“I usually don’t borrow library books because I couldn’t read them – now I can!”

This was the great feedback that we had from one student this week when he discovered our new dyslexic font fiction collections. The students at Shalom have had access to ebooks in dyslexic font for a while in the Sora platform (accessed through Sia) but for those who prefer to hold a physical book both the junior and the senior libraries now feature a small but growing collection of books in dyslexic font.

There is confusion about the concept of dyslexia, whether it is a condition or a disorder, dyslexia experts assert that it is actually neither, the best definition is that is an “unexpected difficulty with reading” (Shaywitz, 2020). Dyslexia is language-based with clustered symptoms that relate to language and reading. Far from being a sign of unwillingness to learn or lower intelligence, the ‘stealth’ dyslexic is actually extremely clever and develops coping mechanisms that mask their difficulty by filling in gaps and memorizing. It takes skill to disguise their issues and so these bright children typically seem to have extremely good comprehension at quite a young age. Reading ultimately requires automatic decoding, the stealth dyslexic appears to be decoding well but in reality, they are not so much decoding as they are reciting. The cognitive delays that lay at the heart of dyslexia can be overcome in most cases but access to specially designed print matter helps acquaint the child with the art of reading.

Until quite recently dyslexic reading material seemed only to be aimed at primary school aged children, luckily there are now publishing houses that can supply our high school aged students with relevant reading material.

Shaywitz, S.  (2020). Overcoming Dyslexia. 2nd edn. Random House Diversified.