the eyes of his peers. During class he appears to pay attention but, when he is called upon to answer something that he is unsure of, he pretends not to have heard anything in the past five minutes.

This elicits a classroom response of giggles, especially in English or history. Science is a totally different matter, where he is truly interested, and is the first to answer or ask questions about an experiment. History and English are difficult, so he is frequently forgetting to complete assignments on schedule without constant reminders. He wants his peers to believe that he is just as carefree as everyone else and that school doesn’t offer any extreme challenges. (Lisa Landers, Texas)

Praise for non-academic achievements

Dyslexic children rarely receive certificates, merit points or stars for academic achievements. To compensate for this, non-academic achievements can easily be recognised and rewarded. Examples of such instances include:-

• Helping in class by handing out/collecting in work;
• Demonstrating to rest of class in P.E.;
• Showing good effort (regardless of outcome);
• Keeping desk tidy;
• Being organised with own equipment for lessons;
• Showing kindness to others;
• Willingness to participate in discussions;
• Sitting quietly and attentively;
• Good table manners at lunchtime;
• Helping to put out equipment or tidy up;
• Being polite;
• Setting a good example to younger pupils;
• Willingness to become involved in all aspects of school life (productions, clubs, trips, fundraising activities, etc).

Source: BeingDyslexic

Malcolm | Dyslexia Inspirational Story

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As with many ‘dyslexics’ Malcolm’s experience of the British education system was not a good one. Before being labeled as ‘dyslexic’ Malcolm’s lack of concentration was a concern and a mystery to his parents. At the age of seven his parents paid for him to be assessed at the Dyslexia Institute. In Malcolm’s own words, his life changed from then. Each week Malcolm received lessons to help him overcome dyslexia. He believes that although it meant his parents investing a lot of money in his education each week, it was worth it.

Despite his progress outside of school, Malcolm did not enjoy the school experience. When he started secondary school, he used a laptop to help him keep up with the work load, and to help his teachers to read his work. However being different and even using a laptop meant that Malcolm was bullied.’ Sunday night,’ he says , ‘was hell’ because he dreaded going to school on Monday morning.

At the age of fifteen Malcolm prepared to sit his GCSE’s, he also made a career choice: to use his skills to become a furniture maker. His mother was thold by one of Malcolm’s teachers that he should ‘lower his expectations’. Despite this Malcolm wasn’t deterred he sat his exams and achieved five GCSE’s grade A to C.

Malcolm now attends college full time to learn furniture making. He doesn’t know if this will be his final career choice, but he does know that he is not going to give up. Malcolm’s determination to succeed is an inspiration. Malcolm stresses that anyone with dyslexia dyslexic or parents of dyslexic children shouldn’t t give up, It is worth pushing the the education system, and it is worth investing in your future. Malcolm’s message: ‘If I can do well so can you’.

Tell us Your Dyslexia Story

We all know about famous ‘dyslexics’, but what about every-day people that have overcome barriers despite dyslexia?
Send us your story, along with a photo or video, for Dyslexic Brian’s Inspirational Stories section.

Overcoming Dyslexia as an Obstacle to Success

Dyslexia Quiz

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Match the Famous People’s names to the ‘Obstacles Experienced’:

FAMOUS PERSON	OBSTACLES EXPERIENCED
Jamie Oliver Famous chef and celebrity	Was put in the ‘stupid row’ when at primary school; later, as an unemployed and struggling single parent, wrote on scraps of paper in a local café.
F W Woolworth Famous for founding the ‘Woolworths’ chain of shops	Enjoys writing songs and tried to get into reading but just can’t get into that ‘book thing’.
Richard Branson Famous entrepreneur	Achieved his greatest work after the age of 46, by which time he was completely deaf.
Ludwig van Beethoven A famous composer	Being dyslexic has helped him in the business world – he sees some things more clearly than others.
Alexander Graham Bell Famous for inventing the telephone in 1876	Didn’t speak until he was four and didn’t read until he was seven.  His teacher described him as ‘mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams’.
J K Rowling A famous writer	Was told by his employers at the shop where he worked that he was not good enough to service customers.
Albert Einstein A brilliant physicist	Was told after a meeting with the President, “That’s an amazing invention, but who would want to use one of them?”
Robbie Williams Famous singer	Didn’t do well at school; people thought he was ‘thick’.

Source:

Dyslexia Awareness Week 2009 – Dyslexic Brian Supporting the Cause!!!

FREE Places on Dyslexia Workshops

To help celebrate this year’s Dyslexia Awareness Week we are running three FREE dyslexia workshops aimed at parents of dyslexic children.

Benefit from:

• A deeper understanding of the dyslexia related issues your child may be experiencing

• Knowing how different theories of dyslexia may be ‘helping’ or ‘hindering’ your child’s progress at school

• Learning several techniques that you can use to assist your child to improve their reading and writing ability

• Finding out the potential benefits of you becoming your child’s own Dyslexia Support Coach

• Evaluating your ability to become a Dyslexia Support Coach to your child

1. Saturday 7th November 2009    2pm – 4pm
2. Saturday 14th November 2009   2pm – 4pm
3. Saturday 21st November 2009   2pm – 4pm

In addition to the workshops we have also been Spreading the WORD about Dyslexia Awareness Week via LIVE Radio Shows, Dyslexia Workshops, and Guest Speaking Events.

Don’t forget to do your bit too – tell the world about dyslexia!!!

To book your FREE place on workshop or for more information please contact at info@DyslexicBrian.com

National Dyslexia Awareness Week | November 2009

Next week is National Dyslexia Awareness Week, and the question posed by Frewen College, the area’s only specialist a school for dyslexics, is “Just how aware are you of dyslexia?”

Most people think of dyslexia as a problem with reading, spelling, and perhaps comprehension, so assume it cannot be diagnosed until a child is already behind at school. But there are many other symptoms that can alert parents to the possibility in plenty of time to intervene at a much earlier stage.
A spokesman for the school said: “Dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence, and it can be found across all social and economic strata. Many dyslexics have considerable gifts, but if their difficulties are not identified and addressed early enough these strengths can be swamped by failure and self doubt.”

Here are Frewen’s top ten tell-tale signs of dyslexia that are not reading related. If you can ‘tick’ three or more, you need to start digging more deeply.

1. There is a strong genetic element to dyslexia, so if there is any family history of dyslexia or reading difficulties, be particularly alert to other warning signs.
2. Being slow to start talking, and then having trouble pronouncing some letters, especially M’s and N’s, R’s and L’s.
3. Reversing or mixing up sounds in multi-syllable words (favourites include aminal for animal, hekalopter for helicopter, bisgetti for spaghetti, or even nucular for nuclear!).
4. Trouble with tying shoe laces and getting dressed.
5. Co-ordination problems (excessive tripping, falling over, bumping into things, difficulty with catching or kicking a ball, or clapping a simple rhythm).
6. Difficulty undertaking any task that involves a sequence of actions, such as ‘do this, then do that.’
7. Difficulty learning abstract facts, such as days of the week or months of the year.
8. Very slow to learn the names of letters or sounds, or learning the alphabet.
9. May have walked quite early but did not crawl.
10. An unusually high number of ear infections.

Source: Bexhill Observer

DysFest dyslexia awerness week film festival | November 2009

Exploring dyslexia from a f…resh new perspective.

DysFest Is the first dyslexia awerness week film festival which explores the representation and understanding of dyslexia looking at films, technology and art.

Films and workshops highlighting different attitudes to Dyslexia from around the world and showing aspects of the condition will be followed by discussions with filmmakers and leading thinkers in the fields of assistive technology and development psychology.

That’ll take place in London from the 2nd to the 6th of November 2009.

For more information or to reserve your free seat visit http://www.dysfest.org.

More Workshops

From car mechanic to teacher | Dyslexic Inspirational Story

Birmingham Evening Mail published on August 18th 2005

“TEACHING has changed so much over the years,” are the opening words from Paul Reid, a 39 year old from Perry Barr, when you ask him what he thinks of his new career.

“I really struggled when I was at school. It was differrent back then and admitting you had a problem understanding something wasn’t easy.’”

Paul was a car mechanic for 15 years before suffering from arthiritis and decided to change career.

“I loved mechanics so much that I decided that I wanted to teach others how to do it,” he explained.

Paul enrolled on a City and Guilds Further Education Teaching Course at Josiah Mason College in order to acquire the necessary skills and gain a teaching qualification.

Paul decided to go all the way and since completing his course he has progressed on to a Certificate in Education, a university qualification delivered at JMC in partnership with University College Worcester, which will make him a fully qualified full time teacher.

Shortly after embarking on this journey, he was offered a job as a mechanics tutor at Greensprings Training.

To find out more, write to us or come to our  Dyslexia discussion groups.

Tell us Your Dyslexia Story

We all know about famous ‘dyslexics’, but what about every-day people that have overcome barriers despite dyslexia?
Send us your story, along with a photo or video, for Dyslexic Brian’s Inspirational Stories section.

Learning disabilities, a silent struggle | By Jay Balagna

When Eric Thornley was five years old, he was diagnosed with dyscalculia, a specific learning disability that inhibits a person’s learning of math. Coupled with a speech impediment, he quickly fell behind the other children in his class.

The now-19-year-old history and international affairs major is forced to spend more time studying and working on assignments than the average student.

“I’m not like the typical college student where I sign up for a fraternity and go out and party,” Thornley said. “I have to spend a lot more time on my schoolwork to keep up.”

Thornley is one of more than 400 students at the University of Nevada, Reno with a diagnosed learning disability, according to information from the Disability Resource Center.

Students with learning disabilities make up the second-highest portion served by the Disability Resource Center after psychological disabilities, Mary Zabel, the center’s director, said. The psychological disabilities include attention deficit disorder, accounting for the higher number, Zabel said. UNR’s learning disability rates largely fit with the national trend.

Specific learning disabilities are neurological disorders that affect a person’s ability to learn in various ways. “Learning disability” is an umbrella term used to refer to a number of different disorders, said Christine Cheney, a professor of special education at UNR and the chair of the education specialties department.

Included in the list of learning disabilities are dyscalculia; dyslexia, a reading and language-based disorder and dysgraphia, a writing-based disorder, as well as other, less-common handicaps.

Most people with learning disabilities are given a general diagnosis and not told which disorder they have, Cheney said.

“Generally, in the school system, we don’t tend to break it down and just say people are learning disabled,” she said.

That approach has the advantage of preventing decreased expectations for a student in any specific area, Cheney said. It sometimes expands those decreased expectations to all subjects, though.

“For the most part, people see this as something that can be overcome,” Cheney said. “There is the risk some people will just give up, though.”

Thornley said his learning disability affected him through grade school and into college.

“When I was younger, my first year of grade school was in a special education program which was a little disheartening,” he said.

The next year, Thornley was assigned to a regular classroom but still had to work to succeed in school with his disability.

As the years went by, he began to find himself wondering why he couldn’t achieve the high grades his older sister had earned in the same subjects. As he slowly came to terms with his dyscalculia, he began to realize he would have to start taking more responsibility for his education if he wanted to succeed later in life.

“Lowered expectations can often be a problem (for students with learning disabilities),” Cheney said. “Sometimes families and teachers can help too much and students can kind of get a learned helplessness.”

Those feelings of helplessness keep many students with learning disabilities from college educations, she said.

“There are a lot of capable students out there and the message is getting to them more and more that college is an option,” Cheney, whose son has a learning disability and is a UNR graduate, said.

While Thornley tries to do as much as he can on his own, he still needs help in some areas. His freshman year, he took a year-long Math 120 class offered through the Disability Resource Center. Now that his math requirement is completed, he uses only the alternative testing and note-taking services offered through the center.

The alternative testing is the same test given in the classes, but in a longer allotted time period and in the Disability Resource Center, Thornley said.

Another student in the same class provides the note-taking service by agreeing to take his own notes on carbon-copy paper in exchange for a $100 stipend toward the next semester’s tuition, Zabel said. Note-takers are screened by the Disability Resource Center to make sure their handwriting is legible and they are not on academic probation, she said. The money automatically is reduced from the following semester’s tuition.

Source: The Nevada Sagebrush

Tell us Your Dyslexia Story

We all know about famous ‘dyslexics’, but what about every-day people that have overcome barriers despite dyslexia?
Send us your story, along with a photo or video, for Dyslexic Brian’s Inspirational Stories section.