A string of relatives was called in to help William Butler Yeats with his reading when he was young. Today educational psychologists believe he was dyslexic. "My father was an angry and impatient teacher and flung the reading book at my head," the poet wrote. "He had come to think that I had not all my faculties."

Other famous dyslexics include Lewis Carroll, Agatha Christie and Virginia Woolf. Dyslexic film stars include Tom Cruise, Whoopi Goldberg and Cher.