Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling...

Earlier this week year 6 students across England took a new Sats exam to test their spelling, punctuation and

grammar. I have mixed feeling about this as I know I would have struggled with such an exam at that age, and suspect I would struggle with a similar exam now. Yet, I do love the English language. I found my difficulties in mastering it lead  to a fascination with how it worked.

This was not always the case, I certainly found it hugely annoying at points during my childhood. I remember a teaching assistant trying to help me learn my weekly spelling list, and out of frustration throwing a dictionary onto the floor. I told her English was a stupid language that didn't make any sense, and that all her spelling rules were lies.

She admitted English probably was very silly, and told me I had to learn to read and write using it anyway. I was so angry, I thought that there was obviously a lack of logic to the language, and didn't understand why someone had not fixed English a long time ago.

It wasn't that I didn't want to learn to read or write, far from it. When I was very young I decided that I was going to be like Beatrix Potter when I grew up. I'd write books for children which I'd also illustrate, and I'd live in a cottage in the Lake District. I would have a four poster bed like the one from The Tale of Tom Kitten, and a herb garden like the one in The Tale Jemima Puddle-Duck. I'd set my mum up in a cottage next door so she could pop round for tea and cake, and my dad could live in the shed.

I wasn't interested in what would happen to my brother. I assumed he'd have better things to do than hang about with me, and that he wouldn't be interested in caring for (or abusing) our elderly parents.

But that was what I wanted, to be a writer, and I couldn't do that if I couldn't write. I had to understand the words on the page rather than just seeing incomprehensible squiggles.

Fortunately, my grandmother decided that my frustration wasn't pure disobedience, that  it was instead born from a desire to learn. So she decided to teach me, and to explain why some words were not spelt how they sounded, where various words came from, and how some words meanings had changed over time.

I slowly realized that language was not just a tool. Behind every word, whether it was in or out of common usage, there was a history. I liked history because it was an endless collection of overlapping stories and experiences, and it delighted me that when I used words to tell a story of my own that I was invoking those other, older stories, ones that had no authors.

When I was eight, and could finally read by myself, some of the first books I wanted to read where adaptions of works by Chaucer and Shakespeare. My mother was not so sure about this, but decided that I'd quickly loose interest once I saw how they were written. She got The Canterbury Tales from our local library, and was rather concerned to find I mostly understood what was going on, thanks in part to a BBC series retelling the stories with puppets (the adults in my house reasoned, inexplicably, that anything involving cartoons or puppets was suitable for children). I started asking what two of the characters where doing in a pear tree together, and my mother decided at this point it was time for me to go to bed.

The Canterbury Tales disappeared, and was added to The List of Books Not To Be Read Until Adulthood, joining the ranks of my mum's Stephen King novels. I eventually studied 'The Merchants Tale' as part of my A Levels, but the only book by Stephen King I have ever read is still On Writing.

Taking all this into account it's not that surprising that I turned out to be really good at analyzing texts, or that I went on to study English at university. What is surprising is that I managed to do this while still struggling with my spelling, and without understanding how to use basic punctuation or grammar. I had no idea what a noun was, or an adjective, and thought you just used commas every time you took a breath when reading aloud something you'd written.

If I had a choice I would have written using perfect grammar, accept when choosing not to for affect. I wanted to learn how to write well. I think all children should have the right to learn how to read and write in a way that means they understand, and can be understood. I simply fear testing children on these skills will give dyslexic children one more thing to fail at, and will do little to make any child love literature. 

Dyslexic Writer's Workshop

I've not updated the blog in a while, but not because I haven't been busy. Actually I have been out in the world having all sorts of adventures, and reading all sorts of books. I have a great deal to tell you about it, and in time I am going to catch you up. But this blog post is about my latest adventure. 

Today I decorated cupcakes while wearing plastic gloves, to fully comply with health and safety regulations. It was for a children's event themed around a popular children's book, and the weather was mostly nice, so I only had a few children turn up; which was just as well considering the mess I had envisioned being created with the chocolate icing. This came in a tube similar to ones used for whipped cream. I'd imagined myself surrounded by tiny, chocolaty hands, sprinkles and chocolate drops being scattered like confetti (there is a reason I removed the pots of glitter from the children's event art supply box). Instead it was all rather civilized. The children listened with polite interest to my reading of extracts from the book, and only person who made any sort of mess was me.

This gave me a lot of time to think, especially while I wrote out a warning about nuts, and a list of all the ingredients in the cupcakes, onto a big pieces of pink and yellow card.

What I thought about, besides my worry that my cat was going to put a worm in my bed again, was a workshop I had attended the day before. It was for writer's with dyslexia, or dyslexic writers, depending on how you like to phrase these things. I say I am dyslexic, and that I have dyslexia, without caring too much about whether it implies I have a illness or that I am part of some sort of alien race, or if anyone is going to think it actually means I'm a bit thick, but I know these things matter to other people with/who are dyslexic, especially the last part.

One of the things that came up at the workshop was the way we talk about ourselves, dyslexic people I mean. The word 'they' was used a lot, despite the only people in the room being dyslexic people. I guess we are all just so used to being out numbered by non dyslexics, and so keen not to exclude ourselves from those around us, that we have become used to talking about dyslexics as a whole as some Other thing, some Other group, that we are both a part of and separate from (Nim from RASP touches on this in her blog). I can't imagine using 'we' in a conversation about dyslexics with a non dyslexic, for instance, because it would push us away from each other, and I wouldn't want that, I'd want to pull us closer, to help us to understand one another. But I would like to use 'we' in the context of dyslexia as freely and easily as I slip between being and having dyslexia, not just in my own head, but when I write or talk about myself.

Someone also asked me about my job. I think being a Bookseller is one of the best jobs for an aspiring writer, and I enjoy it in it's own right. I'm surrounded by books everyday, nice people, and I get to eat left over chocolate drops and vanilla cupcakes late at night, while sipping chamomile tea, and typing away at things like this blog post.

What they asked, though, was how much of my job I did; if I just stacked shelves or if I did all the things Booksellers normally do, like working the till and giving book recommendations, which really surprised me. I do all those things, and I seem to do them pretty well, and I feel like I really fit the mold for my profession, rather than feeling like a misshapen or creatively shaped pastry; which is the way I used to feel about most things, being dyslexic and such. I used to fear till work, too, and work generally, because I didn't feel like I was made for certain tasks, but I forced myself to do the things I was bad at, until somehow, I wasn't so bad at them anymore.

I normally sneer a bit at molds, at fitting in, though I don't try to stand out either, that just ends with slipping into another container. I just try to be me, as much myself as I possibly can be, whoever that is. But...actually, secretly... it's... rather nice...you know, to fit in. Not to confuse people, feeling comfortable,  and not having to tone some things down and other things up to avoid judgment and rejection. I could tell you, and myself, that I don't care about those things, but it's never going to be true. I just know that judgment and rejection born out of ignorance or snobbery don't matter, that they should slide right of me, and the more I tell myself this the less it gets to me, but the the yearning to just BE, without censure, will never entirely go away.

This was one of the reasons I enjoyed the workshop so much. I found myself looking at a giant Post It (TM),  tasked with writing words I had come up with based off some tarot style cards in whatever colors I wanted (well, whatever ones where in the old Candbury tin I had boldly stolen from the center of the room, and awkwardly tried to pass round). A lot of words I had come up with were ones I couldn't be certain I could spell correctly, and normally I'd have tried to wiggle out of it, or put on a variation of my I Don't Care What You Lot Think face (it's friendlier than the one you are imagining, honest), in the hope if I acted that way long enough eventually I wouldn't.

But this time I didn't have to worry, I could just write...and I found myself wondering if that was what it felt like to be, well, normal. To just be able to do stuff like that, without needing some sort of plan, or to put on some ego padding. It was nice to feel normal, and I never thought I would admit that. If anyone ever suggested I might I'd have told them I was too proud, and too defensive for that, or I'd have at least thought this, and said something about how great it is to be different.

It is great to be different, but it's lonely, too. Isolating, and it requires a lot of energy to keep yourself upbeat about it all the time. I have my low moments, where I need to talk myself up, tell myself I can do, will do, everything, nothing...I talk over the other voices, ones from my past, that whisper, whisper, that I can't, won't... she'd be great on children say the funniest things, but in the rest of life? Laughter, always laughter, but I'll show them all, and I won't rub it in or anything like that. I'll know that I have won, and that will be enough...it will have to be, because I don't want to be someone who takes joy in causing upset, and I don't want to always go looking for validation in other people, especially those who are not worth the oxygen.

The thing is, though, as much as I big myself up and tell myself how special I am, part of me doesn't really buy it. I'm optimistic but cynical, which I suppose makes me a realist, only that sounds incredibly arrogant, so I settle for describing myself confused, and more selectively self deceptive than most.

I'm warry of my deceptions, and I want to keep them in check, so I don't go too far one way or another. This means when I genuinely have achieved something I feel a bit weird about it. I sometimes feel like I am conning people into thinking I'm bright or have interesting things to say, so when I get concrete proof to show that I am not totally useless it's a bit of a surprise. I don't know what to do with it, other than to cling to it, and to share it so other people know that I'm not lieing, that I am not the sum of my faults and nothing else.

There were so many moments during that workshop were I wanted to say 'me too, me too, I get it!' There were two moments in particular, and these were related to my worries about myself and who I might be, or might have been The first was when listening to someone talk about dyslexic prisoners. I once met two dyslexic young men, one the same age as me, who spent the period I was at university in prison. He told me that was how he met his dyslexic friend, and where he finally learnt to read.

No one, should have to learn to read in prison, and that chance meeting is something I don't intend to let go of. I've wanted to make things a bit better for other dyslexic people ever since I found out I was dyslexic at the age of six, and I read the prison statistics regarding dyslexia in my teens, but that...those young men on the train, who were like me, and not like me...there was this weird sort of connection, where I and the older man looked at each other, and I felt certain we were both thinking that we could easily have been that other person. When they got off the train and I met the older man's eyes, and the moment as we both looked into each other as the train pulled off...that mattered a lot more than some numbers printed off the internet.

This meeting is part of the reason I care so much about doing something that positively impacts the lives of dyslexic people, and other's who don't get enough support or encouragement to be fully literate.

The other thing, was to do with difficulties driving. It took me a long time to pass my test, and I don't enjoy driving. I'd ended up on the BDA website reading about why this was so hard for me, just like someone else there had, and trying to work out why it upset me so much...gradually realized it was because it's was another reminder I was different, that I had some things a lot harder than other people (though not anywhere near as hard as I could have), and I couldn't hide that I was struggling. I'd actually felt like giving the whole thing up not long before the workshop, just tossing the car keys at my partner, and saying I was done, that it was his car, and he could drive me about in it. I'd even thought about offering to buy him a flat cap, and making a proper joke of him chauffeuring me around.

In general the workshop made me feel more confident, and got me to believe in myself that little bit more. I drove to work today, and enjoyed it. It was because knew it wasn't just me, that I wasn't just hopeless, and I got to feel that it I'd done well to pass, especially considering all the trouble I had in the beginning. I see my dream of being a full timed, published author, as something more realistic. How could I not when I could sit in a room like that and see I was not alone in my dreaming?

It was great to meet dyslexic people who were already published, too, and to overhear conversations between dyslexic people where they were recommending books to each other. I found myself discussing my dyslexic heroswith other dyslexic people, something I'd never done before, and it was brilliant.

This sort of thing is exactly why I stared Dysbooks. I really believed that it wasn't just me, that conversations and exchanges like this between dyslexic people were, are, important.

I believe in the importance creativity, too, and it was wonderful to have that feature in the workshop so prominenly. Creativity wasn't ever approached during my degree course, despite it being an integral part of  Creative Writing. It was something a bit dirty that you presumably did on your own. Sadly, it didn't feel my course always addressed the writing side very well, either, but I'll never regret my degree course. There were parts that helped me a great deal, it got me writing regularly, and my writing has dramatically improved since.

This is my cat Peach. I'm glad she doesn't kill birds, but it worries me she keeps eating worms and bees, and that if a bee flies behind her she has no idea where it has gone.

The cat did bring a worm into the house, but she left it in the kitchen, where the last of the cupcakes are. I should be asleep so I can do gardening in the morning, before work, so I shall go and collapse in my worm-free bed, and dream about the castle I will buy when I am a bestselling novelist...(if only writing actually paid that well).

You can find out more about the Roehampton Dyslexic Writer's Workshops here: http://roehampton.ac.uk/Creativity-and-dyslexia-research-project/

The next two workshops will be held this coming Wednesday 15th May from 5.30pm-7.00pm, and on Wednesday 22nd May 5.30pm-7.00pm. Unfortunately I cannot attend, but highly recommend going along.