Inside the Dyslexic Mind: A resource for parents, teachers and dyslexics themselves - Review

• Title: Inside the Dyslexic Mind: A resource for parents, teachers and dyslexics themselves

• Author: Laughton King

• Publisher: Exisle Publishing; 1st edition (3 May 2023)

• Our Description: This book is about the author’s life, a dyslexic himself, who shares his understanding of the dyslexic mind. Laughton King has been a therapist for 35+ years and an author. King is super dedicated to sharing his personal experience and knowledge of the dyslexic mind. The book is designed as a resource for parents, teachers and provides meaning to dyslexic people too.

• Our Review: Being a parent of dyslexic children, I was very interested in reading Inside the Dyslexic Mind when offered. The covid lockdowns may have been a difficult time in everyone’s lives however the silver lining for us was during remote learning and we realised something wasn’t quite right. Miss was pushing back on help as she was embarrassed and not doing as well as her peers and her brother was having a hard time with his reading.

  Thanks to literacy tutors and an educational psychologist’s assessment, we received a dyslexic diagnosis for Miss. We explained everything to Miss and she felt a sense of relief that no she wasn’t dumb but that she thought differently to other kids. We were told that girls are notably later diagnosed as they tend to fly under the radar. We put support in motion for Miss inside & outside of class and after several years, things have improved dramatically for her. Her brother was starting kindy at the time and was having similar struggles so we started early intervention for him too so that he didn’t encounter similar struggles at school.

  I connected with Inside the Dyslexic Mind instantly and the book made me realise that all those years where I struggled at school, were not due to my lack of intelligence as some teachers (and my father thought) but rather a reflection of the schooling I received and that had things been explained to me in a way I understood, things would have been different.

  King simplifies a dyslexic mind vs a non dyslexic mind in a simple way - a dyslexic mind will think in pictures. He also uses a diesel vs petrol car analogy where dyslexic people are diesel cars and if given petrol instead of diesel fuel, they will fail. He explains how the current education system is linguistic heavy even in Maths problems which complicates things for dyslexic children even more.

  This book has connected me even more to my children and how they think. By understanding that they are visual thinkers, I now understand whilst they have an amazing imagination when talking about upcoming essays, when they finally write it in class, not all their amazing ideas make the paper because they see these ideas in pictures rather than language.

  Laughton King’s techniques explained throughout the book has also helped me talk to my children in a different way so that they can visualise tasks at home. For example, King gives an example for getting ready for school that parents should say ‘Grab your bag and put your shoes on’ instead of ‘Get ready’ as ‘Get ready’ has no pictorial meaning to the child. The word ‘don’t’ should not be used as the child will do the opposite and feel like there is something wrong with them when failing that task. He also explains that dyslexics don’t just encounter difficulties with language but find it hard to grasp the concepts of time, days of the week, months and seasons.

  King also has numerous pages of observable characteristics and common descriptors of dyslexia which I found fascinating and great to show non believers. I found myself and my children having some of those characteristics. So if you have a gut feeling that your child may be dyslexic and might need support, these characteristics are helpful and a good starting point for parents and educators.

  Inside the Dyslexic Mind is a brilliant book that resonated with me in more ways than one. Studying and working in IT and memorising languages was my saving grace as I wasn’t great at literacy. I too like King find reading books a task and although the border around the book helped stop my mind from wandering, I am a very slow reader. I was offered an audiobook which helped me tremendously.

  Inside the Dyslexic Mind is a well researched, well thought out and well explained. I have already recommended and recommend this book to those wanting to understand the dyslexic mind.

Credit: Inside the Dyslexic Mind

Credit: Inside the Dyslexic Mind

Grab a copy of Inside the Dyslexic Mind via Amazon Australia or Audiobook via Audible Audiobook or Booktopia.

This book and audiobook were gifted for the purposes of a review.

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