Founder of Dyslexia Life Hacks
Recently Matt sat down with Andy Barden of Think Unconventional on his podcast. They talk about Matt journey with dyslexia from his early years of worrying about judgment a radical, through to getting a degree in his early 30’s and now working as a design engineer and setting up this website.
In this episode of The Dyslexia Life Hacks show Matt is talking to Maggie Souter and Sally Ashcroft who run Handy Spelling, a company which produces ingenious stationery to help children with dyslexia. There products include, pencils and rulers which help you remember tricky spellings and write the date. Tattoos and stickers to help you remember left/ right and b/d reversals. Bookmarks to explain homophones/ verbs/ adjectives/ nouns/ adverbs.
In this podcast we talk about how as mothers’ mothers of dyslexic boys, in Maggie’s 3 dyslexic children, and have seen first-hand how self-esteem can be affected by difficulties with writing and spelling, this led them to develop Handy Spelling so other child could have some support right there in their pencil case. We cover both there backgrounds and how they found the school system when their children were going through it and how that feed into the creation of heady spelling. We talk at length about the process and thinking behind it and how kids can use it and then transition away from using handy spelling as the age.
In this episode of The Dyslexia Life Hacks Show, Matt is a talking to Kirsty Heap who specialises in coaching dyslexic leaders.
In this podcast we talk about Kirsty’s time as school where she had supportive parents that got her the help she needed. Thought to the beginning of her working life where she came to a point in her career where she realised, she needs a master’s degree to progress further. She had to balance having young children and a job with her studies.
Kirsty now has set up her own coaching using the lessons she had learned from her time working in HR. She focuses on bring the best out of dyslexic people in leadership rolls, we talk at length about her methods.
In this episode of The Dyslexia Life Hacks Show, Matt is talking to Phillip Ruddock who is the founder of Our Dyslexic Connection. His day job is working as an english teacher at Middlesbrough College where he applies his lessons learned during his own dyslexic experiences to help people who have failed their GSCE’s to get the grades they need. In this podcast Phill talks openly and deeply about the experiences some of these teenagers are having and the negative thoughts they have in regards to their dyslexia and self-image and his own experiences with shame and low self-esteem. Some of these stories hit close to home for Matt and you will hear his voice wobble at points during the conversation.
Matt and Phill also talk also about self-image and shame that can be brought on from being a dyslexic person. Phill found out he was dyslexic at the same time as embracing his sexuality and he draws parallels between both experiences. There is a lot of talk about personal growth and self-perception in this podcast.
In this episode of The Dyslexia Life Hacks Show, Matt is talking to Kate Gladstone who has developed a program and published a book to help people with reading and writing in cursive.
In this podcast you will hear Kates story of struggling to read at school and the horrible thing she was told when she voiced her struggles, including being told to copy lettering of a board and then being told she did it wrong as she a copied the type font perfectly.
This leads her research the history and origins of modern American cursive writing, using this knowledge she gained a full understanding and used the knowledge to be able to teach anyone from any age how to read and write in cursive. There is much more to her story listen in and find out more.
In this episode of The Dyslexia Life Hacks Show, Matt is talking Jason Flinter. Since 1996 he has been working on building brands. Jason has self-diagnosed with dyslexia; you will hear during this podcast how he finds out more and more about what dyslexia and how is life and career has been positively shaped by it and we look into how things were different for his much younger sister.
Despite only having good grades in his art subjects, Jason got accepted onto university and studied graphic design. Having graduated in the 80s he found computers interesting and was ahead of the curve with learning how to do design on a computer. We talk at length of how important branding years and it is not what people initially think. Jason has a great love for wordplay that he uses when creating Brand taglines and he is also a keen songwriter and really enjoys the puzzles of how to make words into play with each other.
Also find out how being an African drum teacher helped Jason grows career.
In this episode of The Dyslexia Life Hacks Show, Matt is talk to Eric Cheung who current works as the
Relationship & Partnership Officer for the British Dyslexia Association. He has had a varied life after find out he was dyslexic at university, he went on to set up his own event and marketing business while studying the final years of his degree before going to moving into a roll as an events coordinator. It was in the employed roll he started to struggle and after reaching out to his supervisors he got reassessed and found the strategies he was using at university were not serving him well at work, post this he got coached in new strategies that help him far better in the workplace.
In this podcast we talk about Eric’s experience on working in Singapore and Hong Kong. You will hear how attitudes towards dyslexia change for different countries and cultures and the keep people he met that help him as a dyslexic person trying to navigate the workplace in different countries.
This podcast is Eric’s personal stories and opinions; he is not talking on behalf of the British Dyslexia Association.
In the episode of The Dyslexia Life Hacks Show, Matt is talks to Cassandra Rollett-May who runs Rollett Ed, that provides one to one support for 6- to 13-year-olds in maths and literacy. Cassandra had a dream to be a teacher from a young age, having set her sights on this goal she had to take a longer route through the education system before qualifying as a school teacher. In the podcast we talk about her time as a teacher and some of the challenges she faces being a teacher and dyslexic. Working as a SENCO teacher and her thoughts on the benefits of being a dyslexic in the that position.
In this podcast we talk about her education business what her process and techniques she uses. Sometimes the parents need as much guidance and support as the children.
