Name: Nel Hofmeester

Position/title: Author

Country: The Netherlands

 

Dyslexia work: Field of expertise: dyslexic students and working adults.

I was raised in a ‘dyslexia family’ and experienced from childhood the different talents in our family. I finished the teacher training for secondary education, studied linguistics and did research after low literacy by teaching and interviewing adults who hadn’t learned to read and write at school. I think many of them were dyslexic, but were never diagnosed.

At the Hogeschool Rotterdam, an institute for higher vocational education, I established a Helpdesk Dyslexia for students. With a group of colleagues we developed and implemented a dyslexia- policy for the whole institute. As a teacher I did dyslexia-trainings for teacher-teams in secondary and higher education and coached adult employees who had dyslexia-related problems at their work. I often wondered who had the dysfunction: the student/employee or the institute that was not interested in making use of or supporting their strengths.

About what I learned from my students  I wrote ‘Studying with dyslexia’. (2001)
With one of my dyslexic students I performed the research: ‘Medics with dyslexia’. (2010)Together with a group of students we developed two courses: the ‘Learning Routes Dyslexia’. (2014) With Irene Besnard and Kees van den Bos I translated Rod Nicolson’s book ‘Positive Dyslexia’ in Dutch: Dyslexia360-The Big Picture (2019). Right now we are working on part two: Dyslexia-360-In Practice.

I am a member of the board of the Foundation Dyslexia Fund and advisor of the interest group Impuls&Woortblind. And I’m a passionate supporter of the Dutch Week of Dyslexia.

 

Email address: info@verborgenschatten.eu

Important links: www.nelhofmeester.nl