Overcoming Dyslexia

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Pages: 6

Set Up for Failure

Many people can’t read or spell, but teachers and educators are not equipped to help them. Dyslexia is a reading and spelling disability that affects a significant percentage of the student population, but there does not seem to be any sense of urgency in addressing it. Instead of trying to help solve this problem schools seem to want to turn their backs on it. Even though schools provide accommodations for dyslexic students, educators need dyslexic training to understand the scope of the dyslexic diagnosis, know how to use tools to help dyslexic students, and realize the high levels of achievement that dyslexic students can attain.

Dyslexia is extremely common with one out of every 10 Americans having dyslexia
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To overcome dyslexia it is important to own up to dyslexia but not let it define who you are (Firth).

Dyslexic people abound in the world of celebrities. Henry Winkler, Keira Knightley, Whoopi Goldberg, Ingvar Kamprad, Bruce Jenner, Alyssa Milano, Ozzy Osbourne, Cher, Jay Leno, Agatha Christie, and Charles Schwab (Allen) Are just a few of the many famous dyslexics. In addition Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill represent the group of influential people who are believed to have been dyslexic but were alive before the days of the dyslexic diagnosis (Warren).

To get to the place in life where these people reached, they had to overcome obstacles due to their dyslexia. Ozzy Osbourne dropped out of school and started using drugs to help him cope with his dyslexia (Allen). Henry Winkler’s parents called him a "Dumb Dog" because of his dyslexia which was not diagnosed until he was 35. Later in life Winkler was in the TV show Happy Days in which his character rode a motorcycle, but Winkler actually was never able to ride the bike because his dyslexia prevented him from understanding how to operate it (Allen). Keira Knightley’s headmaster at school questioned if she really had dyslexia. Knightly did not understand why she would lie about having a learning disability (Allen). Whoopi Goldberg dropped out of high school. She thought that she was retarded before her dyslexia was diagnosed