Athlete Chris Robshaw is the 29-year-old captain of the England national rugby team, and is known for his quiet leadership on and off the pitch. And he has dyslexia.
The middle child of three boisterous boys, tragedy struck the family early on when his father died unexpectedly of a heart attack when Chris was only five years old. At the time, he was at the beginning of his academic life, and struggling with dyslexia.
He remembers dreading being asked to read aloud in class, and he looked to sport as an escape from the pressures in the classroom.
He was eventually accepted into the Millfield school in Glastonbury, which specialises in both sport and dyslexia. He credits the support he received there with helping him overcome his reading difficulties.
But he’s not afraid to occasionally poke fun at himself now, a couple decades on from those tough school days. He describes once attending a toga party dressed up as a goat…!
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Sarah Forrest is Programme Training Manager for the Easyread System, an online course for children struggling with reading, spelling, and more. Get a free 10-lesson trial from www.oxfordlearningsolutions.com
