I have just discovered a fascinating (short) article on dyslexia. The gist of it is that dyslexia can be caused by any of several difficulties, and that different writing systems make use of different areas of the brain. The result is that a person can be dyslexic in one language but not the other – and that no one writing system is best for all dyslexics.
Thank you for your wonderful blog.
My understanding of dyslexia is that it is a pseudo-medical label applied to children who are resisting being coerced into learning to read and write. It isn't a mental "disease", because there are no mental diseases. The fact that there is no objective test or consistent set of symptoms for the syndrome is very telling.
Parents and teachers worry when a child doesn't enjoy learning to read straight away. I believe this fear is unfounded. Nearly all children will *want* to learn to read eventually. (Unless perhaps they have major hang-ups caused by disappointed adults.)
They'll want to understand the menus on their computer games and to send text messages to their friends. And they'll probably want to read for themselves those books they enjoyed having read to them earlier in childhood.