Matt Hancock: “When I was told I had dyslexia at the age of 18, it changed my life.”

Many know me as the man who stood at the podium in Downing Street and explained the latest coronavirus data to the country during the first 18 months of the pandemic.

But what you don’t know is that behind the scenes, Professor Jonathan Wamtam (or JVT, as I call him), the UK’s deputy chief medical officer, reads the word “dexamethasone” to me for 30 minutes. He helped me learn that.” One television press conference in particular.

why? Well, like 10% of the population, I had dyslexia and I was very nervous about it. He hindered my reading during the Covid press conference asking for help with some dangerous words that I thought might be a cause for concern.

It was those moments that made me think that I needed to do something to help others who were going through similar difficulties. So last December, I launched a dyslexia campaign for universal screening in English primary schools. It means that the child will not leave. school They don’t know if they have dyslexia.

Six months later, I am amazed at how many people have spoken out about living with dyslexia. Whether dyslexia shows up later in life, being “stupid” or “lazy” in school, or freezing severely when asked to give a speech or public presentation, it can cause big challenges.

Incredibly, Only a fifth of children with dyslexia are identified in elementary school and the remaining 80% remain undiagnosed. I was one of those children.

In fact, I didn’t find out I had dyslexia until I was 18, my freshman year of college. It is said that ignorance is bliss, but I spent my childhood avoiding literacy problems and thought I didn’t understand English.

No matter how good the teacher was and how hard he worked, these subjects seemed to be more difficult than his friends.

If one day I was telling teenagers to read and broadcast live on TV every night in front of the country, I mistakenly thought it was beyond my ability, so don’t think you did.

I am one of the lucky ones. I passed a prestigious university. When I was there for a while, my mentor, Dr. Hart, pulled me in and said, “Well, you have a gift of size, but you can’t put it on paper.”

Then they sent me for evaluation and after my identification As a dyslexic person, I was re-educated to read and write, to understand words as a form and not to read letters.

Some say that dyslexia should not be exposed because it negatively affects mental health and self-esteem. This is complete nonsense, it changed my life.

My diagnosis was a lamp of the moment and I was able to address the challenge of dyslexia while maximizing the benefits of this state of neurodiversity. If I had shown it at a young age and used the right support, I would have discovered the love of reading much faster than it scared me.

Scandals have identified only 20% of children with dyslexia in school. Private schools are likely to receive the required identification and support, but early diagnosis is very rare in public schools.

It may not be right for private schools to provide dyslexia screening for children and proper training for teachers, but public schools and the children raised by them don’t have the same luxury…

Impressive independent schools like Millfield, Somerset have universal screening for dyslexia, and all teachers are trained using MadeByDyslexia’s free 2-hour teacher training course. .. These are cheap and effective measures and will have a very positive impact on all children. And it should not be about protecting the private sector. Every child needs and deserves a good education.

My dyslexia screening and teacher training bill, introduced by Congress earlier this month, aims to address this fraud.

My suggestion is that all children be screened for dyslexia at the end of primary school and that teachers be trained by appropriate teachers to support children with dyslexia.

This helps every child to maximize their potential and it is important that by 2030, 90% of primary school students reach the agreed literacy standards.

My friend Nadim Zahawi, like all good ministers, is an evidence-oriented Secretary of State and knows that literacy cannot be solved without solving dyslexia.

Unfortunately, I know what happens if this support is not available.

Please don’t make mistakes. This is not only a question of social justice, but also an economic necessity.

For half the work that machines are expected to do in just three years, creativity, compassion and lateral thinking skills will be much more important in the modern workplace.

These are skills that people with dyslexia have in abundance. Failure to invest and utilize this enormous level of human capital will blame the talents of other generations for their poor performance without their own negligence.

And unfortunately, I know what would happen if this support was not provided. It is a pity that more than half of the prisoners It is estimated that 57% of inmates with dyslexia have a reading age of less than 11 years.

That is why I also call on the Ministry of Justice to improve prison education and make prison administrators responsible for teaching prisoners to read it so that it is not ignored.

However, this recovery measure is not enough. We need a preventative approach to our prison system, starting with my plans for school and universal dyslexia screening.

After I started the campaign, it was very promising to see that the government was taking this issue very seriously. After many meetings with ministers and other stakeholders, I felt a change in their thinking, but more work is needed.

I was delighted when the Ministry of Education was forced to identify early and train teachers on neurodegenerative diseases. Now is the time to act.

If we don’t act now, it will take time to solve one of the last great obstacles to equality in the rest of the world that we face.

It was very encouraging to see the impressive Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, recently announce that every child in New York was tested and every teacher was trained for dyslexia. .. This highly progressive step will help equalize opportunities for children in New York and prepare the next generation for the workplace.

My bill makes the UK a world leader in empowering dyslexia.

The second reading of the bill will take place on Friday, September 16. And I am pleased to have the support of a multi-party system, from Labor Party John McDonnell to former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith.

By raising this issue, I hope to make this coveted change with the support of all my colleagues in Congress and government.

As countdown star Susie Dent wrote on Twitter in support of last week’s bill: “This is a human problem, not a political problem,” I’m not going to rest until it’s done. ..