Raising Funds To Help Dyslexia

Local boy wants others to benefit from his progress

Local boy Harry Marshall who is dyslexic, is on a drive to raise the profile of the condition and raise funding to help others complete a special course which has helped him enormously.

Harry, a student at Chiswick School, has had problems with reading and writing from the age of six but has made huge advances as a result of the Davis programme.

Harry is so pleased with his progress that he has decided that others should benefit. He is doing a sponsored bike ride from Bath to Pendine sands in Wales (164 miles in 5 days) during the May half-term to raise awareness and celebrate being dyslexic. He hopes to raise £1,650 so that at least one other person can do the programme.

Dyslexia can severely affect written and verbal communication.  His mother said Harry spent years trying to get up to speed with his reading and writing, and became more and more frustrated as a result.

After years of searching, a friend recommended the Davis Programme created by a man called Ronald Davis who was 38 when he discovered how to ‘turn off the disorientation which made normal reading impossible.’

Ron wrote a book called, ‘The Gift of Dyslexia’ and created a programme to help other dyslexics.

One of these was Linda Cartwright who became Harry's teacher for the programme. She explains that Ron Davis “had learned that when a dyslexic thinks in pictures they can experience their imagination as vividly as in real life. This is similar to the 3D cinema experience where it looks and feels like you are in the film. This unique ability can be seen as a gift. However, it does not work for symbols, like letters, words and numbers, which is where most dyslexics experience difficulty.”

Since finishing the programme, Harry is now doing really well at school and his teachers have said his written work is now unbelievably accurate and advanced. He is also much more confident, happy and excited about his future.

If you would help support Harry's bikeride go to his fundraising page here.

April 17, 2014