Five-storey horse is not so funny - (Full text for Easier Reading follows)

Full Text (for easier reading) :

America wants them. So does South Africa, New Zealand, New Guinea, Britain and Australia as well.

Want what? The books ex-teacher and horse breeder Christina Alexander is writing for the great number of people in the community suffering from dyslexia, or reading disabilities.

Christina, who is now a private remedial teacher and Arab horse breeder at Brookfield, has found a New South Wales artist, Ian Otterly, to illustrate the books with humour and is publishing them herself with the aid of a "friendly printer across the road."

The books are big, bold and beautiful with attractive, shiny, gold covers.

"They're lovely. They have to be," said Christina. "At the moment the people suffering from reading disabilities travel in gravel trucks. They need first class travel.

"The books are big without being insulting. We don't use baby talk. We use big words."

She also uses big, bold printing and detailed illustrations that are great fun. There's a 76-year-old man in one of Christina's classes who has used the books to help him overcome the fact he can't read.

Christina's little publishing empire is called Turkey Tracks Press. The series of 12 books, six for people who have difficulty reading, and another six for those who can't grasp maths, are printed on yellow paper. They are part of what is being called the Banana Books series.

Banana Books, of course because they come from Queensland.

Christina has come up with quite a few statistics during her research into dyslexia, and has discovered that 25 percent of Australian children suffer from the problem.

"It's something that affects the whole intelligence span," Christina said.

"Some people suffering from it are people near genius level. In a society without a literacy level it wouldn't matter a bit, but in ours if you can't read you're in a mess."

Christina said that people thought dyslexia was something that was hilariously funny, but it's not.

"To somebody with dyslexia, a 'u' and 'r' look the same so that 'horse' and 'house' get mixed up." she said. "You get houses jumping over gates, and five-storey horses.

"They might know that three times seven is 21, but they reverse them and say 12. Teachers think they're stupid. It's terrible. It would break your heart."

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