One in 10 people in Ireland have dyslexia, according to estimates, though primary schoolteacher and lecturer Éilís Daly – who undertook a master’s in dyslexia – feels that figure may well be higher.
One of the big challenges, she says, is that it’s difficult to test for dyslexia. “You have to take several different tests because there are so many different elements to dyslexia. I think everyone knows that it’s to do with your spelling and your reading and your writing. But it does have other factors as well – your working memory is a big thing,” she says. This can present, Daly says, as a child struggling to follow several instructions in a row.
Early intervention is key, she says. In fact, the optimal time for intervention is from “the middle of junior infants to the middle of first class. That’s where most progress is made”.
[ ‘Children with dyslexia are made to feel they’re not clever’Opens in new window ]
It’s something Daly believes most people aren’t aware of.
Daly feels teacher training in Ireland “isn’t up to scratch. I have a two-year master’s just specifically on dyslexia. You have to really know your subject to be even comfortable enough to say to parents, ‘I think he needs an assessment’.”
While things have improved, she finds it frustrating there hasn’t been more progress, particularly when we consider that, based on current statistics, in a class size of 30, a teacher could have three students with dyslexia.
With focus in recent weeks on the increased number of students receiving exemptions from Irish, Daly says it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that students with dyslexia who have been granted exemptions need them. “They are so entitled to it, and so need it for equality and equity within the education system... Students who are dyslexic, they come home and are absolutely exhausted. They work so, so hard to try and keep up with their peers.
“Some dyslexic students are really good at Irish and that’s absolutely amazing, but some aren’t. It is very common that young people who are dyslexic really struggle with Irish. I think school is hard enough when you’re dyslexic, that making them do it for the sake of doing it, when really that time could be used for other important things, like working on touch-typing skills, or maybe that’s when they get their support. Little things like that which would benefit them so much more in the long run.”
What’s life like for people living with dyslexia? A moving, new RTÉ documentary, Lost for Words, looks at the experiences of children and adults from a diverse range of backgrounds and explores the challenges and stigma they have faced because of dyslexia.
Hotelier John Brennan, who features in the programme, has dyslexia, and left school aged 15. He knew from “very early on” that he was struggling in school, and that others in his class were “way ahead” of him.
Brennan says that, although he enjoyed the social aspect of school, he hated homework. He was very relieved to get a diagnosis of dyslexia. “I was thrilled [to hear I had dyslexia]. It was a very exotic name. For the previous, six, seven, eight years, it was ‘stupid’, my name.”
There are still things he struggles with. “I don’t have an issue in my day-to-day workings,” he says, but being put on the spot to read is something that would still cause him to panic.
Recently, Brennan attended a small wedding and, as he arrived at the church, he was handed a piece of paper by the groom, who asked him to do the first reading. “If you got a gun and put it to my head, I’d pull the trigger myself,” he says, describing his fear. “It was a nightmare situation. Because there were only 12 of us, they were extremely close friends, we knew everyone at the wedding. But for me to go up and read – not in a million years.”
Thankfully, another guest, noticing Brennan’s stress, said he would do the reading, and he brought up the gifts instead.
In spite of Brennan’s challenges with reading and writing, he wrote a book on dyslexia. So, what do words on a page look like to him? “What you see when you’re looking at a book, in my mind, is a puzzle of letters.” He describes it as being similar to a word search.
He feels few people would have picked him out to have the success in his career that he has had – and that, he believes, is because of the way we measure success at a young age. “There’s no two people the same,” he says. “Society views people, to some extent... on how they’re doing in school.”
Róisín Lowe is a teacher with dyslexia, who also features in the documentary. She feels a “need to give back”, having experienced school as a student with dyslexia.
She says there are more teachers with dyslexia than people realise, but often teachers don’t share that they’re dyslexic. “I did my dissertation on teachers with dyslexia in Ireland and I’d a lot of people say, ‘Yes, I’m dyslexic and yes I’m a teacher, but I haven’t told anyone because there’s still a stigma around it’. There’s a lot of principals who believe if you’re dyslexic you can’t teach reading and writing.”
Lowe was eight when she got her diagnosis. Her difficulty was “reading and spelling. The letters used to “swim on the page”. To explain, she describes how the word ‘birthdays’ looks to her. “When I look at it, the r will have jumped to the end and the h will be at the beginning, because they like to move around on the page. Different-coloured pages or different fonts would get them to stick together.” Cursive writing, she says, made a big difference in terms of tying letters together for her.
Lowe still “100 per cent” struggles with spelling. “I have no idea where letters should be going in words. It’s now just rote learning and common words that I would use all the time.”
I was told to write an essay on Protestants, so obviously the word was going to be in it about 15 times. Every single time I wrote ‘Prostitute’
— Róisín Lowe
If Lowe is preparing a new lesson for class, she sits down the night before and googles the correct spellings of relevant words.
How does she correct the spelling mistakes made by children she’s teaching? “When I get handed in 20 spelling copies, I can tell you which ones are wrong – I can’t tell you why they’re wrong, I just know they look funny.”
Lowe puts a pencil mark on the ones that “look funny”, takes out the correct spelling sheet and then corrects with aid of that. “I can see the visual word but not the exact letters.”
Tools help, but they don’t completely remove the need for dyslexic children to learn some spellings. “Spell-check on the computer is brilliant,” she says, “but I have to at least be giving it some of the letters correct, or else it’s going to give me something completely different.”
And it happened to her at school. “I was in sixth year, in an all-girls Catholic school in Ireland, doing religion. I was told to write an essay on Protestants, so obviously the word was going to be in it about 15 times.
“Every single time I wrote ‘Prostitute’. And I spelt it right every single time,” she says, laughing.
Lowe says it’s vital we “educate the educators. We need to change teacher training.” Her own teacher training only included one 45-minute lecture on dyslexia. She is now working in Canada as a learning support teacher. But she has experienced negative reactions to job applications in the past when she made it known she was dyslexic. “I’ve had interviews where, once they found out I was dyslexic, they go, ‘We’re going to go a different way’.
“I’ve also been in school where they have hired me knowing I’m dyslexic, but have told me I can’t tell my class.”
However, in spite of the challenges, Lowe wouldn’t change having dyslexia. “It is 100 per cent who I am.”
- Lost for Words airs on RTÉ 1 and RTÉ Player on Wednesday (Sept 18th) at 9.35pm.
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