Holly Willoughby calls for mandatory dyslexia screening in schools

She's dead right!

Learning difficulties like dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD are very common in my family. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 19, but it wasn't until I was in college after years of struggling in school. My school years would have been a lot easier if I had had my diagnosis sooner, a feeling shared with TV presenter Holly Willoughby. The well known presenter has spoken out on how all schools should have mandatory dyslexia screenings. Holly has been very open in the past about her own struggles with dyslexia;

"My own dyslexia was picked up fairly late and it wasn't until that moment that my years of frustration at school all made sense. It is a quiet scandal that an estimated 4/5 dyslexic children leave school with their dyslexia unidentified meaning their potential is unrealised, their confidence undermined and they don't achieve the qualifications they deserve. It does not have to be this way. Cheap and easy computer-based screening tools now exist to help to identify dyslexia."

The This Morning star is urging the UK government to introduce screening at a much younger age and improve the education of teachers and honestly I think we could do with similar screenings in Ireland too. I doubt I was the only child in my class struggling with an invisible learning difficulty, but absolutely none of us we're ever diagnosed during our school years. According to The Daily Mail former health secretary Matt Hancock is trying to push through a dyslexia private members' bill demanding the same as Holly. Hancock's new bill was read in the House of Commons last Wednesday.