Basic Abilities that All Dyslexics Share

If you are dyslexic, you have to understand what your mind can do differently than other types of minds. The mental functions that cause dyslexia are special. The basic abilities that dyslexics share include:

1. The ability to alter and create perceptions 
2. Acute, 3D awareness of their surroundings
3. The heightened sense of curiousity
4. The natural tendency to think in images - not words
5. The enhanced intuition and insight
6. Multi-dimensional perception using all senses
7. The ability to experience thought as reality
8. Heightened vividness of imagination

Check out these great books:
Gift of Dyslexia
In the Mind's Eye

Seeing the Way a Dyslexic Might See

This is a series of animations that depict "the dancing letters of dyslexia". They were created at Coventry University by working with dyslexic kids for the purpose of demystifying Visual Dylexia. This is an example of how I see. It's great, actually. I reasoned early that if my mind could do this then I could control it and I used my belly button as a tool - imaging that it was the center of gravity - and I sucked the letters back to a line. Sometimes I created the "line" in my head; sometimes with a ruler or edge of a piece of paper.


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Famous Dyslexics

I had a great opportunity today to talk about Dyslexia

DyslexicBrian.com is a web site that supports dyslexic people in overcoming their dylexia. Antonio Farruggia creates the learning and support programmes there based on his 25 years of experience. He has a place on the site called "inspirational stories" and asked me to write a brief story about my own dyslexia. I sent him a poem about "reading" and he liked it so much he asked for the story.

Now you can read it: http://dyslexicbrian.com/category/inspirational-stories/

Dyslexia has helped me understand that there are powerful differences in the ways human minds are wired and I respect others wiring even as I respect my own. There are many ways a mind can be wired – dyslexia is just one – and they are all very fascinating. I embrace this wiring. I know the pitfalls and the glories of it and that there is so much to learn from a person with a 3-D mind.


I hope you enjoy the story. Thanks for all your support.

Writers write so readers must read ...

As writers we rely heavily on the ability of other to read. We actually take it for granted. The statistics are sobering, however.  More than 42 million American adults can't read at all*. The number of adults classified as functially illiterate icreases by about 2.25 million each year. Of our high school graduates, 20% can be classified as functionally illiterate at the time of graduation.

There are lots of pundits pondering the issue. But we seem to have I.Q. log jam on this - unable to formulate a solution. One thing for sure, there will be less writers if there are less readers and a polarization of effective leadership if we don't get this sorted out.

So writers - we need to get involved or we will lose our audiences. And worse than that, we may just atrophy our ability to communicate.

Some Books:

Franz Flesch - Why Johnny Still Can't Read


Literacy: Helping Students Construct Meaning


50 Literacy Strategies

Make the Letters Stop Dancing

When my mom first opened books
across my lap for quiet looks
the pictures dazzled at a glance
and every word got up and danced.

The “T” and “H” spun with the “E”
and all for the delight of me
but they would not be still enough
for me to learn to read the stuff.

They would not sit on the line
so I stopped them with my mind
imagining them spatially
I sucked them down with gravity.

They quivered on the sentence shelf
till I could read them all myself -
And when I finished paragraphs
I let them all back up to dance.

Andrea Boff Sutton © 2009

Watch for the entire dance of the alphabet @ Alphadance.blogspot.com

The Dyslexic Belly Button Trick

How I learned to read ...

What could be more important than to learn to read? Afterall, it's really the first great step a writer must take. But when you are dyslexic, there are a few challenges around reading. In my case, the letters danced. They wiggled and jumped and flipped around like a gang of crumpers. I had to find a way to stop them so I used "belly button gravity" - an imagined force of gravity that eminated from my navel and tamed the dancing letters that misbehaved in all my books. The belly button gravity anchored my letters so I could read the words. I assumed they danced for everyone. I assumed everyone settled down the paragraphs with belly button force fields. 


It's hard to know what you don't know. But when the letters obeyed, I could read. It took a few years to stop my head nodding at every syllable though.

The dyslexic belly button trick did not solve the syllabic head bobbing. So, follow the blog because that story's a cliff hanger.


Dyslexics Untie.