Need for empathy

A TV documentary seeks to raise public awareness about dyslexia among schoolchildren, Wang Ru reports.

Ruoxi's mother found her daughter, then 6, lying on the sofa when she got back home after work one day. The daughter had a fever, refused to eat dinner, cried in a silent way and said she would not go to school the next day.

The mother then learned that due to Ruoxi's poor performance on a Chinese exam, her teacher had yelled at her and threatened to expel her from school. Ruoxi was frightened. She had studied hard daily until about 9 pm as a grade-one student but achieved low grades in Chinese compared with her peers. When scolded by the teacher, she felt overwhelmed by helplessness.

Several years later, during a discussion on helping children with dyslexia, which Ruoxi was later diagnosed with, her mother was still seized by sorrow when talking about her experience.