You’d never have guessed it to look at her, but she’d spent most of her life certain she was the dumb one.

She was well into her sixties by the time she came to see me. She could read perfectly well, that wasn’t the problem. Unfortunately, she was unable to remember most of what she’d read. She’d read something, and moments later it was gone, as though she’d never read it at all.

When parents first come to see me, they want to know what's wrong. Here are the signs I see parents miss most often, and what's really going on behind them.

I still remember the dread of exams.

I'd studied hard. I'd memorised as much as I possibly could. But I never knew what I'd actually be able to pull out of the hat once I sat down, turned the paper over, and had to write an answer.

I'd sit there wracking my brains, hunting for anything that might fit on the page. Any answer at all. And when nothing came, I wouldn't quite panic, but I'd start flicking back through the paper, looking for any question I could answer. Anywhere that I could fill in a blank.

You'd expect the long, complicated words to be the hard ones. Often it's the opposite.

Someone who thinks in a visual way can read dinosaur, or helicopter, or trampoline, because those words have something to connect with. An object behind them. Something they can see and a picture the mind can hold onto.

However, roughly half the words on any page aren't like that. Was. Of. The. And. If. Were. There's no picture for was. Nothing to see when you read of. For a visual mind, these words don't connect to anything, so the brain hits a small blank, right in the middle of the sentence.

A ten year old boy sat on my couch and sobbed. Not for a few minutes. For three sessions.

He was so distressed his mum had to leave him there on the couch, crying, and step out. He was convinced he was never going to read. That it was too hard, that he was dumb, and that he was never going to get through school. He had already decided all of this about himself, and he wasn't old enough to have decided anything of the sort.

This was a boy who was brilliant on the sports field. Nuts about football, and properly talented at it. Out there he knew exactly what he was doing. But none of that counted for anything in his own head, because he couldn't read, and reading was the thing he'd decided measured his worth.

The one thing he couldn't do had quietly cancelled out everything he could.

I rocked up to a school hall the other day, a whole year early.

I was well prepared, ready for an expo, and instead I found myself standing outside a room full of students sitting exams. Wrong date. Not by a day, by a year. Well prepared indeed.

But standing there, my attention went to the students inside, and it took me straight back.

I remember exam dread. I had studied hard, but I never knew what I would actually be able to pull out of the hat once I sat down and had to write an answer.

I knew what I wanted to say. I just could not get it onto the page in any way that made sense.

The other day I sat in on a year one phonics lesson. Five year olds, sounding out letters, and I came away thinking about it for the rest of the day.

The teacher was wonderful. She had the children saying each sound with real enthusiasm, and she had given them hand signals, one action for vowels, another for consonants, so they could feel the difference between the two. Five year olds, happily telling me which was which. I was genuinely impressed.

Most tutoring helps a bit. For a while.

Then the term ends, or the school year changes, and you're back looking for the next bit of help.

I've had parents tell me they've spent thousands over several years, and their child is still managing the same struggle, just with more support wrapped around it.

It's a bit like trying to run in shoes two sizes too small. Lacing them tighter, running further, pushing harder, none of that makes the shoes fit. At some point the answer isn't more effort in the same shoes. It's different shoes.

I stopped a boy halfway through a page yesterday because I could see how hard he was working.

He knew the words he knew, and sounded out the ones he didn't, one of them back to front, though it sounded close enough to him that nothing felt wrong.

I asked him what the story was about so far. He told me it was a girl jumping on a trampoline. He had two things right, a girl, and jumping. The story was actually about her horse, Dan, who loved to jump.

He had no idea how much of what he had just read out loud was not actually there. He knows reading is hard for him. He does not know why.

The other night I watched Erling Haaland score the goal that knocked Brazil out of the World Cup.

He's the big blonde Norwegian who then picked up a drum and led the whole stadium in a chant, over and over, until eighty thousand people were roaring along with him.

I'm not a football follower. I couldn't explain the offside rule if you paid me.

But something he said last night really struck a chord with me.

He said, "I don't know how I do it, but that's how I do it. I just stay focused."

That's it. That's the whole secret.

I have learned to appreciate winter this year and honestly, we have come to a very happy understanding.

When it is cold and raining outside there is nothing quite like something warm and nourishing quietly doing its thing on the bench. This week that was pulled pork in the crockpot. Low and slow. The whole house smelling incredible.

And because I was clearly on a roll I also made oaty apple crumble slice. Caramel sauce. A drizzle of cream. A decent wodge of ice cream on the side.

Decadent. Delicious. Extra rebounder sessions have been scheduled accordingly.

But here is what I kept thinking about while I was in the kitchen.

Visual spatial thinkers feel everything at full volume.

I want to talk about something that gets missed in almost every conversation about visual spatial thinkers and learning.

It's not always about reading levels or maths scores or where a child sits compared to the rest of the class.

It's about how much they feel, and how loudly that feeling can drown out everything else.

Visual spatial thinkers experience the world in pictures, in three dimensions, in full sensory detail. And that incredible capacity for depth and detail does not switch off when it comes to emotion. If anything, it turns the volume up. A small disappointment can feel enormous. A correction in class can feel like a verdict on who they are. A morning that starts badly can colour the entire day.

What if the thing that is costing your child the most has nothing to do with their reading level or maths scores? 

I want to talk about something that does not get nearly enough attention in the conversation around children who are struggling at school.

Not the reading scores. Not the spelling tests. Not the report card language that tells you your child is working below expectation or not yet at the level they should be for their age.

I want to talk about what is happening to your child on the inside while all of that is going on around them.

Because in my experience, that is the part that costs the most. And it is almost always the part that waits the longest to be addressed.

Most people think it is just for kindy. They are wrong.

I want to tell you about the one tool I reach for before anything else when I sit down with a new learner.

It is not a programme. It is not an app. It is not a worksheet or a structured literacy kit.

It is clay.

And before you scroll past this thinking that sounds like something your five year old does on a Tuesday afternoon at kindy, stay with me. Because what happens in the brain when a picture thinker makes something with their hands is completely different to anything that happens when they stare at words on a page.

The outstanding numbers and a little girl who found self belief.

Today I want to tell you about Jade.

She is one of my most recent case studies. And when her results came in my mouth hung open like a stunned mullet.

Jade is a little girl who spent years working harder than anyone around her and wondering why it never quite felt like enough.

Sound familiar?

One of the most common things people say when they come to see me is some version of this: “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but learning just seems harder than it should be.”

Ever watched your child sit through an end-of-year assembly, waiting hopefully to hear their name… only for the awards to go to everyone else? It’s a moment that stays with you.

Charlie came into my office last week with his mum. He was polite, friendly, and open. But underneath that, he was tired.

I’ve had a few conversations lately with adults who quietly admit they’re struggling at work. They’ll say things like, “I’m smart… I know I’m smart… so why does everyone else cope so easily and I’m over here falling apart with emails and meetings?”

We’ve all been there. Everything feels like it’s falling apart, and suddenly even the simplest decisions seem impossible. Your usually clear-thinking mind turns into a jumble of competing priorities and mounting panic.