Kara Tointon: Don't Call Me Stupid

This is the public face of Kara Tointon.

That was a stunning routine.

You always stick your nose in, and you ain't got a clue.

Privately, she's amongst the one in ten Brits born with dyslexia, which means she struggles to read.

"A company..."

"A company".

"A company..."

"..severally wounded" - oh, SEVERELY wounded.

Now Kara wants to confront what dyslexia is

and why it's been holding her back.

People of your age and intelligence are normally much quicker

and more accurate when they're reading.

For the first time as an adult, she'll have her condition assessed,

and undergo training in an attempt to help her cope with her dyslexia.

This is really thick of me, but I can't think right now.

You try, you really try, and yet it doesn't seem to go in.

She wants to meet other young dyslexics to find out

how their lives have been affected.

"PE-DES-TRI-AN".

Am I thick? What's up with me?

It felt like a wall of words, numbers and people,

and it was just trapped.

We need to wake up and think about how we teach kids, so that these kids aren't getting lost out there.

'Can she gain control over her dyslexia...'

I thought it was just K.

Are you whispering at the back?!

Dad, I need to learn that right.

"..and transform the way she lives?"

It's like giving up an addiction.

Can I suddenly U-turn and decide to do something different?

I don't know.

I just felt stupid.

Kara Tointon's life as an actress revolves around scripts and stories.

But behind the scenes, Kara has dyslexia,

a neurological condition that makes reading difficult.

I would love to be able to pick this up and just read it.

"To Caroline's asser..."

I hate it when they start using...

"..assertion of her brother's being partial to Mr Darcy,

"she said no... She paid no credit."

"And much as she had always been..."

This is terrible!

"Always been deposed to like him...

"to the caprice of their...

in...in-sil-inations".

Dyslexia makes it hard for the brain

to recognise a written word and pronounce the way it sounds as a whole.

It's almost as if each word is a...process.

It's as if it's broken down to its simplest form,

and I'm seeing "in-ter-fer-ence".

And the way some dyslexic brains see the page can make reading even harder.

Certain parts of the page are brighter,

and there's these little light marks throughout the writing,

as if there's gaps and nooks and crannies in it.

So it becomes so slow.

So for me to read something fluently is just impossible.

Since leaving school, Kara's never read a book cover to cover.

It's having more and more of an impact on her everyday life.

Certain stories that have been written that are really important,

those classics that everyone knows about...

it would be a shame not to have enjoyed them as well,

because they are fantastic.

As an actress especially, I should be reading lots of plays and stories.

That's where I feel almost a let-down to myself

in the career I've chosen, that I don't do that.

She now wants to confront her condition and conquer her reading.

Dyslexia is almost holding me back,

and I'm ready to find out why and to stop that.

Kara's younger sister Hannah is an actress too.

She's a daily reminder of how dyslexia makes Kara different.

Everything we've ever done,

we've always done together, because we've got the same interests

and the same love for the career that we have chosen to go in.

And you're very messy.

All right, Han!

-Kara's really messy.

-Thanks!

And I'm quite tidy.

I come in here and Hannah's, every day, she's just in a book.

The thing that's sad is that I know you want to be able to do it.

It's not like you just don't want to try. You actually would love to.

One year, we both bought the same book, the Harry Potter book,

the fourth one, I think.

We were on holiday, and I saw the speed of Hannah's reading.

By day two, I was just getting Hannah to tell me what was happening.

She had her own world of Harry Potter.

It's so special when you create that in your own mind when you're reading.

It's so powerful.

She had created this world.

And I just couldn't get past the first few pages.

I would love to, for a day, know what it's like for you to read something.

If I could swap my head for Hannah's head for a day, I would make the most of reading.

All the Harry Potters.

Kara's decided she's let dyslexia rule her life long enough.

I am definitely fed up with putting things on hold and having this vision

that one day I'll be something different to who I am now.

I just want to be the person I'm going to be.

Six million Brits are dyslexic.

Kara wants to know what makes their brains different to everyone else's.

-Hello, Cathy.

-Nice to meet you.

Professor Cathy Price is going to scan Kara's brain

for research into how dyslexia disrupts the reading process.

The purpose of the study is to work out how dyslexic brains

differ from people who haven't had any difficulty learning to read.

We're trying to group people into different subtypes of dyslexia.

Let's go.

I'm ready.

By comparing Kara's brain to hundreds of other people's, Cathy will be able to tell Kara

how her brain works differently to non-dyslexics when she's reading.

-Kara?

-Yeah?

We're ready to go.

You're just telling us what you see.

OK. "Saw, dress, bread".

Kara reads out words and identifies images that appear on a screen inside the scanner.

Cathy records which areas of Kara's brain are now active,

to see if her brain connects up in the same way as non-dyslexics.

She also measures the strength of Kara's brain signals to see how much effort she's putting in to read.

Dyslexia has only been widely recognised in the last 15 years,

so scientists like Cathy are still trying to work out what causes it.

What they do know is that it can run in families.

But Kara's the only dyslexic in her family, and sister Hannah knows it's tough on her.

She's not necessarily made it the biggest issue of her life,

but I do see it and she does get down about it.

So yeah, maybe this is a thing of finding out who, really, she is.

It's like being on a sunbed.

Look at this one.

Here's your nose. There's your eyes, your brain,

coming through your face, basically. Looking straight the way through your face.

And then down to your teeth. Look at those lovely teeth!

It's hard for me to think, "How does Cathy work out that I'm dyslexic?"

The intensity of the signal might be slightly different.

They might be darker on one side and lighter on another side.

Cathy will now analyse Kara's brain patterns and compare them to others.

When you come back next time, we might be able to tell you which bits of your brain here

might show features that we associate with dyslexia.

Kara must now wait three weeks for Cathy's team to analyse the scans.

The first signs of dyslexia often appear when children start learning to read and write at school.

These are my old school books.

Kara started to notice she was behind the other children when she was around six,

but didn't understand why.

I just remember thinking "Oh, goodness, it's just so hard.

"Do they really expect us to do this?"

And everyone else was finding it really simple.

This is what I did a lot,

the kind of writing the word how it sounds.

So "friendly" would be F-R-E-N-L-Y.

Why would you design a word

that doesn't spell the way it sounds?

That's like just putting a Z in "where", just for the sake of it,

as far as I was concerned.

I remember even thinking,

"Concentrate...and read".

I'd even go like this with my eyes,

as if the eyes being wider would help it going!

And sometimes I'd go...

and then I would go, "What are they asking me to do?"

No, it didn't go in.

I did feel stupid, really.

I just felt stupid.

Kara's teacher spotted she was struggling when she turned seven,

and dropped a bombshell on her mum and dad.

We were flabbergasted.

She was 26 books behind everybody else over a period of five weeks,

and she had very low self-esteem coming up to that time.

As a person naturally, she's fairly quiet and doesn't push herself forward naturally.

So there is that lack of confidence sometimes.

I hated going to school.

Dad always dropped me off at school

and I used to run after him nearly every morning until I was about 11.

Kara was sent for tests, which gave her parents a much-needed answer

for why she was so behind.

The fact that Kara was then diagnosed as being dyslexic,

that pressure came off almost immediately.

I can imagine that if she wasn't doing so well at school

for reasons that we didn't understand,

then we would have been probably a lot less patient with her

and there would have been more arguments

and it would have been more stressful,

which would have had a profound effect on Kara's upbringing over the next few years.

Kara's future as an actress began at that moment.

'We wanted her to do speech and drama purely because it was important for self-esteem.'

This is my last night as being a blonde.

It quickly became evident that she was good at those things.

'She could stand up in front of people and, in a small way, start her acting career, I suppose.'

Everyone has something that they can do and they can excel at, I believe.

But it's whether you've got the support behind you

from your parents to go and find what that may be.

And it's not always going to be found in the school environment.

Today, over three-quarters of a million British school kids

are thought to be dyslexic.

But many go undiagnosed, and schools can find it hard to cope with

the 4% of children that are severely dyslexic.

Ten years after leaving school,

Kara's going back to the classroom to meet some of these children.

She's visiting one of Britain's 14 registered specialist schools for dyslexics.

It's a last resort for many of the pupils here.

I'm really kind of excited about seeing a school that specialises

in something that I've had throughout my life.

Shapwick is a private boarding school,

where lessons are tailored to the needs of each of its 170 boys and girls.

-Hello.

-Good morning, Kara.

-This is a lovely, small class.

-No snoozing in the back row,

because the back row is only the second row!

We've set you up a desk here.

You can join in with our English lesson.

-I'll try my best.

-If there's anything you're not sure of,

you can ask Will, because he's had lots of English lessons in this classroom. Before we start that,

-who can tell me, what are these letters called? Patrick?

-Vowels.

-That's right. If they were people, what sort of people would they be?

-They're cowards.

-They're cowards.

'Dyslexia doesn't just affect reading. It can obstruct short-term memory too.'

What do we know about this letter?

It's the big K. It's not very nice.

So pupils here are taught new words by linking them to bright colours,

shapes and stories to help store them in their long-term memories. It's called multi-sensory learning.

-What do we need to do to little vowels to help them?

-"C-K".

We give it a friend that makes the same sound.

What I'd like you to do, boys and girls,

is to make your alphabet with your plastic letters.

Listen carefully to this one.

"Tank".

Tank.

SHE MOUTHS: Is that right?

Oh, my God. Is it "C-K"?

I thought it was just K.

Why did you think it was just K, Kara?

I thought it was just K because the N is there to protect the K.

Exactly. You're right. It is.

-Thank goodness.

-Don't worry!

Kara's already breaking school rules.

(Will, has it definitely got a CK?)

-Yeah.

-I hope you're not whispering in the back row.

No, sorry!

Most dyslexic schoolchildren don't get this kind of support.

But to come to a school like Shapwick,

parents must pay fees or fight for very few state-funded places.

I just know that the normal way of teaching didn't go in for me.

And actually, now, this is it.

And it's kind of making me laugh because it's

so funny how I know I would have... it just makes sense that it goes in.

Because you're learning in this way, you'll be so much more advanced than I am.

Will is ten, and like many dyslexics,

he also has associated conditions which can make school even harder.

He started boarding here two years ago after falling behind and being picked on.

What do you remember finding the most difficult?

-Maths.

-I don't like maths either.

I wasn't very good at spelling. And also, I wasn't... Oop!

I wasn't very good at reading either.

They just made me feel like I was awkward.

I wished I could be somebody else.

But then when I came to this school, I realised that

I want to keep who I am now, because I know that I'm not stupid.

-What word were you practising, Will?

-Pocket.

-Pocket.

As part of their English lesson, the children spell out words with physical movements.

It helps the words to stick in their long-term memories.

Makes you remember. The shield protecting the K.

The shield protecting the K.

I like that one.

-It just goes in, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

Ten years ago, her old school did its best to help her.

But for Kara, this way of learning is a revelation.

I've just realised today that everything I learnt at school wasn't progressive at all.

It was just all staggered.

I did use to put my hand up and I was confident enough,

in an awkward way, to say... "I'm sorry, Miss Whoever,

"what did you say again?"

Or "what do you mean?"

And the teacher's answer was

"You should have been listening, Kara." And I didn't hear that once.

I heard that over and over and over.

Actually, the teachers really thought I wasn't paying attention when I was paying 100% attention.

And also, I was talking to the teacher today and we said how

actually, some kids can then go into having behavioural problems

because they're told so many times that they weren't listening

and they weren't paying attention and they're bad,

when actually naughty kids in other schools have come to this school and they're not naughty at all.

On average, two to three kids in every UK classroom are dyslexic.

Will and Kara were fortunate to be diagnosed young.

Kara's meeting an older pupil here, whose dyslexia wasn't picked up until his situation got really bad.

Oscar is 16. He's severely dyslexic and also has associated conditions.

He came to Shapwick after he was diagnosed just 18 months ago.

By then, he'd already been in and out of five regular schools.

If I was at my old school and you decided to come and talk to me, I think I would probably run away.

I didn't talk to people lot.

I didn't have any friends.

I used to be the one that sat at the edge of the playground

watching everyone play along and chat, laughing and playing.

And then it is always, he's the weird one, because of his dyslexia.

He's the weird one, let's move on.

I remember the kids sort of saying, "Go away", and that sort of thing,

to the point where some of them did tell me, "Why don't you go die?"

I was a mess myself because teachers would, er...

force me into the class.

Literally, there was five teachers, one on each leg,

one on each arm, and one teacher telling them where to go.

It was, you must get into the class.

It was almost like escaping prison, you felt?

That's what it was, it was a prison.

It felt like a wall of words, numbers and people.

It was just...

-Trapped.

-And uncomfortable?

..to the extent I tried to...

get out in a way that...

Well, I tried to commit suicide.

That's how bad it was for me.

-Oh my God.

-Yeah.

The dinner lady stopped me.

Oscar was only seven at the time, but he didn't harm himself.

He found the way through was to get the help he needed.

His life has now turned around.

This is the first time I've fitted in.

At my old school, every other lesson I was stood outside the door.

-For being a naughty?

-For being naughty, what they called naughty.

Even at my old school, it was, "get out, get out, get out!"

Here, I've not been shouted at or anything like that once.

I've not been told to get out. I've not been told I'm stupid.

The whole world's gone the right way up.

Now, I know that I can pass GCSEs.

Now, I actually know what sort of thing I want to do as a job.

I know what I want to do in life.

What do you want?

I want to be a teacher. I want to try and help other kids who were like me.

Oscar's story has made Kara realise how destructive it can be for

young dyslexic people if their condition is undetected.

You know, just Oscar going through what he went through

is really quite sad and...

You always think, oh it's not that bad, but it was.

It was really hard.

You don't really understand why.

You try, you really try and yet it just doesn't seem to go in.

That's a real lesson to pass on to people who just aren't aware of it.

There's one piece of paper that I've been looking for for about a week.

I can't find it.

See, this is it. This is typical.

I've just lost my phone.

Kara's starting to suspect that dyslexia doesn't just

disrupt how she reads, but how she organises her whole life.

This is all I do all day, I just look for things that... Oh, here it is.

I literally spend my life looking for things.

There's a few questions I need to find out, you know?

I'm a little bit in the dark to where my personality begins and dyslexia ends.

Kara's often at her parents' place, so it's a question her mum's asking too.

-Boo.

-My mum.

Perhaps we're blaming the dyslexic on to the way you are.

Everything that's a problem - dyslexia!

Mum, sorry, it's my dyslexia!

That's the trouble. I don't know what I can and can't blame it on.

You're so untidy, aren't you?

It would make life easier if you'd do little things as you go along,

but you don't seem able to do those things as you go along, do you?

She's off on one now.

I nag a lot, really, don't I?

I do nag about things.

The reason I'm nagging is because I'm trying to help you in a way,

trying to make you more organised.

I feel like I've been hiding any sort of problem in my life.

I've just sort of papered across the cracks and pretend...

-I think you need routine.

-Yes.

When you was in EastEnders, you had a routine.

Yeah, but I've got to work that out, really.

Because I'm so sick of just...

..not getting anywhere, really, with my organisation.

Kara's own flat is close by to her family's.

While it's being renovated, she sees it as a place to escape her difficulties.

I couldn't find my keys.

But her disorganisation seems to follow her wherever she goes.

This is awful. I just sort of press on a few numbers.

Isn't that awful?

See who's in. See who'll let me in.

-Hello?

-Hello, I'm so sorry, I've locked myself out.

-Would that be Kara?

-Yes.

-Hello, Kara.

-Hiya! Thank you for letting me in.

-You're welcome.

-Mwah!

-Bye, darling.

Au revoir.

Some experts believe dyslexics have stronger visual memories,

which can make them more creative than others.

I put the red lid back on the blue thing.

If my mum was here right now, she would actually cry.

She would just be upset about that red lid on the blue thing.

No, that's not got a lid on it.

But for Kara, painting is just her refuge from the constant feeling that she's made a mistake.

There's no correct answer with art, is there?

Whereas I guess in all my other subjects, there was always a tick or a cross, a right or a wrong.

But in art, I think you have to be messy.

You can't not be messy.

That's the whole point.

I just love it, and I could do it all day, every day.

In a world full of written information, the words that

surround us can be overwhelming for people with this lifelong condition.

Catherine Kindersley tests adults to see how dyslexia

might be affecting them in everyday life.

Kara is meeting her for tests because she wants to know

whether dyslexia is shaping the way she copes day to day.

It's funny how everything happens at once.

I left my job, and then me and my boyfriend are not together,

and I'm moving flat and you can get a bit stressed, can't you, over silly things.

Just feeling the most unorganised I've ever felt, at the moment.

It can make you feel a little bit worried about things, really.

This is going to be a revealing session for Kara.

Catherine is going to scrutinise how she copes with the information life bombards us all with.

Catherine checks how well Kara can hold on to exact sequences

of numbers in her memory by asking her to repeat them back.

7, 3, 1...

4, 2, 3, 7, 1...

This time, I want you to say the numbers backwards.

Oh my goodness!

7, 6, 2...

4.

Colours...

Catherine now tests how quickly and accurately Kara can find

the right words to describe the colours and images she sees.

Blue, red, green, black, brown, yellow.

Red, black, black, black, brown, yellow, brown, green, red, yellow.

Fish, pencil, key, chair, star, pencil, fish, boat, star, chair, key, chair, boat, fish...

OK, well done.

Kara sails through some of the exercises, but they're about to become more demanding.

I'm going to say two words to you and I'm going to ask you how they are alike.

Today's aim is to reveal Kara's difficulties, but she's now feeling

exposed as her ability to describe the meanings of words is tested.

They are alike because they're forms of, um...

My vocabulary is really not good today.

I get really frustrated when I'm talking.

I can't catch the word I'm wanting to use.

It's just that it doesn't seem to pull out.

-Exactly.

-..pull out of the right bit of the brain, from the brain, when you need it.

I'm just going to hear you read aloud.

This is the most challenging task for Kara, especially under these test conditions.

Private Charles Nod-ler was attached to a...

To a company... A Company.

A Company, and was fighting in the jungles of Okin-awa...Okinawa.

All the men in his squad and company had been killed, or severally wounded.

Or severely wounded!

Where was Private Charles Nodler fighting?

Can you remember that?

In Okin...

In Japan.

In...Koneria?

And how long before reinforcements would arrive?

I can't even remember what I read.

This is really thick of me, but I can't think right now.

Well done for working through all of that.

I don't think my brain's worked this much in about ten years!

It's a lot of concentration, isn't it?

The way Kara processes language

gives Catherine a clear-cut diagnosis.

Because of the dyslexic difficulty of decoding

or breaking down words into their sounds,

the effort that you are putting in to really making sure

that you're reading the words accurately

means you are not holding on to the meaning at the same time.

Maybe sometimes I have to read it 8 to 10 times to get what it's meaning.

Yes.

She's also detected that Kara's short-term memory is weak.

There is a dip, if you like, in your ability

to hold on to information in your mind in the short term.

Hm-mm.

This is the most common characteristic of dyslexia,

but it's a real eye-opener for Kara.

In normal life, we have to do quite a lot of remembering messages,

-organising daily life, remembering where things have been put.

-Yeah.

Are you well organised in that way?

I would say all of those things are bad, very bad.

I suspect that it's that memory challenge

which is affecting your organisation as well.

It's just, you've lost it, it's slipped your mind,

or you're now concentrating on something else.

So, that is completely characteristic of dyslexia.

The diagnosis has given Kara an explanation for her scattiness,

but it's making her question

why she's never faced up to her condition until now.

I felt really, really naked in there.

Suddenly today, I was put in a situation

where it was like I couldn't disappear.

It's really weird, because you know, it's just a silly little test,

but it just made me...

Oh, God!

It just made me realise that in life, we just,

we choose to...

To follow our comfort zone, and that's bad.

You should push yourself to do things that aren't comfortable.

Kara now realises that dyslexia has been holding her back more than she'd imagined.

Since leaving EastEnders a year ago,

she's been back on the audition circuit,

where she has to be able to read and learn scripts fast.

My first line is -

"Ryan buys two breakfasts and doesn't eat both himself.

"Am I still asleep?" What?

"Ryan buys two breakfasts and doesn't eat both himself."

"Ryan buys two breakfasts..."

Over the years, Kara has developed her own ways of getting around

the difficulties caused by dyslexia.

My system is, I read a line, and then I'll write it down,

and then I just keep adding a line every time, or more,

until it really funnels in.

But writing each line out more than ten times

is a lengthy and painstaking process.

I hate this part, really.

If this was what acting was about, I probably wouldn't do it.

But when you get there and start saying it out loud,

that's when you realise that... it's how amazing it is.

It's worth this part.

Kara often has to rely on her mum and dad to get the lines right.

-Mum?

-Yeah?

-Would you mind giving me a hand, please?

-Do you know when you come in?

-Yeah.

So, Molly.

Four replies in three days.

The box room there.

It's small, but if you get rid of all the stuff, you can fit a bed in. No?

It's not, it's "The box room, there."

Dad! I'm not acting it at the moment, I'm just learning the lines!

OK, all right.

Planning on staying long, just till...

It's small, but... Dad, I need to learn that.

It's small, but if you clear the stuff out you can fit a bed in.

It's small...

It's small, but if you clear the stuff out, you can get a bed in.

If you get the stuff out... Clear the stuff out.

It's small, but if you clear the stuff out, you can get a bed in.

Action.

Many dyslexics find ways of getting around their difficulties,

and relying on loved ones is common.

When it comes to the audition the next day, Kara's on her own.

Kara is now wondering how much easier life is

for people without dyslexia.

During her four years on EastEnders,

she was reading and memorising up to 40 short scenes a week.

Boo!

But she never talked about her condition,

-not even to her closest co-star, Ricky Groves.

-Hello.

I bet you've got loads of women back in Walford?

-No, not me.

-Yeah, right!

-No, I'm all about respect and commitment.

-We never discussed my dyslexia at work.

-No, we never did.

-In the four years I was there.

-No. It never really appeared with you.

Well, you know, like all of us, we had our ups and downs

with regards to good days and bad days,

but it was never a case of, "Oh, no, here comes the dyslexic again!"

So I'd do one line and then I'd write it down about seven times

and then the second line, I'd add to that

and write the two lines seven times and just keep adding a line.

Wow. I didn't know that. I did not know that.

-And then I'd learn your lines.

-It didn't show.

I've got it in here. Look, this is the way I do it.

This is one of my books.

There might even be one of our scenes.

Let's have a look.

-So this was you every night when you got home after a day at work?

-Yeah.

This is where I punch Phil, do you remember?

Yeah, this is our last episode.

Episode 3,848.

Just for fun and a bit of reminiscing,

would you learn it your way and I'll learn it my way

-and then we'll see how good our memories still are.

-Yeah.

-Off you go.

-I'm going over here.

-OK. I'll see what I can do.

OK, good luck.

Non-dyslexics like Ricky take it for granted

that they can read and retain information.

Kara and other dyslexics often have to work much harder

to do the same thing.

-Have you learnt it yet?

-Yeah.

-Wow.

-You've a lot more than me though.

That's a point, you haven't got that much!

I just said that to them, don't have a go at me!

There's a big difference in the time it's taking each of them

and this is just the last of over 150 episodes they acted together.

To learn a scene like that would probably take me,

on average, I suppose, you'd look at it for ten or 15 minutes.

This was our last scene, so I'd probably have spent,

goodness me, three hours, maybe?

-Right. I'm ready.

-OK.

-Are you ready?

-Yeah.

I'm quite excited.

-Do you know what I've realised doing this though?

-What?

I have realised how good my long-term memory is

and if they gave this to us a year before we filmed,

-I'd be blooming amazing.

-You think so?

-Let's see how it goes.

-OK.

-Ready?

-Yeah.

Gary!

Gary!

Stop the boat!

Stop the boat.

I don't know how to.

You always make me laugh, Gary.

Thanks for that.

I'm not talking a little chuckle,

I mean right from the pit of my belly laughing.

-I'm good for something, am I?

-You're good for a lot of things.

So what if you've got a paunch and you're losing your hair.

It's just the way it's styled.

Well, I think...

Don't tell me.

You've... Every time I've needed you, you've always been there for me.

Da-dah!

-I did all right there!

-You done well.

BOTH: Aww.

Happy days. Happy days.

-Take care.

-Au revoir.

-Bye-bye.

-Mes amis.

I'm going this way.

The timescale of my learning, how slow I am,

is a really odd factor that I hadn't thought about,

so yeah, I've probably taken ages and ages to learn my lines

whereas normally it shouldn't really take that long.

That's quite interesting.

Kara's realising how little she's understood until now

about how dyslexia defines her.

I had decided what dyslexia was, in my mind, what it meant,

how it affected me and I'd put it in a file

and accepted for me that was that.

And it's as if someone has suddenly added all these things that are...

kind of blowing my mind.

She's now going to find out how different her brain function is

to that of non-dyslexics.

Her brain scan results are through.

When it came to reading familiar words,

people of your age and intelligence are normally much quicker

and more accurate when they're reading them,

-so you were dyslexic in so far as you were slower to respond.

-Hm-mm.

Cathy has discovered that Kara uses the same pathways in her brain to read

as those without dyslexia, but she's using much more effort.

You were saying "horse" and "donkey" but despite reading easy words,

your brain is still working particularly hard.

To read out words,

Kara's brain must visually recognise the letters of a word,

put those letters together,

work out the meaning of the word

and then finally, say the word out loud.

This red is how high your activity was

and you can see that it's higher

than all of the other typical readers.

People who are speaking in a second language,

when they're reading in English, they also show more activity.

I'm almost working like a French person reading English.

Yes.

Exactly.

Oh, God!

That's not good then, is it!

Despite the brave face,

finding out that her memory and reading are significantly slower

is troubling for Kara.

I know this is a bit dramatic but I end up hating myself,

because I can't seem to get anything right sometimes.

It really is in my hands now

and if I want to make certain changes in my life,

it's really down to me putting the work and the effort in.

Dyslexia can't be cured,

but specialist tuition can help adult dyslexics

manage the everyday tasks made tricky.

Kara has signed up for some one-to-one classes.

-Hello.

-Hiya.

Tutor Claire Salter wants to start by transforming the way

Kara deals with her poor short-term memory.

In the same way that you might have organisational problems in life,

we can do that in our brain.

If you put something down when you come in quickly

and don't pay attention to where it is,

when you go and find it later, it's really difficult to find.

The better I store it, the more easily I can find it later.

-'How much?

-Sixpence.

'There's a shilling. No, keep the change.'

She's putting on a performance.

Claire's showing Kara how to learn her script lines

by associating them with colours, sounds,

buzz words and physical movement

to anchor them in her long-term memory.

She's using the same multi-sensory learning technique

that Kara had a taste of at Chadwick School.

'Hide the Christmas tree carefully, Helen.

'Be sure the children do not see it

'until this evening when it is dressed.'

-Does it matter where I put them?

-No.

As long as you can anchor and remember your movement.

So what I do is get you to go round a number of times like that,

listening and repeating, listening and repeating.

'Hide the Christmas tree carefully, Helen.

'Be sure the children do not see it

'until this evening when it is dressed.'

Hide the Christmas tree carefully, Helen.

Don't let them see it until tonight when it is properly dressed.

Very close, yeah. It wouldn't take very long...

-No, after a few times...

-'How much? There's a shilling.'

How much?

There's a shilling.

-'Keep the change.'

-Keep the change.

'Has my little spendthrift been wasting money again?'

Yes, but we can afford to let ourselves go a little.

This is the first year that we have not had to ecomo...economise.

It's getting close. Yeah.

And then she says, "Poo, but we can borrow until then."

Exactly that. "Poo, we can borrow until then".

Oh, my goodness! That's not bad, is it!

I can see how it's working.

That's the thing, I feel like I've been quite lazy in the past,

just to think that there's one way,

and there's so many different ways of doing everything.

It's the opposite of lazy because you were giving yourself such hard work.

Yeah, I know!

I'm such a twit!

Not any more.

These techniques are a revelation.

Will Kara be brave enough to ditch the habits she's leaned on all her life?

I could really benefit massively, and I mean really big-time,

but just being stuck in my ways,

being stuck in the same old... and being used to that...

It's like anything, it's like giving up an addiction.

That's the way I've done it for so long.

Can I suddenly U-turn and decide to do something completely different?

I don't know. It's a bit...

I'm hoping that I take this on.

I'm hoping that I don't go home today and think,

I'm just going to stick to my old way of learning and my old routine.

In Nottingham, another young dyslexic is trying to transform the way he lives his life

by learning to read and write from scratch in order to help him find a job.

Michael is the same age as Kara.

He only learned a year ago that he's severely dyslexic.

He relies on girlfriend, Karina, to help him job-hunt,

because for most of his life, he's been unable to read or write at all.

Hours can be flexible by...

-agreement.

-Arrangement.

-Arrangement.

-I nearly got it right, didn't I?

-Nearly.

Position is temporary.

-I haven't for a clue what that says.

-Ongoing.

-Ongoing.

Please enter your ten key skills, separated by icons.

Ten skills?

-Yep. Kind.

-Yeah, kind.

K-K....

Still can't spell kind.

You can, try.

Go on, it's dead easy, honestly.

-K.

-Yeah.

-I.

-Yeah.

-D.

-No.

-Kind.

-I don't know.

N-D.

Flexible.

Kara wants to know how Michael has coped since being excluded from school at 15.

When it comes to reading and writing,

I just couldn't do it at all.

-Like, am I thick or what? What's up with me?

-Did you know what you were going to do?

I really wanted a job. I really wanted to stick at a job.

As soon as they asked me to do a bit of paperwork,

I felt embarrassed to tell them that I couldn't read or write.

It's so embarrassing. When they say to you, "Fill this form out,"

-I felt an idiot.

-Because you just couldn't...

-I just couldn't do it.

Michael turned to crime and spent time in prison for a string of offences.

I was a tearaway.

In and out of cop shops, in and out of jail.

And I used to get fed up, thinking, "Surely there's something better in life than this."

I'm not going to blame it all on me being dyslexic, the way I've turned out and the things I've done.

Not at all.

After his last stay in prison a year ago, the Probation Service sent Michael for a dyslexia test.

How did it make you feel when they told you you were dyslexic?

What was that like?

I was over the moon, really, to tell you the truth,

that they found something that... that I wasn't just thick at school.

Since then, he's been attending weekly dyslexia support classes.

I felt things changing.

First, when I went, I couldn't even do the alphabet!

I couldn't spell "Nottingham" but now I can spell it.

And that's a big word to me, Nottingham. It's like, woah!

Now Michael wants to take responsibility, find work and stay out of trouble.

What would be the ideal job? What would you be looking for?

I'd do anything now, to tell you the truth. I'd work as anything.

Give me a chance,

because I'm not embarrassed now to go to them and say,

"Look, I can't read or write."

I'd love to grab a book,

-a big, thick book, read it from start to finish.

-Wow.

-I would love to do that.

-Me too!

Just get lost in the book, do you know what I mean? I really would.

If you can read and write, you get a lot further in life,

I think, anyway.

Oh!

Oh, we caught a fish!

Michael hopes he can slowly turn his life around with the help of his dyslexia classes.

Talking to other young dyslexics for the first time in her life

is making Kara realise that what can really make

one dyslexic's life different from another's is whether they get support.

When you meet someone and hear what he's been through,

I think it's more upsetting and it makes me feel angry

that there's hundreds and thousands of kids going through that every day.

I would have been one of them, no doubt about it.

I would have been one of them.

But I had the support that they should have all had.

We really need to wake up and kind of think about how we teach kids

so that these kids aren't getting lost out there.

Things are brightening up for Kara.

A month into her dyslexia classes,

and she's trying out the new techniques for real, after she had news from that audition.

I got the job, which is brilliant.

I'm playing a really lovely guest lead role,

and I was able to use what I'd learnt in my last training session, for that job.

Kara's now becoming a natural at re-routing information from her short- to her long-term memory.

By associating her lines with colours, buzzwords, and her physical movement around the room,

she's learning her scripts in just half the time it used to take her

and she no longer needs the help of her mum and dad.

It's in!

Using the new way of learning my lines was definitely a deeper way of learning

and helped with that job so much.

When I got on set, I realised that I wasn't thinking so much, and it had just gone in.

This is something that I will take on

and practice for ever now.

Now she's seen how much her life can improve, Kara wants to read a book cover to cover more than ever.

For some dyslexics, the way words are laid out on the page adds to the difficulty they have reading,

so Kara's going to see optometrist Nigel Burnett Hodd.

When you're reading a book, do you see all the words all in a line

or do you sometimes see them swirling around?

Yeah, I just get these marks in the page.

The white really comes through in the gaps.

Nigel thinks the white background can trigger this visual stress.

If you're in a dark room

and you suddenly go into bright surroundings, it's like, "Cor!"

For you it's like that all the time, for a white background.

Every colour has a different wavelength.

For some dyslexics, white is too intense for the brain to process easily.

What we do is we use colour filters to slow down the wavelength of the light.

So a book that used to take you four hours to read, you'll read in two hours.

And after the two hours, we'd ask you what happened in the book and you'll say,

-"Oh, I remember this, this and this."

-Sounds like my miracle!

But if I put this over it...

Yeah, that straightaway makes it comfortable.

The black looks kind of raised and almost brings it back to the white.

-So it calms it down?

-Yeah.

So if I put this one over the front, the greeny colour...

-That's really good.

-Uh-huh!

Next, Nigel tests Kara's eyes to make sure there are no other problems.

The green colour Kara has chosen is now broken down into a spectrum

so that she can choose just the right shade to help her read more easily.

I think this one's better.

Yeah, it makes it more comfortable. That's my colour.

Nigel has prescribed Kara dark green lenses.

Look very, very intelligent.

Kara now has to wait for her new specs to be made up

to see if they'll help her fulfil her dream of diving into the world of Harry Potter.

Kara's still going to her one-to-one classes, and for the first time

she's beginning to tackle the disorganisation that was casting a cloud over her life.

At the moment, it's fantastic.

I'm filming that drama that I got in Manchester

and that's going really well, and I'm doing Strictly Come Dancing.

It's just funny that everything comes at once.

She's learned how to divide up her diary into colourful hourly slots.

Suddenly everything becomes timed,

and you can visualise yourself doing the things

rather than just putting 20 things into Tuesday.

It's the first time I've gone into another busy phase

and been a bit prepared for it and not had to stress

and be upset and angry with myself all the time

because I'm so unorganised and I'm turning up to things with five bags.

I'm kind of getting rid of all of that baggage that once made my life a nightmare.

Well, almost.

I still lose things all the time.

It hasn't kicked in just yet.

Kara will never stop being dyslexic,

but her power to change some of the habits of a lifetime is starting to sink in.

I'm getting it slowly.

I'm understanding what makes my life easier.

It's been five months since Kara set off

to discover what dyslexia is and the impact it can have.

I thought I had the word dyslexia wrapped up in my brain,

knew exactly what it meant,

when in fact, I look at dyslexia in a completely different way.

It's not something that just affects reading.

It's everything you take on every day.

Everything you take in is taken in in a certain way because you're dyslexic.

So if, in a word, we have a little vowel...

It has changed me and it's made me aware of who I am,

why I was the way I was,

and I needed to answer those questions for myself

in order to get better at all those things that I didn't like about myself.

This is really thick of me but I can't think right now.

The most important thing I've learned is that dyslexic people

don't have to walk around with a massive cloud hanging over them.

They don't need it to control and wreck their lives.

Being dyslexic doesn't mean you're stupid. It doesn't mean you're thick.

It just means that you need to be taught in a certain way

that fits your brain and works for you,

and that is all it is.

My glasses have arrived!

Kara's now ready to try out the life of a bookworm.

They're so beautiful!

I'm going to look... I've been so excited about getting these.

While there's no easy fix for the difficulty she has processing words,

she's hoping her new green specs will make it easier for her to visually process the page.

"Tom woke Harry next morning with his usual toothless grin and a cup of tea.

"Harry got dressed and was just persuading a disgruntled Hedwig to get back into her cage..."

Who would have thought that a little bit of coloured glass

would change that so much for me?

There's so many books I want to read, so I'd better get started on ticking off the list.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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