Dyslexia gave Octavia Spencer a leg up on her classmates as a kid, as she recalled in an interview with WENN.
The Oscar-winning actress opened up about her experiences as an adult living with the disorder and how her childhood teachers played vital role in how she's handled dyslexia as an adult. For starters, Spencer was informed that dyslexia wasn’t some kind of impairment. It was simply another way of seeing the world.
"I was a dyslexic child and am a dyslexic adult; that doesn't really mean that you're not intelligent — it just means that your brain functions differently," Octavia said to WENN. She then described how she was tested as a gifted student due to her learning abilities being more auditory than visually inclined.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
"I just remember thinking differently. I could solve puzzles quicker than the average child. I would start with the mazes at the end and go to the front and be done in, like, 30 seconds. My deductive reasoning was very important," she said.
This isn’t the first time Spencer has discussed growing up with dyslexia. The Alabama native has shared stories about how reading changed her life as a young girl and how the mystery series Encyclopedia Brown pretty much saved her life. Spencer would then go on to study the arts in college.
“You have to allow kids to be kids. You also need to nurture their thirst for knowledge. I don’t know that allowing them to skip grades is good because then they end up in a grade with people who are much more mature than they are. I had great teachers and I think teachers should be paid as much as athletes,” she said.
She continued, “When you think about it they spend the majority of the day with your kids so they should be compensated. They’re also teaching them and shaping their views about themselves. I feel very fortunate that in the public school system in Montgomery, Alabama, I had some wonderful teachers.”
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT