Having dyslexia is like having superpowers. Here are 6 superpowers of people with dyslexia:
· Creativity – the majority of people with dyslexia are very artistic and have above average imaginative skills.
· Spatial awareness – many people with dyslexia have the ability to manipulate 3D shapes in their minds.
· Seeing the bigger picture – people with dyslexia often see a situation holistically enabling them to focus on the important elements without getting lost in the detail.
· Problem solving – people with dyslexia are fast problem solvers through their ability of thinking laterally and outside of the box; providing unique methods for problem-solving and offering lots of insight.
· Recognising complex patterns in images – the dyslexic brain is generally larger than the typical brain making it highly skilled in recognising complex patterns in images and remembering pictures. The dyslexic memory is brilliant at mechanical and technical construction and design.
· Entrepreneurship – many of the world’s influential entrepreneurs have dyslexia including Richard Branson Steve Jobs and Henry Ford. Creativity and strategic thinking combined with excellent verbal communication and problem-solving skills are what makes so many dyslexic entrepreneurs successful. For more information on celebrities with dyslexia please click here to read our news article.
All these superpowers lead to natural curiosity to discover and understand new things – skills that are helpful throughout life and in almost every career.
Teaching Dyslexic Pupils
When devising a literacy teaching strategy for students with dyslexia Literacy anxiety or low level reading and writing ability it is important to consider their strengths. With many dyslexic students being creative having a love of visuals and a strong practical ability they will be suited to a multi-sensory approach that uses contextualisation to real life scenarios. Taking this into consideration at IDL we have developed a multi-sensory and cloud based IDL Literacy programme. IDL Literacy is an interactive and fully graded course mapped to schools’ curriculums that improves the ability of low-attaining learners in Literacy.