Multi-millionaire teen to speak at Friendship School

Evan Paul battles dyslexia, stigma

Paul is dyslexic and attends Landmark School in Beverly, Mass, a school for students who have a learning disability.

‘‘That’s always the thing—you’re lazy or stupid or don’t work hard enough [if you’re dyslexic],” he said in a phone interview. Those comments motivate him even more to be successful.

‘‘I think it reflects who I am today. Part of the way I try to succeed and make monetary wealth is to prove that I’m not stupid, and that I can succeed,” he said.

Paul owns and operates eGamePlace.com, a Web site that allows video game enthusiasts to trade computer game software for less than the cost of new games.

He will speak at 11 a.m. today to students at Friendship School, 1545 Progress Way, Eldersburg and at 7 p.m. to the public.

Friendship School is a school for children who have learning disabilities and serves first through eighth grades.

What may be more remarkable is that Paul does it on little sleep. He wakes up around 5 a.m. to talk to computer programmers for his Web site in Nepal, drives 40 minutes to get to his Boston-area school, does his homework and works until 1 a.m., leaving him enough time for about four hours of shut eye.

Before he started his business, all he wanted to do is sleep.

‘‘My mom—she had to literally pull the sheets off of me,” he said. He didn’t want to go to school because each grade he moved up, the worse school became for him. Early on, he had trouble with spelling, then the book reports came and school became more demanding.

‘‘I got by on my own devices,” he said. But no matter the effort, his grade would be less than satisfactory.

‘‘Playing video games helped me relaxed,” he said. ‘‘It was the only thing at the time I was good at.”

Paul was diagnosed with dyslexia when he started high school. Prior to that, he was misdiagnosed as having attention deficit disorder. And the psychologists at the private schools he attended didn’t pick up on it either, he said.

Dr. Teresa Ankney, head of Friendship School, considers that to be a late diagnosis. Children should be diagnosed before they reach 9 years old, she said.

She said it’s all too common, and the system fails the children.

‘‘The teachers don’t have skills to identify it this early, and if they do, they don’t have the program [to help the student],” she said.

What dyslexia is

Paul also deals with the stigma attached and the misconceptions of dyslexia.

‘‘They say, ‘Oh you read backwards, how did you start a business?’” he said. Reading backward is a myth about dyslexia, and it’s more complicated than that, Ankney said.

‘‘What happens is that they struggle to learn the alphabet; they struggle with phoning the sounds with the letters,” she said. ‘‘They don’t make the connection early with the sounds of the letters. Even if they had trouble with rhyming and sequencing the alphabet, as you grow up, you have to know all the rules.”

Since Paul enrolled at Landmark School, he said his dyslexia has improved. So much so, he will attend University of Arizona-Tucson to enroll full-time in its top-ranked entrepreneur program. He said he will be involved in the SALT program, which provides him help with writing papers and tutoring.

On the horizon of entering college, Paul has a chance to instill self-esteem and inspiration in children by someone who is closer to their age.

‘‘Thinking back, we would always have speakers come like football coaches and little celebrities would come,” he said. ‘‘I would never be able to relate to them, and they would never help.”

In addition to speeches, he said he is working to create gaming technology to help students who have dyslexia. He said reading games helped him as a child, such as ‘‘Reader Rabbit.”

He wants to make sure students know to treat dyslexia as a gift. He said it enables people to develop a passion, such as his business skills and passion for video games; others might be an artist and some a scientist.

‘‘It isn’t a disorder; it’s a gift you have,” he said. ‘‘You have to make sure you’re using it in the right way.”

His trip to the Baltimore-Washington area will be his first big round of speeches, but even after speaking at smaller engagements, he said questions he has been asked run the gamut.

‘‘What can I do as a parent for my child to succeed?” is a common question, he said. He said he often suggests parents be very supportive of their children, speaking to them, motivating them at home and finding out as much about dyslexia.

He is disheartened when he hears parents say, ‘‘What can I do to save him? He’s going to be a failure.”

‘‘Questions like that bother me on an inner level,” he said.”

He said it’s critical for parents to provide support at home because the student will likely not get that at school, where he or she feels separated from friends by attending lower level classes and working through recess.

On the flip side, it’s important for students and even aspiring businessmen to listen, he said.

‘‘Listen to your parents and people who know more than you,” he said. ‘‘... It makes life a lot easier.”

Learn More

Evan Paul’s speech is open to the public, 7 p.m., tonight, at Friendship School, 1545 Progress Way, Eldersburg