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Katherine Rundell’s recent Guardian essay, “I hate what AI is doing to the minds and happiness of the young”, made me think about a distinction that is getting lost in the debate around AI and education. Rundell, a children’s author and Oxford fellow, argues that generative AI risks weakening the intellectual habits education is supposed to develop: reading difficult material, tolerating frustration, forming arguments and learning to think independently. She describes student

For the second year in a row, I’ve been invited to speak at The Language Show, the UK’s biggest event for language learners and language teachers, taking place online from 13–15 November 2026. This year, my 45-minute session will focus on inclusive language learning and the adaptation of reading materials for dyslexia, ADHD and other learning differences. I already have far too many things I want to fit into those 45 minutes, which is probably a good indication of how much my

“You have not simply written a story about a child. You have designed an experience that works with the way many neurodivergent brains naturally process information.” These words came from Bianca Ranzijn, neurodiversity coach and founder of OwnYourBrain™, after she reviewed my children's picture book Anya and a Thousand Fish: A Dyslexia- and ADHD-Friendly Edition. I have returned to that sentence several times since reading it. Positive feedback on something you have created

What follows dyslexia in school is often not only about literacy. It is about repeated experiences. It is about what happens when a child struggles to access learning in the format provided, and then has to keep functioning in an environment that may misunderstand that struggle. A child may begin with difficulty decoding words. Then come the consequences: falling behind despite hard work, avoiding reading aloud, being excluded from group work, or being mistaken for lazy, inat

There is no inclusivity without access. The principles in this image reach far beyond neurodiversity. They concern acceptance, equal participation and the right to take part without first proving that you can fit a system designed around somebody else. Access is often discussed as an attitude: being understanding, welcoming difference and treating people fairly. Those things count, but they do not remove a reading barrier, redesign an overcrowded page or give a child material

I created a dyslexia-friendly edition of Anya and a Thousand Fish. Then I immediately started thinking: How will this book reach the children who need it most? I didn't waste any time. I'm launching a Corporate Sponsorship Scheme designed to help children with dyslexia and other learning differences receive adapted children's books in settings where specialist support is difficult to access. It is an opportunity for companies to combine Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR),

There is no single Nobel Prize-winning method for raising a bilingual child. But here are 8 ways to do it. And these 8 methods are just the most well-known and popular ones. Beyond them, there will be all the individual variations across families, cultures, languages, immigration stories, school systems and daily realities. Bilingual child-rearing does not usually happen in a clean research laboratory. It happens in kitchens, cars, nurseries, grandparents’ homes, bedtime rout

I'm coming back! To consulting people on the issues that matter. I’ve now launched three practical 45-minute online consultations on my website: Children’s Book Publishing Call – for those who have a children’s book idea, draft, bilingual concept or half-built publishing plan, and need clear next steps instead of vague encouragement. I’m a published children’s author who can help you with that! Bilingual Family Language Call – for parents raising children with more than one l

We all deserve the right to want the best available for our children. I want my child to be safe, loved, understood, gently challenged, emotionally supported and surrounded by people who see her properly. I want her early education to feel warm and thoughtful, with enough space for play, enough calm for security, and enough attention for her to grow without being pushed. I consider myself very privileged. I have a healthy child. I live in one of the most socio-economically de

Research suggests that reading helps children develop emotional intelligence and emotional articulation by giving them words for feelings, repeated examples of motives and misunderstandings, and adult-supported opportunities to talk about what characters feel and why (Schapira and Grazzani, 2025; Dennis et al., 2024; Kogan, 2024). For children with learning difficulties, this connection is especially important. If reading is slow, effortful or stressful, a child may have less

“Too much” is often the verdict on additional languages for dyslexic children. The child is already struggling with reading. Spelling takes longer than it seems to take everyone else. Homework stretches into the evening. Confidence becomes thinner, quieter, easier to bruise. Parents and teachers can see the effort, and nobody wants to add another source of stress. So another language begins to look like an unnecessary burden. I understand that hesitation. And it usually comes

Colouring books are often treated as the easy win of childhood: portable, quiet, creative, screen-free. Hand the child a page and some pencils, and the activity is supposed to take care of itself. But for children who learn differently, the page design decides whether colouring feels inviting or exhausting. This is why I am creating a dyslexia-friendly companion colouring book with Mudrik the Frog. The book is still in development and is planned for publication in a few month

Recent research shows that teacher use of generative AI is already widespread. A 2025 Alan Turing Institute survey of 1,001 UK teachers found that 66% used generative AI in their work. Among those users, 71% were using it through a personal account rather than a school-provided licence. UK Department for Education research found that 44% of teachers used generative AI for school activities, including lesson planning, written feedback and marking. The National Literacy Trust a

AI is often thought of as a tool for speed. Read faster. Write faster. Summarise faster. Respond faster. But for children and adults with dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, language-processing difficulties or other learning difficulties, speed is often part of the problem. AI has the means to help people with learning difficulties. The question is whether they can access it easily enough to benefit from it, or whether AI will mainly reward those who already read, type, process and a

A child reads slowly, loses their place, guesses words, avoids reading aloud, forgets instructions, looks distracted, becomes anxious, or seems permanently behind. From the outside, that pattern can look like dyslexia. But sometimes the child is not showing the core signs of dyslexia itself. They are showing what happens when attention, memory, language, confidence and emotional regulation have been disrupted by neglect, abuse, chronic stress, grief, family instability, traum

I want to approach the difference between AI and inherited knowledge from a different angle. Not through the oppositions of artificial versus natural, human versus non-human. I believe the fundamental difference between AI and other forms of inherited knowledge is this: Traditional inherited knowledge still requires human reconstruction, while AI can now perform part of that reconstruction for us. Inherited knowledge includes books, archives, institutions, cultural traditions

Assessing dyslexia in bilingual and multilingual children without confusing reading difficulties with language acquisition Sometimes, identifying dyslexia in a multilingual child can feel like detective work. Not because children are mysterious puzzles to be solved, but because the evidence is often layered, scattered, and easy to misread. Especially when the child is multilingual. When a bilingual or multilingual child struggles with reading, the problem is rarely visible fr

Many bilingual children develop unevenly across their two languages. One language may be stronger at school, another stronger at home. A child may mix languages, search for words, or read more confidently in the language they use most. That can be typical bilingual development. Bilingual dyslexia, however, involves persistent reading difficulties that cannot be explained by language exposure alone. The child is not only managing two languages. They are also dealing with diffi

Why Should Dyslexic Children Have Beautiful Books Too? When it comes to children’s literature, I’ve seen firsthand how much it matters whether a book is designed with the reader in mind. While teaching Russian as a foreign language, I had a transformative experience: I worked with three adult students with dyslexia. This opened my eyes to the challenges faced by dyslexic readers and made me think more deeply about accessibility, inclusive children’s books, and how design can

Forget the massive dictionaries and the endless verb tables. Language learning works best if you treat it as a masterclass in predicting what happens next, far beyond the simple act of memorizing every word. Think about how kids play together. Even if they speak different languages, they manage to connect almost instantly. They aren't waiting for a translation; they are using a "predictive superpower" to fill in the blanks using everything around the words. The Playground