Alfie's story

Alfie is a student at a mainstream school in Oxfordshire. Alfie is dyslexic and receives additional support to improve his reading. He sometimes struggles to keep up in class because of his dyslexia and slower reading speed.

Alfie said he would find it useful to have his textbooks in audio. This way he could listen to them on his iPod before lessons, meaning he was more familiar with the book prior to the lesson, which would help him keep up in class. He also thought it would be useful to listen to them after lessons if there were bits of the lesson he didn't fully understand. He wanted the audio books to be on his iPod (in MP3 format) as he already has an iPod and he could listen to it anywhere.

'It would help if it went on the iPod or iPhone, if it wasn't that clear you could get the iPod or iPhone out and listen to it.'

Alfie also explained how he finds some diagrams confusing because there is too much detail and the labels are not always clear.

'Images are ok but sometimes I think 'what is that?' It has a little explanation but it doesn't help. It could do with several pictures for one image (to make the image clearer).' 

Alfie looked at RNIB tactile and large print images on the respiratory system and thought images displayed in this way would be useful for him. He liked that the diagram went into more detail across a number of different images, and that there were descriptions of what the image was showing. Alfie also liked the tactile images; he thought feeling the different textures could help him remember different parts of the diagram.

(Commenting on some large print images produced by RNIB) 'The large print images have been broken down into sections and it helped me to get more information out of the pictures.'

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