Michael Faraday (1791-1867) is thought of as the best experimentalist scientist in the history of the discipline. He discovered many chemical and physical properties, and invented the first version of the Bunsen burner – even though it now carries the name of a later inventor, Robert Bunsen.

Bunsen_burnerAlthough Faraday lived before the term dyslexia came into use, he had terrible spelling and punctuation.  He once wrote, responding to suggestions of names for his discoveries, “All your names I and my friend approve of or nearly all as to sense & expression, but I am frightened by their length & sound when compounded!” However, he also had another key trait that some people like to attribute to the dyslexic brain: he was an extraordinarily gifted visual-spatial thinker. Faraday would imagine the finished product of some invention, and then set to inventing the parts needed to build it rather than working with what already existed.

Learn more about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday

Sarah Forrest is a Reading Specialist for the Easyread System, an online course that uses innovative Guided Phonetic Reading technique to help visual learners grasp phonics. Easyread has helped thousands of children with dyslexia, auditory processing disorder, poor memory and more over the last decade.