A former Lichfield student has written a book to help students with dyslexia with their university work.
Dr Adrian Wallbank, a Teaching Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London, has published Academic Writing and Dyslexia: A Visual Guide to Writing at University.
Basing it on the unique ‘icon’ system of teaching devised by Dr Neville Brown, the founder of the Maple Hayes School where Dr Wallbank was educated.
“The high demands at university and the sheer amount of reading and writing requires increasingly sophisticated coping mechanisms,” Dr Wallbank said.
“The book very much takes inspiration from Dr Brown’s methodology that I learned at the school and I start where his approach leaves off, looking at structure and patterns of writing. I’ve also developed a system of visual icons and prompts.”
Dr Wallbank joined Maple Hayes at the age of 14 having been diagnosed with dyslexia as an eight-year-old. He had been educated by private tutors at home for 18 months after suffering a nervous breakdown, anxiety and depression because of bullying at his local secondary school near his home in Warwickshire.
He said: “I was in a real mess. When I moved from middle school to high school, I was put in the bottom stream – I was pretty hopeless in every subject – but because I was a shy, quiet individual, I was bullied and I left after half a term.
“Maple Hayes was the lifeline I needed to overcome my school phobia and dyslexia. It saved me.”
When he left the school at 17, he studied A-levels in English, Geography and Sociology at Burton Technical College before going to Staffordshire University to read English. After attaining a First, he was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council grant to go to the University of York to do a Masters.
He then went to the University of Warwick, where he completed a PhD in English literature, specialising in late 18th Century literature and intellectual history.
Dr Wallbank said: “When I graduated from Staffordshire, I knew I had two goals – to do a PhD in an English language-based subject, to prove I could do it, and to help people by teaching, just as I had been helped by Maple Hayes.
“Basically, I wanted to pay back that debt.
“I want to help students because I know they can excel if they have the right help,” added Dr Wallbank. “I hope the book helps them to do that.”
