Specialist structured, multisensory teaching programmes were first developed in the USA in the mid-1940s.
Kathleen Hickey and Bevé Hornsby went to Dallas, Texas, in 1969 to be trained in structured multisensory teaching.Consequently, the North Surrey Dyslexic Society, a group of parents who had come together in 1968, set up a working party, which included Kathleen Hickey and one of the parents, Wendy Fisher, with a view to establishing a Surrey Dyslexia Institute.
In 1972 the Dyslexia Institute was founded with Miss Hickey as Director of Studies and Mrs Fisher as Executive Director. Teaching started at Gypsy Hill College of Education (now the Department of Education at Kingston University), moving in 1974 to Staines. Bevé Hornsby went on to found the Hornsby Centre in South London.
Our services develop
It soon became apparent that parents would travel a very long way for their children to be taught, even from Yorkshire, and the Institute’s second centre was therefore set up in Sheffield. Other centres soon followed, each centre spawning smaller outposts and, later, in-school units.
Throughout the 1980s the training of teachers developed and from 1985 the Dyslexia Institute delivered diploma courses under the umbrella of the British Dyslexia Association. This came to an end in 1993 and the Institute began to offer its own Postgraduate Diploma courses which were validated firstly by Kingston University and then by the University of York, an arrangement which continues to date. By 1981 there were twelve Institutes – Bath, Chelmsford, Derby, Harrogate, Lincoln, Newcastle, Sheffield, Staines, Sutton Coldfield, Truro, Wilmslow and Winchester – and 28 outposts.
Meanwhile, expertise in teaching was growing and in 1993 The Dyslexia Institute Literacy Programme (DILP)was introduced, which forms the basis of Dyslexia Action teaching.
In 1994 the Dyslexia Guild, our professional body, was established. In 1995 a research relationship with York University was set up and is ongoing.
We become Dyslexia Action
The purchase of Park House, Egham, early in 2003, was a major landmark in our development. The premises house the Head Office, the Egham teaching and assessment centre and the National Training and Resource Centre.
In February 2003 HRH Sophie, Countess of Wessex agreed to become our Patron and in July 2003 the Countess opened the new Park House premises. The first Dyslexia Awards Dinner proved very successful: it has now become an annual fundraising event.
In 2005 the Dyslexia Institute merged with the Hornsby International Dyslexia Centre and in March 2006 the merged organisation was renamed Dyslexia Action.