Until the age of 28 the cause of my inability to spell or read well had been identified as either lack of intellect or laziness. Sadly the word thick was used all too commonly during the years of my early education. Nonetheless like millions of others I learned to navigate the world and all that came across my path.
In contemporary parlance the word ‘strategies’ is used to describe the mechanisms people employ to bridge reading and writing inefficiencies. The advent of the spell checker became an inhibitor rather than an aid to my own literary development. Recently I read a newspaper article written by Sirin Kale the focus and title of which is The battle over dyslexia. As one identified late in life with dyslexia I found the article fascinating. We might wonder why, in an era of skepticism about facts, fake news and flawed conclusions, we should not be more willing to challenge established and accepted hypotheses, than are we! The state and the establishment are generally accepted as the authority, truth holders or custodians of perceived wisdom. A sort of parent who says to the questioning but trusting child ‘because I say so’. Being told I was dyslexic was for me a convenient explanation and the thought about whether dyslexia is an indisputable neurologically discovered fact never entered my mind. Why would I question it?
A question in the educational psychologist community over the basis of proven dyslexic has and will rage on. Far too many vested interests lay in certain hands to have an unbiased view, indeed there is money at stake and for many parents the real life chances of their child. Simply put there are well informed scientists and lead individuals in two camps some believe identifying dyslexia to be a certainty and others who think the opposite.
In the KALE’S article two lines stood out to me. Tackling the problem of children suffering in their attempts to read or write is central to all sides of the debate, approach differs. In the sixties a young researcher ‘couldn’t find a pattern of indicators, common to all the children he tested, … Each child’s literacy problems seemed to be different.’ Let me repeat ‘Each child’s literacy problems seemed to be different’. It seems to me that solving that problem is where energy should be and has been put. My only caution is that we avoid building an identity for the problem at the expense of the child’s identity. Each child is unique as are their challenges. I remember disruptive students in my year at school being placed alone in the corridor or library, great for the education of others but it did not advance their own learning. They needed a unique response.
That second sentence in the article. Sirin Kale writes that ‘A human being cannot learn to read and write on their own’. Walking and talking can develop alone apparently but not these skills. The corridor, library or technology can create an aloneness, one might suggest. In labelling and focusing on the problem we can isolate people from opportunities only found in community – togetherness. My hope is that we never stop pushing to find resources or programmes to advance the learning of those who find reading and writing an unnatural mystery. Yet we might do well to add caution to any response which in recognising that a child is truly unique goes on to create aloneness for them. Tackling any form of education on a national scale will always result in attempts to create a mass response producing programmes and formula. In doing so I wonder if we lose sight of the individual student in our over stating the difficulty.
As a Christian I find it helpful to recognise in Jesus’ words But even the hairs of your head are all numbered, as expressing our individuality. Some of us can read well others can’t and I wonder if the reasons are as individual as the number of hairs on our head. I don’t recall Jesus instituting a programme for bald people.
My own personal journey in the church began with a tremendous embarrassment when asked to read a verse from the Bible. The mistake I made drew laughter which felt like a sword in my heart. I could easily have walked away and never returned. Singing words unfamiliar and following sermon notes on a weekly hand out were painful. So what changed?
Two things came to the fore for me in my walk of faith. I developed a desire to know stuff for myself, a mini distrust of the preacher! This was followed by painstakingly working through books and scribbling my own thoughts and talking them out with like-minded people. Romans 12 suggested that we are better together than apart, its how we learn and grow. A personal desire for knowledge helps us to start digging but it only makes sense when the journey is shared.
Each child’s literacy problems seemed to be different – because we are unique.
A human being cannot learn to read and write on their own – because we are better together than alone.
Rob Wykes 