Have a free Ben & Jerry’s cone and help children with dyslexia

Ben and Jerry’s Free Cone Day needs no introduction. This 12 April 2011, Ben and Jerry is giving back to society by donating the proceeds from the Free Cone Day to the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (DAS), a non-profit organisation dedicated to helping dyslexic kids overcome their learning difficulty and achieve more in life.

Some famous people that had dyslexia include Tom Cruise, Kiera Knightley, Richard Branson and Walt Disney. Who knew?

About Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that makes it very hard to read, write and spell. For children with dyslexia, Chunky Monkey can turn into Chnuky Munky. But true dyslexia is much broader than simply confusing or transposing letters, for example mistaking ”b” and “d.”.

1. General Dyslexia Indicators include:

“Good” and “bad” days, for no apparent reason
Confusion between directional words such as up/down and in/out.
Difficulty with sequences such as coloured beads, days of the week or numbers

2. Pre-School Age Children :

Persistently jumbles phrases
Inability to remember the known objects, e.g. table, chairs
Difficult learning nursery rhymes and rhyming words such as cat, mat, and pat
Later than expected speech development stent
Difficulties in getting dressed efficiently and putting on shoes on the correct feet
Enjoys being read to but shows no interest in letters or words
Often accused of not listening or paying attention
Excessive tripping, bumping into things and falling over
Difficulty with catching, kicking or throwing a ball; with hopping or skipping

3. Primary School (and beyond)

Has difficulty with reading and spelling.
Puts letters and figures the wrong way round.
Has difficulty remembering tables, alphabet, formulae, etc
Problems understanding what was read and takes longer than average to do written work
Needs to have instructions/numbers repeated
His difficulty with planning and writing essays
Has difficulty processing complex language or long series of instructions at speed
Has trouble tying shoes, dressing
Has difficulty telling left from right, order of days of the week, months of the year etc