16/05/2020
What colour do you read in?
You may think this is a strange question but if you have dyslexia this may be something you can relate to. Dyslexia is a learning difference, note I say difference not a difficulty, because it doesn’t have to be a difficulty.
If you are dyslexic you may learn and process things in a different way because your brain is wired for whole brain thinking. Yes you may struggle with some left hand side brain activities; language, reading, auditory perception, visual symbol recognition, phonological awareness (put simply processing sounds of letters and words) but never forget the 'gift of dyslexia'. Would I swap my dyslexia brain for a non dyslexic brain? No never !
Having dyslexia gives you a whole set of attributes and skills that are wonderful. Do you know if you have dyslexia you have right side brain dominance. This means the activities this side of the brain manages, in all probability, you are more capable of than non dyslexic people. What does this mean? Well it is highly probable you are good at; creative tasks- not just art but ideas, have good interpersonal skills-getting on well with people, can see the big picture- this gives you wonderful skills at problem solving. These skills are extremely beneficial in jobs such as; health and social care, project managers, art and design, business. People with dyslexia often thrive at tasks involving visual perception or seeing in 3D- this is a big asset for jobs such as architecture or engineering.
As a dyslexic person we tend to think and perceive multi-dimensionally. Oh that sounds a little deep, in essence it means we use our senses, ALL of our senses much more efficiently than non-dyslexic people. This is both in making sense of the world; judging situations and also in our learning and education. Harness this and use it, it is going to be valuable in your education for learning and memory.
Multi-sensory learning, this means learning by using as many of your senses as possible when learning and using your memory. The work your tutor gives you and the lessons you attend can be converted to this methodology and you will find it helps enormously. Let us think about this. Consider something in your life you have a strong memory of; one Christmas or a party, a part of an holiday you particularly remember. When this occurred did you write down what was happening and think I must remember this? Of course not, but when it comes to class work, or home study this is what most of us attempt to do. In reality you probably remember that holiday or party through your senses. Embedded there in your long term memory by the sounds you heard, the sights you saw, the smells you smelt, the feelings you had emotionally and physically. Were your shoes too tight? was the rock you sat on cold and hard? The taste of the foods you enjoyed or did not like. This can be a more effective way of learning, particularly if you have dyslexia but also works well for most people. Business and marketing already draw on our senses to ensure we recognize their products and labelling.
Reading and writing is wonderful but never loose sight of the fact that printing was developed around the year 1440 and people had wonderful inventions, thoughts and ideas they passed on to others before this. What I am saying is there are many ways to learn and remember what you are being taught and it is finding out what works well for you.
You may have some areas of your work and life you find more challenging but support is available to help with these. For the work you have to produce for class and assessments, tuition is available to help you improve your essay structuring, spelling and grammar. Sessions on showing you strategies and techniques to help you proof read your own work, and plan work and life commitments-be more organised. As well as sessions on taking useful workable notes, instead of rewriting your whole text book (there are many ways of making notes).
Two of the quickest and easiest tips for you to take away this issue are experimenting yourself with which colours work for you, what colour do you read in? Try different coloured texts , against different colour back grounds; on paper and on your computer. Try different colour acetates over text for reading (I have some of these for you to try if you wish). For most people we see colours, we have colour cones in our eyes to enable this, and only see in black and white at night time. However much of printed material is printed in black on a white back ground, this is not compatible with our eye to brain processing. If you have dyslexia this can be increasingly so, it may make you feel more tired reading as you have to work harder to process the text, or find your place in the text, you may feel you just switch off concentration from reading it altogether.
This article is a snap shot of information but there is so much more to discover about your dyslexia, which is very different for different people. There are many strategies, methodologies and techniques you can develop and use which I hope to be able to demonstrate in further issues that you may find useful.
So what colour do you read in? For me its pink or green
Ellie Lilly
