For a while I tried to think of a way of researching this phenomenon, but couldn’t come up with a method that didn’t appear offensive. I have a huge respect for the many talented dyslexic people I have met and the fascinating way in which the dyslexic brain functions, but there is still something of a stigma amongst those who don’t understand it and who still see it as a disability.

However, I have been determined to educate the scriptwriters on The Archers to see that fifty years of farming stories without a single dyslexic appearing is weird to say the least. I did receive a letter from a producer on the show some ten years ago, who was actually dyslexic herself and was only too familiar with the sense of frustration and failure at school which I had suggested as a plot line.

Since then I have had zero success in contacting the show. I write emails to the website which are either completely ignored or treated to the standard ‘we can’t cover everything’ line. I would be happy for them to make this decision if I felt that they had actually considered the problem, but just writing it off without hearing what I have to say is, in my opinion, the arrogant approach of a literate person with no understanding of the horrors of life as an unrecognised dyslexic in full time education.

But - I managed to speak to a real person this week who was both charming and interested. He agreed that dyslexia is a subject that would be worth covering and seemed to understand its importance to farming families. He asked me to send him more information (which I did at once) and will discuss it with the scriptwriters. I do hope that they run with this; it’s an important story and it could mean that dyslexic children get the specialised help they need at the time they need it and avoid years of damaging failure.

“An excellent product. I have used it successfully children with cerebral palsy and Downs syndrome”

and this fascinated me. I originally designed The CoolerRuler to help my pupils, who were mostly dyslexic. I have used it with one girl who has hemiplegia but had no idea that it could be so effective with readers with more complicated learning difficulties.

I hope to find out more about Veronica’s work with her pupils; I am so pleased to hear that The CoolerRuler has a wider reach than even I imagined.

When I met Sam (name changed to protect the innocent), he walked with shoulders hunched, head down, looking at the ground, a picture of misery. His educational experience at that point had consisted of failure - in fact the failure was that of his teachers at Potburger School (name changed to protect the guilty!) - but he had been assured by these so-called professionals that the fault was entirely with him. They were assiduously avoiding recognising his dyslexia and apparently lying about his achievements when it came to tests. How else could his SAT reading score of 2C have been achieved when he was unable to read even the simplest words?

I have worked with Sam for eighteen months and his progress has been remarkable. This is entirely down to his hard work and the fact that he is so keen to learn now that the teaching is directed towards his preferred learning style, but the most noticeable change has been in his demeanour. This bright, bubbly child now walks tall and his confidence shines through. His mother tells me how desperately worried she was at the changes she had seen in him after he had been at school for a couple of years and now says that she has ‘got her son back’.

She and I know that this improvement has nothing to do with Potburger School.

So why is she so angry? After years of virtually ignoring Sam, the school is now giving him some one to one tuition - and is insisting that my lessons with him follow their programme of study. This despite the fact that Sam’s ‘specialist’ lessons are delivered by a teacher who has absolutely no training in any of the specific learning difficulties. This was admitted by the Head Teacher when Sam’s mother asked the question. She stated that ‘she is a qualified teacher but doesn’t have any extra dyslexia qualifications.’ They just can’t see that simply giving him more of what has already failed him is bound to fail him again.

We had a coffee together and laughed at the school and she gradually calmed down. Although I am a great believer in parents, specialist teachers and schools working as closely together as possible to support a child, in this case I won’t be following their lead. The crumpled sheet of A4 with a few spidery notes of spelling patterns written in red biro isn’t sufficient to make me alter the targets that Sam and I have already agreed for this term.

After all, Sam is doing really well and that’s enough for him, his mother and for me.

As Eleanor Beale commented on a previous blog entry (thanks Eleanor - glad it’s helping your pupils,) “It is a great aid to developing fluency and independent reading”.

The logo took care of itself, with the small ‘r’ of Cooler forming the top right hand corner of the capital ‘R’ of Ruler, (ditto with Ruler and Reading) but it was another matter to write it down in type. After devoting so many years of my life to teaching children to spell I simply couldn’t bring myself to leave out an ‘r’ and mis-spell the words!

So I’ve finished up with two r’s in the middle of both CoolerRuler and RulerReading, which is very difficult to explain on the phone. Ho-hum, perhaps I should simply have called it The-Best-Reading-Tool-Ever, produced by The-Best-Ever-Company-To-Help-You-Learn-To-Read …. but then I guess I might have had problems with registering the trademark.

Two things about this pleased me - firstly that it had been a major accident that had caused the breakage and secondly that she reported that her son was ‘desperate’ because it had broken. “He is lost without it,” she went on to say, “and I had to get a new one as soon as possible.”

Now, I’m definitely not happy that her son is distressed, but I am delighted that The CoolerRuler is making such an obvious difference to his schooling. As a gesture of goodwill, I sent the lad an extra 20cm version of The CoolerRuler - this is a rather Heath Robinson affair, cut down from the full size version, but it has the advantage of fitting inside a pencil case, so I hope it will prove useful to him.

And the moral of the story is … that having two CoolerRulers is an advantage. One for home and one for school is ideal - and if by any chance one of them does break, then distress can be avoided.

The research will be similar to last year’s successful project with The Petersfield School. I will test respondents using the WRAT (Wide Range Achievement Tests) reading test and then introduce them to The CoolerRuler and encourage its use as much as possible. Over the following six weeks, I will visit to check that it is being used correctly and to work with offenders on identifying parts of words to be read. At the end of six weeks, I will re-test with the WRAT.

At The Petersfield School, the results showed over 61% achieved an average of 15.75 months’ gain in reading age in only six weeks. It will be very interesting to see whether these results will be replicated amongst the older cohort within Winchester Prison.

Now all I have to do is to get my security clearance to be able to work as a volunteer within the prison - or rob a bank and get in that way!

This could account for why I did so badly in my A levels all those years ago!

The children were interviewed individually and their reading tested using a single word reading test from the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT 3 - tan form). Each was then given The CoolerRuler to keep and encouraged to use it as much as possible both in school and for homework.

Over the next six weeks, I saw each child for about fifteen minutes a week, to check that The CoolerRuler was being used correctly and to ask them for their opinions on its effectiveness. At the end of the trial, they were re-tested with the WRAT 3 - but this time using the alternative, blue form.

The outcome was very pleasing. Of the fifteen participants, two were excluded from the results - one because of personal problems at home and the other because she was physically sick on the day of the retest. From the remaining thirteen, eight made significant gains in reading age, ranging from an increase of six months to three years and eleven months. This represents an average gain of 15.75 months for over 61% of the cohort.

However, the most pleasing aspect of the project was the confidence that The CoolerRuler gave to those using it. The Head of the special needs unit found this especially noteworthy and when I asked the children to score The CoolerRuler out of ten for effectiveness, I was gratified to find that the average score was over eight out of ten. Comments included:

“It’s really helped me with reading; the sliders help me to break up the words.”

“I’ve used it two or three lessons a day. It helps by breaking down longer words I used to get stuck on. It’s great.”

“I’ve never been able to read long words like ‘dangerous’ before. It takes forever to read a book, but with The CoolerRuler, putting it over the line makes it go faster.”

“The CoolerRuler help you read better. If you get stuck on a word, you can bump the sliders up and it’s really easy - and it’s also a ruler, so it’s part of your equipment.”

“I used it a lot in my tests … and it’s a good ruler too. I use it in all my lessons where I have to read. It makes reading less tiring.”

“It makes words you’d miss, or get wrong, stand out so you can get them right.”

“It helps because the sliders split words you can’t read in half. I’d recommend it.”

My thanks to all the kids who helped with this project. These comments make everything worthwhile - and I shall continue to promote The CoolerRuler so that other poor readers may enjoy its benefits.

This month we’ve arranged to give away a free CoolerRuler with Headteacher Update Extra, so about a hundred and fifty lucky Head Teachers are about to discover the benefits that The CoolerRuler can bring to their pupils. In addition, the next big order is in with the manufacturers and we’re on a mission to let the world know that easy reading is achievable for all.

We carried out a small-scale piece of research last year and this year we are embarking on something on a larger scale involving more participants over a longer period of time. The results of the first project were very encouraging, so we have high hopes for the new research.

If you are reading this and happen to be one of the people who already own a CoolerRuler, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us an email and let us know how you’re getting on.

Set-up was stressful - when they threw us out of the building at 7.15pm last Thursday, the stand was only half completed so it meant an early start on Friday morning with the show opening at 9am. However we managed to be ready on time and it was worth all the hassle with The CoolerRuler being well received by all who saw it.

I have a simple trick to lure visitors to my stand - chairs! If you’ve ever been to an exhibition, you’ll know how like a mirage the sight of a chair can be. I need to be able to demonstrate the (many) benefits of The CoolerRuler so a table and chairs makes sense, but I reckon I attract a fair degree of interest from people who really only want to sit down. The exciting thing is that, when they see The CoolerRuler in action, most of them buy one anyway.

There is no doubt about it, every child should have one. It can help all new readers, whether they have a problem with reading or not and I’ve realised just how passionate I am about getting this essential tool out to poor readers. If I won the lottery tonight (which reminds me, I must buy a ticket!) I’d still be manufacturing The CoolerRuler, but I’d be giving them away.

We have added the original ten Bruce Boosters (teaching tips garnered from many years working as Special Needs teacher) and I will write more when inspiration strikes. In the meantime, watch this space!

Take some A4 scrap paper which has only been used on one side. Tear it in half, in half again and in half again. Now you have 8 little pieces of scruffy paper. Not scary at all. Think what you'd like to write about - can't think of anything? Look around you; if you can see a tree, you might like to write about a tree that comes to life. If you can see a table, you might think of someone hiding under the table to shelter from a bomb in a war. Draw a tree/table on your first piece of paper.

Imagine a character in your story and give them a name - any name; you can always change it later. Write that name on one of the pieces of paper - now keep asking yourself questions about the character. Name, age, boy/girl, brothers/sisters, where they live. Write or draw the answers on the same sheet.

Every time you think of something you might add to this story, get it down on another piece of paper, a new piece for every new event/character. You can throw away anything you change your mind about later, so put down everything that you think of for now. Tear up more paper if you need more scraps.

When you have as many ideas as you can think of, spread out all the scraps and put them in order, so that the story makes sense. Now get some A4 paper and glue the pieces (in order) on to as many sheets as you need.

Hey presto - you've written a story. All you have to do is to copy it out.