People suffering from dyslexia have difficulty reading letters and words; it’s a kind of learning disability that has nothing to do with their intelligence.
Speaking to guest Mollie King on ITV’s Saturday Morning, famous TV Chef James Martin shared his experience about being dyslexic and how it led to him failing cookery at school.
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He said:
Recently, critics have put comments on the fact his dyslexia impacts his reading of autocue during his TV appearances.
“I know a big passion of yours is this dyslexia foundation which I wanted to pick up on because it’s something that’s close to my heart, because I’m dyslexic as well – severely dyslexic,” he said.
“I know that you are as well and you found that out when you were a young kid.”
Mollie told James she knew she had the condition at the age of 10, to which James replied:
“I didn’t know about mine until I was 30 years old, when I started in television to read the autocue.
“For me it’s an absolute nightmare, to read that.”
He continued:
“I’ve got to walk and talk and it wasn’t until a wonderful lady, I’ll always remember her and I’d like to thank her as well.
“She works for the BBC and she turned around and said, ‘You’ve got to walk and talk at the same time,’ and sent me away for a little lesson on how to do it.
“You need somebody like that to give you the confidence, don’t you really?”
Symptoms of dyslexia
The symptoms of dyslexia usually become apparent when a child starts school and begins to focus more on learning how to read and write.
Government health body says a person with dyslexia may:
- read and write very slowly
- confuse the order of letters in words
- put letters the wrong way round (such as writing “b” instead of “d”)
- have poor or inconsistent spelling
- understand information when told verbally, but have difficulty with information that’s written down
- find it hard to carry out a sequence of directions
- struggle with planning and organization
But people with dyslexia often have good skills in other areas, such as creative thinking and problem solving.
If you think your child may have dyslexia, the first step is to speak to their teacher or their school’s special educational needs coordinator about your concerns.
Additional support may be offered to help your child if necessary.
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