Dyslexic and Loving Words - Video

A film by Vicky Morris

Made for Off the Shelf Festival of Words 2013

Dyslexic and Loving Words asks the question -- "What if you're dyslexic but you love to write or use words?"

Through interviews with seven practicing wordsmiths, the film highlights how it's possible to overcome dyslexic issues or work around the challenges they present if you have a passion for words.

Within the testimonials we find a poet and author, a storyteller, a spoken word artist, a creative writing student, a novelist and the founder of an initiative for dyslexic writers.

John Stein

There are also insights from Mel Hunt, Principal Specialist Teacher at Dyslexia Action Sheffield and Professor John Stein, of the Dyslexia Research Trust.

Check out: 
National Dyslexia Action Charity;
RASP: Rebelling Against Spelling Press (RASP) A publishing company for dyslexic writers.
DYSPLA: Celebrating dyslexic story makers 

Children should be allowed to get Bored, Stand and Stare

Children should be allowed to get bored, and stand and stare, so they can develop their innate ability to be creative, an education expert says.

Dr Teresa Belton said that the assumption; children should be constantly active, could be a barrier to the development of their imagination

She quizzed author Meera Syal and artist Grayson Perry about how boredom had aided their creativity as children.

Syal said boredom made her write, while Perry said it was a "creative state".

The senior researcher at the University of East Anglia's School of Education and Lifelong Learning interviewed a number of authors, artists and scientists in her exploration of the effects of boredom.

She heard Syal's memories of the small mining village, with few distractions, where she grew up.

Dr Teresa Belton

Dr Belton said: "Lack of things to do spurred her to talk to people she would not otherwise have engaged with and to try activities she would not, under other circumstances, have experienced, such as talking to elderly neighbours and learning to bake cakes.

"Boredom is often associated with solitude and Syal spent hours of her early life staring out of the window across fields and woods, watching the changing weather and seasons.

"But importantly boredom made her write. She kept a diary from a young age, filling it with observations, short stories, poems, and diatribe. She attributes these early beginnings to becoming a writer late in life."

Meera Syal

'Reflection'
The comedienne turned writer said: "Enforced solitude alone with a blank page is a wonderful spur."

While Perry said boredom was also beneficial for adults: "As I get older, I appreciate reflection and boredom. Boredom is a very creative state."

Neuroscientist and expert on brain deterioration Baroness Prof Susan Greenfield, who also spoke to the academic, recalled a childhood in a family with little money and no siblings until she was 13 but in a very privileged household.

Grayson Perry

"She happily entertained herself with making up stories, drawing pictures of her stories and going to the library."

Dr Belton, who is an expert in the impact of emotions on behaviour and learning, said boredom could be an "uncomfortable feeling" and that society had "developed an expectation of being constantly occupied and constantly stimulated".

But she warned that being creative "involves being able to develop internal stimulus".

"Nature abhors a vacuum and we try to fill it," she said. "Some young people who do not have the interior resources or the responses to deal with that boredom creatively then sometimes end up smashing up bus shelters or taking cars out for a joyride."

Read more of this article here

R.A.S.P. - What is a Dyslexic Writer?

There are far too few books that are written for dyslexics. The ones available tend to focus on recovering from the problem.

They offer guidance or reassurance that dyslexia, can be solved, or lessened. They point out the advantages, disadvantages, or what it looks like.

All too common, is the perception that dyslexics would be better off in a world without books, without language, without reading.

In November 2011, to coincide with Dyslexia Awareness Week, RASP released Forgotten Letters: An Anthology of Literature by Dyslexic Writers.

The book is a compilation of work by contemporary dyslexic writers, both renowned and emerging, including but not limited to,

• Billy Childish (co-founder of the Stuckism Art Movement); 
• Andrew Solomon (winner of the 2001 National Book Award and finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize and author of "The Autism Rights Movement"); 
• Thomas G. West (author of Thinking Like Einstein and In the Mind’s Eye. Watch his videos on YouTube); 
• Sally Gardner, (winner of the 2005 Nestlé Children's Book Prize Gold Award and, shortlisted for the British Children's Book of the Year in 2006); 
• Philip Schultz (winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry); and 
• Benjamin Zephaniah (included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008).

Some contributors have chosen to explore the concept of dyslexia through orthographic aberrations, while others have addressed their techniques for writing or discussed what writing means to them.

Together they bring attention to the structure of stories, images in words, and the authors’ love of language.

As such, this anthology is about more than the forgetting of letters. It is a testimony to the value of writing to dyslexics.

It brings to the fore notions of authorship, and authority.

It asks:

• who decides what dyslexia is? and 
• who authorises if whether dyslexics can write, or not? 

The book is considered to be of interest, not just to dyslexics, but also those interested in the relationship between identity and authorship as authority.

It provides a compelling read to all concerned with the limitations of representation and gives a voice to those who have been marginalised by literary traditions.

Visit the R.a.s.p. website here: www.r-a-s-p.co.uk

There are three books currently be distributed by RASP The Dyslexic Collective, Tal and the ABC and Pokkadots and Abucuses.

For more infomation about buying books from RASP email: sales@r-a-s-p.co.uk

My Dyslexia by Philip Schultz: Interview - YouTube

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and founder/director of the Writers Studio
Philip Schultz read from his new book, My Dyslexia, at the Churchill School in NYC.
Drs. Sally and Bennett Shaywitz also sat down with him to talk about his dyslexia.

Author Ruth Young talks on Facebook about how children learn

Ruth Young - Author

Pleased to see the rise in 'forest nursery schools'. Chldren play outside all day regardless of the weather. Children learn once they have got all the 'play out of the way'. 

These schools provide this. Writing letters in the mud, counting bugs you find is fun. Then they are ready to then be taught formally. 

Learning when you are little should be exciting. They learn by discovering for themselves and won't forget it.

Visit Ruth's facebook page for some more sage advice and good conversation: Ruth Young on Facebook