Albert Einstein famously said if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. Einstein was dyslexic and this quote is a favourite of local dyslexia tutor Karen Ruddenklau.

Fewer than 15 years ago dyslexia was barely recognised in the New Zealand school system. Anyone who was dyslexic usually left school believing they weren’t very bright. More often than not they couldn’t spell, struggled to read and couldn’t keep up with their peers in academic subjects. Because they didn’t understand what was going on in the classroom many got attention by playing up, and were they were labelled as naughty.

But dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence. It takes many forms but dyslexics generally think in pictures rather than words. It’s now regarded as a ‘specific learning disability’.

“The official term is learning ‘disability’ because it’s not something you can fix,” Karen said. “But we generally call it a learning difficulty or a learning difference.” Official figures say one in ten people are dyslexic, and Karen believes the real figure is probably significantly higher.

Dyslexia and its cousins (dyspraxia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia) are complex learning disabilities and people who have them can exhibit very different symptoms. This has made it hard to diagnose, and hard to remedy.

When Karen was a schoolgirl growing up in rural Northland she couldn’t understand why her brother couldn’t spell while she could. He seemed to be just as smart as her, yet spelling was beyond him. This stirred an interest in education and Karen went on to become a primary school teacher.

Later she married Southland farmer Grant Ruddenklau. They lived in Dipton for 14 years and had four children. When the children were nearing secondary school age the family purchased a farm near Wanaka and the children attended local schools. Karen worked part-time while the children were growing up and was able to get jobs as relief teaching at local primary schools and Mount Aspiring College.

Around 2008 a nephew came to board with the family and go to school in Wanaka. When Karen was trying to help him with his Year 12 English assignments she was reminded of her brother (the one who couldn’t spell) and his struggles at school. She also remembered her mother’s story of how although she read and wrote well, she too just couldn’t spell. “Mum was strapped every day at school because she couldn’t do her spelling.”

Karen knew by then that dyslexia had a strong hereditary component, and decided she wanted to train in specific learning disabilities (SLD), so she could help children who struggled at school. At that time there were no SLD tutors in the Upper Clutha but Hawea Flat Primary School principal Sue Heath put Karen onto the Seabrook MacKenzie Centre in Christchurch.

She commuted for a year to complete the course, and soon had a growing number of students.  Although there was no Ministry of Education funding for Karen, demand for her tutoring grew and grew.

“Parents would come up to me in the supermarket all the time and ask if I could help their children,” Karen said. “They were desperate.” Eight years on Karen’s workload continues to grow and there are several other SLD tutors in the Upper Clutha.

“A huge change is that dyslexia is now recognised and children can be assessed to see if they have it, and then get help.” Karen says local children are now assessed at around the age of seven, or eight, which is about the right age for them to start getting help.

“Any child can be taught to read. Dyslexic children need explicit teaching and lots of repetition, using multi-sensory methods. And, like any learning, it needs to be engaging and fun. But first and foremost we usually need to do a lot of work on their self-esteem. Once they’ve been diagnosed most kids are relieved to know there’s a reason why they are finding school so difficult.”

Karen works with children one-on-one for an hour each week. She usually has them for two to four years.

“It’s not a quick fix and progress can be slow. And then you see the light turn on. But every child is different in the way they learn. We work out strategies between us until they are confident about their learning.

“It’s an amazing journey.  And I learn as much from them as they do from me. And there’s so much more [for me] to learn.”

PHOTO: Supplied