Reporters Jeremy James, Jeanne La Chard, Denis Tuohy, Desmond Wilcox, Harold Williamson

Can you read this? Could you write it? Robert Payne is a bright 16-year-old - normal in every way except that he can barely read and write. He's just one of the bright, likeable children in tonight's Man Alive. He suffers from what some experts call dyslexia. Dyslexic children find it very difficult to learn what comes so naturally to most of us. They are not necessarily dull - indeed, many are more intelligent than average. But they often spend their school lives in misery and frustration - thought of as stupid. Is enough being done for them? Why do some experts argue that dyslexia is nothing but a label used to excuse backward children? In the first of two programmes, Jim Douglas Henry and a Man Alive film team look at those who are frequently written off with 'could do better.'