Princess Beatrice is the fifth grandchild of the Queen of England, daughter of the Queen’s son Prince Andrew and his former wife Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. She has recently been named royal patron of the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre, which she said hugely helped her overcome her own literacy difficulties.
Princess Bea was born in 1988. From a young age, she struggled with reading and writing and was diagnosed as dyslexic at age seven. She had extra help and support, and took her GSCE’s a year late in order to give her more time to prepare.
When she was a teenager, she decided to make the details of her reading difficulties public in order to be an advocate for other struggling learners.
She achieved an A in drama, a B in film studies, and a B in history for her A levels, along with being elected Head Girl in her final year of sixth form. She went on to study History at Goldsmiths and graduated with a 2:1 degree.
In a recent speech for a literary festival, she described how it was Harry Potter that eventually got her reading. As soon as she picked up the first novel in the series, she was completely hooked!
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Sarah Forrest knows the feeling of getting hooked on Harry Potter all too well, and enjoys helping struggling readers achieve the same goal through work as a reading consultant for Morgan Learning Solutions (MLS). MLS runs fully supported courses for children with dyslexia, auditory processing disorders, highly visual learning styles and more. www.morganlearning.com
