Dyslexia in the spotlight
MARION McMULLEN LOOKS AT CELEBRITIES WITH THE CONDITION AS I’M A CELEB’S MATT HANCOCK AIMS TO RAISE AWARENESS
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Former health secretary Matt Hancock has said he took part in ITV’s I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! to highlight dyslexia. He was diagnosed with the condition when he was at university and wants to bring in universal screening for dyslexia in primary schools.
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The Repair Shop’s Jay Blades left school at 15 with no qualifications but got back on track studying for a degree in criminology and philosophy at Buckinghamshire New University from 2001, where his dyslexia was identified and supported. He said: “People find it amazing that somebody can’t read.”
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Film star Keira Knightley learned she had dyslexia when she was at school and is among those who have lent their backing to the Made By Dyslexic campaign. It aims to train teachers around the world to spot dyslexia.
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TV presenter Holly Willoughby has dyslexia and says she suffered impostor syndrome in the early days of her career, but has now learned to trust herself.
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Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein is said to have been dyslexic and did not speak until he was three years old. Teachers thought he was intellectually impaired, but Einstein (right) said: “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
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Businessman Sir Richard Branson is dyslexic and said: “When I was young a long time ago at school, you just thought you were thick or stupid. There wasn’t even a term for it.” He praised LinkedIn’s decision earlier this year to recognise the term “Dyslexic Thinking”.
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Henry “The Fonz” Winkler found TV fame in US comedy series Happy Day in the 1970s, but did not realise he had dyslexia until he was 31 when his stepson Jed was diagnosed with the same condition at school. The actor said: “I finally figured out that I wasn’t stupid. “My brain was just wired a bit differently.”
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Pirates of the Caribbean actor Orlando Bloom was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child and said learning lines was tricky because of his problem with reading.
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Tom Cruise has previously spoken of his dyslexia and said it stopped him passing his pilot’s exams while shooting Top Gun in the 1980s.
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TV presenter Matt Baker says dyslexia has made him better at his job. He said: “I listen to people more in my interviews because I’m not reading from the autocue. I will only ask what’s relevant to what somebody is saying to me, because I’m listening to what they are saying.”