The next person I would like to discuss is Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson famous British investor, business magnate, author and philanthropist who founded the Virgin Group, and controls more than 400 different companies.

Branson even as a young boy had a taste for adventure and expressed desires to become an entrepreneur and had his parents support from an early age. He started his very first business venture just at the age of 16, this was a magazine called Student. Later on, in 1970 Brandon had set up a mail order record business, he would go on to open a chain of record stores named Virgin Records, later renamed Virgin Megastores. This Virgin brand had robust growth in the 1980s he was able to form Virgin Atlantic airline and later expanded the Virgin Records music label. Branson would be knighted in 2000 by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to entrepreneurship. He had become a very prominent figure for all of his work ranging from music, transportation, and retail along with his interests in air, land, sea, and space travel. He would be named in the 2002 100 Greatest Britons by BBC and continues his work with space travel. In 2004 he founded Virgin Galactic his spaceflight corporation which has had huge progress in finds ways to make normal travel into space possible. As of June 2018, Forbes estimated Branson’s net worth at $5.1 Billion.

As a child Richard Branson did not know he had Dyslexia he and most others simply thought he was stupid, he wouldn’t find out until later in life that he had a learning disability. He was beaten by the headmaster of his school on a regular basis for not being able to do his work, this is extremely distressing how students with learning disabilities used to be treated. It makes me feel so lucky to be born in this time and into my family that gave me so much support in order for me to rise above and succeed. He talks about in interviews that in his time if someone was not good traditional school work it was designed to make them feel stupid. He feels inspired by other people who have Dyslexia such as Winston Churchill who was able to rise above his difficulties and run a country but save if from destruction.  His advice for children who are struggling in school is to think really hard and find something they’re good at work hard and become really good at it. He says he wouldn’t change anything in his life he feels blessed to give such a good time and feels that Dyslexia did not hold him back but was actually an advantage.

The next person I would like to discuss is American actress Bella Thorne, most of us probably know her best from her role in the Disney Channel show Shake it Up.

Bella was born and raised in Pembroke Pines, Florida in a lower-class family. Her father died when she was 7 and her mom raised Bella and her 3 siblings by herself. She says in interviews that’s party of the reason she started to model and act as a child was to help earn money for the family. She first noticed she had a problem in first grade she couldn’t read as well as the other kids in her class, she would mix up letters like b & d and m & w. Bella was diagnosed with Dyslexia, she was bullied a lot as a child for not being able to reading being called stupid and dumb by her peers. Bella would start home schooling after this due to the bullying and continued to cry to get better at reading. Her mother eventually enrolled her in Sylvan Learning Center which was so helpful for her (My Benchmark) she was eventually reading ahead of her grade level. Bella Thorne learned to face problems and not run away from them. Her family would also try to help out making her read everything around her from menus and cereal boxes to road sides everywhere they went. Bella as a child actress would get so nervous when she auditioned during table reads because she was so scared she’d mess up the read but she was progress pasted that now as an adult.

Studies show that around 1 in 5 students have some form of learning disability and is different for everybody. Disney who hired Bella to play Cece in the show Shake it Uphad her character also be Dyslexia so to better relate to those viewers out there who have a learning disability. It was great with views Bella says in interviews that she has gotten so many letters from fans who have Dyslexia and how much they could relate to her and her character and it was nice to see on TV. Bella likes to remind people both in interviews and through the show that Dyslexia does not affect your intelligence, it just makes people learn differently.

Personal I thought it was really cool when I was younger and I saw that not just Cece her character was Dyslexic but Bella actually was in real life. Along with talking about her disability in commercials. It was one of those you’re not alone moments to know that someone famous you see on tv has the same struggles as you. To quote Bella Thorne “Dyslexia makes things hard for me but not impossible”.

 

I think it is important to start with myself, I know I’m not one of the world’s great leaders or minds quite yet but I don’tthink I have a right to discuss others disabilities unless I discuss my own first.

Hi,I am Michael Jones and I have Dyslexia.

During my early years in school most teachers did not know what was holding me back, many thought I was just not paying attention or was not bright. My kindergarten teacher told my parents that she did not see me making it through high school. To be told their youngest child at age 7 may not be able to make it through school, my parents experienced a lot of emotional strain. My parents had no experience with this issue, their older two daughters never struggled in school, as they were honors students. I was enrolled in my local elementary school and put in special education, hoping to solve my problem. My parents and I quickly learned special education in public schools is not effective, you are sent to a different room for a few hours a day with other people who have problems from ranging from ADHD to forms of Autism. Two teachers are supposedly there to help all the students, but I think it’s safe to say it was not helpful for me and I continued to struggle. This upset my parents to see me struggle and beginto resent school, so in fourth grade I went to testing found out I am dyslexic.

 

This diagnosis opened up a new world for my parents and I.I finally knew it wasn’t my fault, butsomething inherent in my brain. Now that we knew what was wrong, my parents immediately started to try to find me help. They began researching schools that specialized in helping children with reading disabilities and found the Benchmark school. This school is a national known school for its work in helpingchildren with all varieties of learning disabilities. Once my parents went through the enrollment process for Benchmark, the only remaining problem was the $30,000 per year price tag.Being a typical middle-class family,my parents did not have that kind of money and sued the school district. We won when they finally admitted they weren’t helping me at all. They agreed to pay for 2 of my 4 years at Benchmark, which was priceless due to the amount that it helped me. During my 4 years at Benchmark I learned so much about working through my disability and to self-advocate for myself as a learner with special needs.

With everything I learned from Benchmark I was able to return to my school district as a new person. I attended to West Chester East High School and enrolled in nearlyall honors and AP courses. I graduated in 2018 as a member of The National Honors Society, while being able to balance school with clubs, sports, and social life. I am a current student at The Pennsylvania State University with plans to double major in Economics and Political Science with aspirations to go to law school.

 

I am Michael Jones and I don’t let Dyslexia hold me back, I took a stand and continue to work harder than others to get where I want to be.