I have been fascinated by Psychology since my first lesson at school and went on to complete my undergraduate degree in Psychology at Nottingham University. A module on language development and impairments had me hooked and after university I went on to work with children with dyslexia. Having witnessed first-hand the difficulties they had with learning to read in comparison to other children I was eager to research this more. How do we acquire language and the ability to read? Why are language and reading skills easily learned by some children, but not by others? My job at ReadOxford lets me look into this.
My Favourite Word
My Favourite Book
One of my favourite words is bamboozled. I love the sound of the word (almost Roald Dahl-esque). I also like the meaning of it, wowed, baffled and shocked! I only learnt the word during my late teenage years when it was thrown out in a family bicker by my dad. We couldn’t help but laugh at him for the concoction of such a strange word. At the time I thought it was made up, but having learnt it is real it is now used by my family all the time.
My favourite book when I was younger was The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. I was obsessed and read it before bed most nights with my Baloo the bear teddy. I also loved the Walt Disney film. So much so that I insisted on watching it every day, I even named my grandpa after Baloo the Bear and used to dance round singing ‘its just the Bare Necessities’.