Dyslexia in schools today

Alice Kell

May 12th, 2021 4:41 min read 1289 words

This comic came from an interview I conducted with three dyslexic secondary school students. The purpose of undertaking an interview with secondary school students was to get an insight into the experience of dyslexia in young people today. It was important to get first-hand research as a means of developing a resource to support and develop young people’s understanding of dyslexia.  To protect the participants’ identities, I have merged their dialogue into the voice of one fictional character. I have also chosen to not present the interview as a basic question and answer format, instead the dialogue is presented as a monologue.

In the comic, dyslexia takes on a changing animal form. The constant metamorphosing of the form of the character’s dyslexia was intended to be a visual metaphor for the rhizomatic quality of dyslexia. This approach was also inspired by the graphic novel Panther by Brecht Evens, where a shape-shifting imaginary panther represents a child’s emotion of grief. The transforming nature of the character’s dyslexia is a visual solution to something all participants said when describing their dyslexia.  When dyslexia presents as a tiger, it is to represent how some days the participants’ dyslexia feels huge, impossible to get past, and almost threatening. Whereas, when the character’s dyslexia quickly shifts into a bunny, this is supposed to represent how on other days dyslexia can feel small and manageable. I hope you enjoy reading!