Christina Alexander still remembers the day that her life changed for the better.
The New Zealand-born teacher was standing in front of a class of Year 9 students at a Brisbane high school 18 years ago, trying to understand why the pupils weren't learning.
"Most of my life I had been concerned that some teaching trick was missing." Ms Alexander said.
"My lucky break came one day when I looked at my class of grade nine special English students."
"(I saw) 30 pairs of sad eyes, multiple abortions, one or two suicides, intelligence in conversation but an inability to write a good sentence, and a hatred of books.
Ms Alexander, who is mildly dyslexic, decided enough was enough and went to the principal to tell him she needed time off to work out a solution to help children who had difficulties learning.
"I told him I had to do something to help - I wanted to find out what it was we weren't doing to teach these children," Ms Alexander said.
"I left the security of my job and set up a clinic as a dyslexia consultant and started to receive referrals from doctors and colleagues."
Her first appointment nearly ended the project when she realised there were no books to help her teach the children.
"I wanted to spend some money on good books about dyslexia which I would lend out to children and parents but suddenly realised there were none on the market.
"So I decided the only way was to devise texts with humour to suit all ages so the parents would co-operate.
"Anyway, it worked - and ended up taking 18 years, not just a few months."
Ms Alexander has gone on to build up her clinic and have her teaching guides published by her own company, Turkey Tracks Press, established in 1981.
She is the co-founder of the Brisbane Dyslexia Association, has her own range of remedial systems to help children learn and has set up a website to help families at www.dyslexia-australasia.com