Stephen, Chris Stephen and Ann Fitts

Chris Stephen-It was my middle sister, Alexandra, who taught me how to read. She was herself an avid bookworm. Literacy was considered extremely important in our family as we had a strong literary heritage, including such people as Henry John Stephen, who wrote Stephen's Commentaries on the Laws of England, which became the leading legal textbook for over 150 years, and Sir Leslie Stephen, who founded the Dictionary of National Biography. Sir Leslie's daughter, Virginia Woolf, needs no introduction. In Australia, my cousin Martha Campbell was a major contributor to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. My interest in literacy turned into an obsession when Alexandra developed multiple sclerosis. As my sister's illness developed, she lost the ability to read sentences easily and could only manage individual words. I was determined to work out why Alexandra couldn't read easily anymore, and after much research discovered she had an eye-tracking problem. This meant she had to use a huge amount of mental energy to keep the words she read in the correct order, and didn't have enough energy left over to decipher the meaning of those words and phrases. It became my mission to help Alexandra read fluently by reducing the mental effort needed, eventually creating a large print format that enabled her to pursue again one of the few activities she loved. Seeing the positive impact on Alexandra made me understand how important reading is to a person's quality of life and to never take that ability for granted. I was deeply motivated to try helping others to read as well, and established a business in Sydney in 1998 called ReadHowYouWant.;