Tonight on RTÉ Prime Time, Marie Crowe on how a Reading School changed her son’s life and the struggle of children and adults with dyslexia

Tonight on RTÉ Prime Time, Marie Crowe on how a Reading School changed her son’s life and the struggle of children and adults with dyslexia

– Sports stars Kieran Donaghy and Jack Conan share their dyslexia experiences

– Only four Reading Schools available in Ireland

Tonight, on RTÉ Prime Time, Sports Broadcaster, Marie Crowe explores the impact of dyslexia on adults and children, and how specialist reading schools can transform children’s perception of themselves, once places are available.

Marie Crowe’s son Billy was diagnosed with severe dyslexia at the age of seven. Billy could not read three letter words like ‘cat’ and ‘dog’. School was a chore and stressful hours were spent doing homework which should have taken half the time.

As a mother of four Marie struggled initially to navigate the available resources until she heard of a ‘Reading School’. Billy eventually secured a place in St Roses Reading School in Tallaght, one of just four in the country funded by the Department of Education.

Three of the schools are in Dublin and one is in Cork. Children typically attend for one or two years before the age of 12, to learn special techniques to help them read and write despite their dyslexia.

Billy’s time in St Roses was life changing for him and Marie’s family, she says. She believes it has given him confidence to learn and confidence in his own abilities.

Since Billy’s diagnosis, Marie has spoken with parents of other children with severe dyslexia whose children could not get a place in a reading school and as part of her work met various people at the top level of Irish sport with their own experiences with dyslexia.

Irish rugby player Jack Conan attended a reading school in Monkstown and told Prime Time his story, “Looking back, it just gave me a lot of confidence. You get a better understanding yourself as well, even at that young age, better understanding how to improve and to upskill a little bit, especially with reading.”

Kerry football legend Kieran Donaghy also grappled with dyslexia growing up. It wasn’t until adulthood that he received a diagnosis, so like many young people he was not provided with the type of techniques taught in reading schools.

While he excelled in PE and sport, classroom learning in secondary school became overwhelming.

“Back in the day, there was hard times you were put out facing the corner of the room because you were obviously acting up because you couldn’t follow along.”

“I remember just being completely lost in class… I obviously wasn’t the guy who put my hands on reading, but I remember looking at the words thinking what was going on. Is that how that word sounds?”

There is huge demand for places in reading schools. Only children with the reading ability in the first or second percentile are likely to get a place. In south Dublin, Dominique Kane’s nine-year-old daughter Amelia is in limbo as she awaits a place in a reading school. Her literacy level is very low but not low enough to gain a place. She told RTÉ Prime Time, “At home was just a nightmare. Daily, it took an hour, two hours, tears, tantrums, cartwheels across the floor. I don’t want to do homework. I can’t do this. I don’t want to go to school. Not wanting to get out of the car in the morning”.

Ann-Marie Kealy, Principal of St Roses says “Children with dyslexia have difficulty hearing sounds in words. We teach them how to tap out and bring it down really into the very basics and then build up from there. But I think the most important part of everything is the confidence that they gain from being with us.”

Watch the full report on Prime Time tonight, 20 November, at 9:35pm RTÉ One and RTÉ Player and read the digital report on RTÉ.ie/primetime.

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