I got talking to a mechanic recently.
He’s the sort who can look at an engine, work out what’s wrong, and put it right. He’s been working with his hands since he left school, and he’s properly good at it.
However, there’s a part of the job he can’t get past, and it has nothing to do with engines.
He can’t get through the written exam that would earn him his trade certificate. He can do the work. He does it day in, day out. He just can’t prove it on paper. So he stays classed as a labourer, doing a qualified mechanic’s job without the title, the recognition, or the pay that should come with it.
Reading and writing have always been hard for him. His handwriting is almost impossible for anyone to read. At school he relied on a reader/writer for his exams. These days, anything long or wordy, he quietly passes to his partner to deal with so he doesn’t have to.
He’s now thinking about leaving the trade and going into tertiary study, to retrain into a profession he really wants. But the thought of sitting in that environment and having to pass feels demoralising to him.
A man with all the skill and all the ability, and his literacy is the one thing standing between him and the life he really wants.
That’s what I mean when I say reading is a life skill. It isn’t about curling up with a good book. It’s the exam, the course, the certificate, the career. The things that decide what a person gets to do with their life.
This is exactly what so many parents quietly fear for their own child. They watch their clever, capable kid struggle with their learning, and underneath it sits the bigger worry. What happens later on?
It can be a real worry, and a valid one. However, I’ve seen it go a very different way.
The reason someone can be this capable and still stuck is simpler than it looks. Their mind takes in words differently from the way most of us do, in a world built for everyone else. It isn’t a lack of ability. The ability is right there, obvious, in the work of their hands. It’s that the literacy side was never taught in a way that fits how their mind works.
When someone understands how their own mind works, and gets a way of learning that fits for them, the literacy side stops being the barrier it’s always been. And that changes everything that comes after it.
Independent. Able to run their own learning, and get on with their life.
If any of this sounds like your child, or even like you, I’ve got a good place to start. It’s a free two minute quiz, What’s actually going on with your child’s learning. It names the pattern you’re seeing, tells you whether it’s nothing much to worry about or a struggle that has a reason behind it, and finally gives you some clarity.
Take the quiz here: https://www.dyslexiaunpuzzled.co.nz/whats-going-on
As a registered teacher and qualified Davis facilitator, I’m here to guide and support you on your learning journey.
