Chris Fortey

Profile

Hello. I’m Chris Fortey, a developer who enjoys swimming and sports, but I’ve still not quite mastered swimming butterfly. Skilled in designing and developing web and business applications.

• PHP
• HTML
• CSS
• JavaScript
• PostgreSQL
• C#
• XML

First in BSc (Hons) Multimedia Computing
Leicester De Montfort University - September 1999 to July 2003

W3Cx - WAI0.1x Introduction to Web Accessibility

Work

Hobbies

After running for a couple of years, in 2010 I trained for and completing the Leicester half marathon.

View details of my half marathon

In 2012, I folowed up the half marathon by training for and completed the Leicester marathon.

View details of my marathon

I enjoy swimming and have been qualified as a pool lifeguard in the past. I have also held other Royal Life Saving Society awards.

I enjoy playing the Nintendo Zelda games. I've played all the 3D games from the N64 to Switch as well as many of the 2D Zelda games. Highlights of the series for me are The Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild.

JavaScript

Dyslexia

My Dyslexia story

I was lucky and my dyslexia was diagnosed at primary school. At both primary and secondary school I received extra help. When it came to my GCSEs, I received extra time for exams and a tutor was allow to correct spelling errors in my exam papers. I also attended the Leicestershire Dyslexia Association where I was given extra tutoring.

At college I studied BTEC GNVQ Intermediate and Advanced in Information Technology. I receiving extra time for exams and a personal tutor while on the Intermediate course.

I studied for a Honours degree in Multimedia Computing. I had a Disabled student allowance to buy helpful equipment and could have had extra time in my exams.

As a developer where my dyslexia affects my reading and writing. Outside of work my dyslexia doesn't affects me much, but I prefer audiobook over reading.

There have been a few times that other peoples views on dyslexia has supprised me. A work colleague was surprised when I told them that I was dyslexia. I'm careful to proof read my emails, I guess my colleague was expecting to see spelling mistakes. I also had a careers advicer surprised that I got a first for my degree when I said I was dyslexic.

Coping with Dyslexia

Spelling is an area where my dyslexia affects me, Often I will come to write a word and not know how it is spelt. I can normally get around this by typing how I think the word is spelt into a word process or in to Google, most times I get close enough. Typing the word phonetically helps. When I cannot find the spelling this way I rely on typing the word in a parse into Google.

An example would using the word daunting. To get the spelling for this I wanting to start with the sound 'dawn'. I couldn’t spell that so I searched on Google for periods of the day. Then I searched for 'dawntim' and got daunting. I searched for ‘daunting meaning’ to check I had the right word.

Words that are spelt differently but pronounced the same can cause me to use the wrong word. I often get gramma wrong.

Reading is an activity I can find hard. Large amounts of text can appear off putting and daunting to read. I tend to listen to audio books instead.

Dyslexia and work

Looking for answers too problems and reading written communications can be hard. I can find it hard for what I'm reading to stoak. I may have to read something several times to understand what is being said. Large amount of text to reading is off-putting, but I can use Word to read out the text. Spelling in email communication can be a problem.

Misc