Can you Improve your Reading or Spelling?

The following article was written especially for me, by my good friend Ian Dyer.

He will tell you, in his own words, but he is an NLP Practitioner who has suffered (past tense) from Dyslexia. If you want to improve your Reading and Spelling, for whatever reason, you must read this article.

I feel very privileged that he agreed to share his story on my blog and his article, shows, yet again, the magic of Neuro Linguistic Programming!

“So tell me, what if it was not true that you would never amount to much?”

“For the people reading this who has, or has a member of the family that find spelling or reading hard, my hope is that my story will give people new options and renewed hope for the future”

Can you Improve your Reading or Spelling?

Change will mean different things to people. For me change has meant a growing trust in my own ideas and feelings.

About 16 years ago when I was working as a manual worker for the local council, I had a conversation with a manager he asked me if I was interested in a supervisor’s position. I said “NO WAY” he asked me why, as he felt I would be a good supervisor, so I explained my education, I had attended special school, and I struggled in main stream School. This was due to the fact I could not spell.

This manager was not about to give up easily and said to me “I think it would help you if you saw a coach”. I agreed to see one, I did not know it at that time but this was going to be the start of a big life change.

For the people reading this who has, or has a member of the family that find spelling or reading hard, my hope is that my story will give people new options and renewed hope for the future.

For those who have a statement of special educational needs or been tested for dyslexia, I will tell you that my test for the condition of dyslexia resulted in a score of 18 out of 20. Scale twenty in dyslexia being the worse type, so what chance was there for me to be a supervisor in the workforce, or so I thought.

At my first meeting with my coach we spent time building rapport. I was given new and different ways to look at things, especially the way I felt about my spelling issue and how it was affecting me and holding me back from achieving in my life.

I started to notice that my beliefs about my spelling and reading was limiting me, my coach encouraged me to take ownership for the changes I wanted to see. This was a significant fact, this label of dyslexia had been or so I thought was helpful, as it gave me a reason to my failure to spell, what I had missed was the fact that it was also limiting me to improve myself. Sometimes it is easier if you have a good reason to fail.

“NOW” that was a thought, what if that English teacher was wrong, what would happen if I let go of her saying that I would never amount to much, my coach suggested it was time to re-frame my thoughts, he asked me ,“do you still believe in the tooth fairy”? So tell me, what if it was not true that you would never amount to much?

Now this was interesting, what if it was not true, by re-framing my thinking to a new perspective, I found that I could change my negative thoughts to positive ones when I was prepared to see things differently.

“Whether You Think You Can or Can't, You're Right”

“I had spent too many years thinking I can’t”

Henry Ford said, “Whether You Think You Can or Can't, You're Right
This was the case for me; I had spent too many years thinking I can’t.

I discussed with my coach the resources that I had used to get to this point of my life and he showed me how I could access the ones that would help me, for example calmness, to help me when I needed it most. This gave me the keys to controlling my thoughts by quickly changing a negative state into a positive one; wow this was as good as being given a magic wand.

No more fear of being asked to write on the black board, White board or post a post-it note idea on the wall, just a few of the things that scared the hell out of me within the education system. I will not talk about school spelling tests and how they had affected me in the past. All these things my coach showed me great ways of dealing with my feelings about them. Oh how I wished I’d learnt this when I was at school especially how to learn to spell using visualisation

As I attended the coaching sessions I found myself being able to let go of negative feelings as opposed to dwelling on it for weeks afterwards. Over the years I have dropped a lot of anxiety both with the feeling attached to my spellings and in my relationships with others I have become more relaxed and open. By becoming aware of my feelings, my ability to respond appropriately in awkward situations by communicating in the right way became easy.

At the end of my sessions with my coach, he said to me “Ian I think you should consider attending a course for NLP, this is what I have been using with you and some of the technique’s you have just taken and your making them work for you, in fact I have some tapes from a course that I attended that you can have if you would like them. I must say I did not listen to those tapes until many years later, and when I did I began to realise the power that had been given to me by my coach, this was NLP.

“this led me to my first letters after my name and the feeling that anything was possible”

I applied to the Open University with the view to study for a recognised qualification in management and after a number of talks with them they agreed to take me on and they gave me a support package to enable me to study. I must say they were a great support to me; this led me to my first letters after my name and the feeling that anything was possible.

Things at work went from strength to strength and over the last 16 years I have been a Supervisor, a Department Manager and now Head of all Services, managing a large workforce, all of this possible because of a manager who sent me to see a coach 16 years ago.

Early in 2007 I remembered those NLP tapes and went out to buy a tape recorder to listen to them. As I listened I soon realised the skills that my coach had given me telling me that one day I may wish to work with others with the same spelling issues. I went out and brought lots of books and CD’s/DVD’s on NLP and began to study.

In 2009 I booked myself on a course to become a practitioner of NLP this was great the course made all the material that I had been reading come to life, and I thank Steve and Tina my trainers for giving me the tools and the friends I made on that course, they have become a great resource of knowledge and help to me. This year 2010 I am working toward obtaining Master Practitioner.

I now know that in just a few hours that when the student is ready, and knows the outcome they are looking for in their future, NLP can change the whole way they look at life, I for one know how it changed my feeling for study and I am looking forward to hearing many success stories from people who I will meet with in the future.

For the people reading this that do not have the condition of dyslexia, please except any grammar or spelling mistakes, thank you.

I love that mass e-mail of 2005 that sparked a number of conversations; believe it or not you can read it if the first and last letters of a word are correct:

“I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg the phaonmneal pweor of the human mnid J Amzanig huh? Yaeh and yuo awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt”

Ian Dyer

 

*NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a name that encompasses the three most influential components involved in producing human experience: neurology, language and programming. The neurological system regulates how our bodies function, language determines how we interface and communicate with other people and our programming determines the kinds of models of the world we create. Neuro-Linguistic Programming describes the fundamental dynamics between mind (neuro) and language (linguistic) and how their interplay affects our body and behaviour (programming).