Myths about Dyslexia.

http://theconversation.com/seven-myths-about-dyslexia-put-to-rest-49201

What statistics reveal.

For 60 - 70% of all school children, learning to read is a formidable challenge and that for approximately 20 - 30% of them, learning to read will be the most difficult task that they will need to master throughout their schooling.  When I realised my daughter was struggling, I was told to "not worry, she will get there."  But she didn't get there and three years later I faced my own formidable challenge.

If students achieve in the bottom three bands of their Year 9 Naplan testing, they will then be required to sit up to 6 Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessments (OLNA) in order to obtain their Year 12 Graduation (WACE).  If this is not obtained and young people then wish to take up a TAFE course or apprenticeship, they will be determined to have only achieved a Year 9 level of education.  Parents are also being told "not to worry".

In Australia, approximately half of all students do not have what is termed 'functional literacy' levels in Year 9. They cannot read or write everyday documents needed when shopping, travelling, banking, or in the workplace.

Not being taught to read using what we know from scientific evidence has consequences.  Parents pick up those consequences - educational, vocational and mental health.  What do you know about how children should be taught to read?  What do you know about the recent changes to Year 9 Naplan testing?  What can you do to support your child at home? 
What do you need to know in order to communicate with their school?  And how might you decide if your child needs a deeper look?

If you would like to know more about what is required for children to learn to read and how you, as a parent, can help, I will be holding an informal gathering in my home near Fremantle.  If you would like further details please contact me on 0417 949 179.

The difference between really teaching children to read, and marketing.

For those of you who haven't had much exposure to what really works when teaching children to read, have a look at this piece by Alison Clarke, Speech Pathologist and member of the Learning Difficulties Australia Council.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/children-with-learning-difficulties-need-programs-based-on-science-not-anecdote-and-neurobabble-20150902-gjdhp6.html

OLNA

For those parents who aren't aware, in Western Australia, students are now required to achieve Band 8 on the Year 9 Naplan to satisfy the literacy and numeracy requirements for graduation.  If they don't achieve Band 8 they have six opportunities to sit the OLNA (Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment) during Years 10 and 11. On the basis of Naplan and OLNA results, students are placed in one of three categories: Category 1 requiring specific learning interventions to assist them to meet the standard in the future; Category 2 expected to meet the minimum standard before the end of Year 12, and; Category 3 who have demonstrated the minimum standard and recommended to enrol in ATAR or General courses.

 

As a parent I have gone to the My School website and checked out the Year 9 Naplan results of high schools I considered for my daughter.  All one has to do is go to the Naplan results for a school and look at the percentages that pass each band.  For graduation purposes students need to achieve Band 8 or above.  This means that for all those students who achieved Bands 5, 6 and 7, they will be offered the OLNA test in Years 10 and 11.  Of the 5 or 6 schools that I looked at, I would say that approximately half of the students in Year 9 don't achieve Band 8.  Of course, there is considerable variation, but considering that in the latest international data approximately 52% of Year 9 Australian students don't achieve 'functional literacy' standards, then the Naplan results resemble this finding.

 

I am working with students in High School.  I have had the opportunity to read information available on government websites about the OLNA test and have worked with a practice test.  On the basis of what I have seen here are my recommendations for parents of students with reading difficulties who wish to best support their child so that they pass if and when the time comes.

 

Ensure your child has evidence based reading instruction.  The Reading Component of the OLNA requires that students read and interpret paragraphs of information and local signs/tables eg. hazard signs that might be found in workplaces, bus and train timetables, road directory maps.  Students must read ACCURATELY if they are to glean information from the written material provided.  If students have been taught using whole language or balanced literacy methods and have a tendency to guess words, they will not read accurately and will not understand what they are reading which will reduce their chances of answering the questions accurately.  The test is timed.  Most of the students I work with read slower than most.  But for my money it is far better to read accurately and get the questions that are answered correct, than for a student to read using their usual practices of guessing and omitting many words at a faster pace.  The latter may finish the test but get most of the questions wrong, whilst the former may not finish but get more correct.

 

Incorporated within the first point students need to be able to decode unknown words, particularly those of more than one syllable.  Evidence based instruction should include polysyllabic word attack skills.  Even if the student hasn't seen the word before, if they are able to decode it accurately and subvocalize the syllables, the student will increase their chances of recognising the word even if they aren't 100% sure of its meaning.  And if they are accurately reading unfamiliar polysyllabic words, they also have a better chance of gleaning meaning of the word from the context of the sentence.  Instead, if a student only focuses on the first few letters, and slots in the first word their brain offers, and if they have become so habituated to this approach that they are used to sentences not making sense then their chances of gleaning accurate meaning are severely compromised.

 

The reading test is timed.  Students need to be very practiced in reading.  Even though fluent reading may be difficult and they may not like reading, students must be reading every day in the years leading up to these tests, i.e. in all their Primary and Secondary School years.  And if you want to prepare your child for the Writing element of the OLNA, they should be reading narrative and informative texts on social issues.  The writing element requires a 600 word typed piece.  Examples of topics included in the OLNA Writing Guide include 'Don't judge a book by its cover.', 'Television has negative effects on the viewer.', 'Who would you invite to address the graduating students of their final assembly?'  Students need to be exposed to written pieces and conversations about social issues through their formative years so that they think about the social issues underpinning these types of questions.  Students can only write what they can say, they can only say what they think.  They need to be reading and talking to expand on their thinking so that they can bring this to their writing in these types of tests.  Teachers obviously cover these issues in schools but what students produce can only be the result of the attention and effort that goes in.  What is done in the home can make a big difference.

 

The aim of literacy and numeracy in education is something called functional literacy i.e. the ability to read written material and be able to write correspondence necessary for day to day functioning.  Signs, in hospitals, around hazards, in buildings, on trucks, around gas lines, road signs, warning signs, all those signs we need to be able to read so that we don't put ourselves or others at risk.  Timetables, road maps, movie schedules, sources of information for transport, directions and events we may need for everyday functioning.  Students need to be able to read and interpret these.  Get children involved in reading and understanding these types of documents when you are out and about, they are used in assessments.

 

Writing.  The writing element of the OLNA is also timed.  Students must be able to follow a simple essay structure and write about social issues.  Any parent of a student struggling with literacy who wishes their child to achieve the literacy requirement for graduation must seek additional tuition in essay writing. 

 

Whilst it is in High School that students' performance on Naplan and perhaps OLNA has consequences it is in Primary School that the skills so necessary to engaging with these tests are taught.  And if your child is in a Whole Language School or Balanced Literacy school then they are not receiving the type of instruction we know from evidence and science is so necessary to many children if they are to read.  Accurate reading through knowledge and skill with the alphabet code, awareness of social issues, interaction with everyday sources of information, and internalisation of essay structure are skill areas parents can influence and support.  Unlike those current students who are the first to encounter this shift in policy the rest of us have more time to put in place the work needed to avoid the stress of an unknown outcome to 12 years of schooling.

 

 

 

 

 

A Parent's Journey to Support her Sons with Dyslexia

Come along to my next MeetUp.  Listen to Kay's story.  Kay is a florist and the mother of 3 children, two of them twins, now in Year 4, and both diagnosed with dyslexia.  Hear about how she made the decision to seek a diagnosis, the programs she has enrolled to teach them to read, what really helped to get her kids reading, and her experiences in liaising with schools.   Kay is a  remarkable mother and dedicated to supporting her sons.  Hear about her recent training in Sounds Write Phonics, her decision to become their tutor and what she now knows about how kids should be taught.

Overlearning

In recent weeks there has been a bit of debate going on in academic circles about diagnosis of Specific Learning Disabilities in Reading, what most would know as dyslexia.  It was put to me that diagnosis of dyslexia muddles the terrain a bit in that it implies something intrinsic in the child that needs remedying, as against implementing evidence based reading programs so that all children learn to read.  In my humble mind both elements are true.

 

We do need to implement evidence based phonics programs so that all children learn to read.  And we have the research that demonstrates if evidence based phonics programs are implemented then all children on the normal distribution curve shift to the right.  Alison Clarke, Speech Therapist from Melbourne demonstrated this in her recent YouTube video, and it was also demonstrated through the Sounds Write Report to Schools in August 2009.

 

But what is also true in my experience, is that children with dyslexia do have something inherent in them that needs to be acknowledged and which also informs how evidence based phonics is brought to them.  In the normal heterogeneity in human brain wiring for the processing of speech sounds, some brains, to greater and lesser degrees, don't do so well in this particular area.  I am not a neuroscientist and acknowledge that my knowledge about such scientific matters is poor, however, I see the manifestation of unstable processing of speech sounds in the children I work with every day . 

 

Although the hearing of these children is perfectly fine, the processing of those sound bytes can, and does, got a bit awry.  The brain of some of these children will simply process different sounds as the same.  In other children they can sound out the discrete sounds in a word but their brains jumble some of those sounds up so that the child experiences incredible difficulty in blending them all together.  It can often take up to ten attempts to blend the sounds together, and not because they aren't trying or not thinking, they are just manifesting what their brains have processed and cobbled together (or not).  And for many it will manifest in spelling.  Unless a child says the sounds as they write (and sometimes even when they do), then what actually gets written on the page can be a bit of a lottery.

 

But all of these manifestations of the processing difficulty that underpins dyslexia can be remedied, through the best of what we have learned from linguistics and science.  I also see this everyday.  Reading remediation through evidence based phonics is therapy, and working with it is truly an art.  But what is different for these kids in comparison to those in the normal curve who are not on the extremes of heterogeneity in phonological processing wiring, is the amount of overlearning required for the brain to build the neural pathways associated with correct processing of sounds; the amount of overlearning required to build correspondences between sounds and symbols (letters); and the amount of overlearning required for building correct images for whole words (via the previous two elements).

 

These kids need state of the art processes for learning.  And they need much, much, much, more exposure and practice than kids who don't have brains not organised for accurate phonological processing.  It takes more effort just to get the sound platforms right, and then it takes more effort to get the correct spellings associated with those sound platforms and then it takes more effort again to keep working with both enough for full images of words to be built.  Which is why academics such as Dr Sally Shaywitz emphasise the importance of additional time for these kids.  I also recommend that if they are required to learn class spelling lists then the lists need to be reduced.  Otherwise we are asking kids with a disability to expend way more energy and time than anyone else.  Do we ask that of any other disability group?

 

I think it is important that all students with dyslexia and their parents accept and understand the foundational issue in the child's brain in processing speech sounds.  Whilst the lack of neural wiring can be remedied through evidence based teaching of phonics, a trace of the issue always remains.  Reading will possibly remain slower than others throughout their lifetime; spelling will possibly always remain difficult and require ongoing use of strategies learned during phonics instruction; and the manifestations of dyslexia will absolutely surface during times of stress.  Children, and parents, need to understand this, and somewhere along the way children need to develop self management skills to reduce the impact of the 'dyslexia' and to cultivate awareness and strategies that calm a troubled mind. 

 

One bright young lady I work with commented on the difference she has observed between those kids who obtained their diagnosis early and those whose parents waited much longer before organising an assessment.  In her mind she has had time to accept, understand, accommodate and advocate on behalf of her dyslexia, whereas later diagnosed kids don't seem to have integrated their disability into their lives, and suffer.  I am not sure whether the timing of the diagnosis makes a difference to acceptance of a disability but it crossed my mind several weeks ago how difficult it must be for a child with dyslexia to accept that there is something intrinsically awry within.  But, my observation is that when ones 'accepts', things become easier, whilst denial is so much harder to maintain.  And so I hark back to my assessment in my introduction.  Implementation of evidence based phonics is vital, as is acceptance of inner machinations that create difficulties in skill areas in school and life.  Put them together and we get maturity on many levels.

Reasons for Reading

Whilst the primary focus of my work is to help kids struggling with reading, to learn the skills and knowledge of reading so that they can read ... I work with them not just so that they can do their school work, but because first and foremost reading is (or should be) a pleasure and because it can shift our mind in an instant ... if we immerse ourselves in reading.

 

Years ago, when my daughter was younger, she often experienced troubling nightmares which at times were difficult to shift her out of.  But with her increasing skills in reading, when she now has a difficult dream she can simply pick up a book from her childhood to read ... and it takes her back immediately to the feelings and experiences we have had in reading together.  Reading can be an instant 'pick me up' and she has utilised an important self care strategy.

 

Personally, my favourite part of my day is our reading aloud together at the end of each day.  Nowadays I am not the only one reading aloud.  She reads a book aloud at a level she is competent at reading and then I read aloud a more complex book.  We talk about both stories, about the different writing styles, about our feelings ... our levels of excitement, which book is engaging us more and why, words or phrases that 'catch us' and where we think the story might go.  And the stories we read often later become teaching points when real life situations emerge.  Reading aloud together nurtures our relationship.

 

In one of our conversations I mentioned that I enjoyed reading a good book more than I enjoyed movies.  I mentioned that they lasted longer and that the feeling is richer, to which she replied, "yes, in books you can make the story your own, whereas in films someone has made the content up for you."  She hit the nail on the head.  Reading engages the imagination way more than movies.  Oh, how I wish all our kids could read and reap the pleasures that come with that.

 

A colleague of mine is heavily involved in teaching kids from often traumatic backgrounds to read.  She is mindful that reading can be one of the few ways a child in trauma can escape what is going on around them (and rest the mind).  If these kids don't have reading, maybe it is no wonder they turn to other, less nurturing, outlets.

 

In my view the general population is ignorant of how big our illiteracy problem is.  Kids not being able to read or not being able to read text with greater complexity, does not amount to one or two, here and there.  By Year 9 we are looking at just over half the student population not able to read classroom text.  And as you can imagine by the time we get to this age, very few of them are involved in reading aloud in the home.  In fact, statistics tell us very few of them have been experiencing that for a very long time.  And particularly if a child is struggling to with how they are being taught to read, then the thrill and pleasure of stories and reading must be kept alive through reading aloud to them.  It takes time to learn to read (3 years with an evidence based program, the trajectory is much more elusive when not using an evidence based program), so during that time children's connection with reading must be maintained and enriched through other avenues i.e. reading aloud.

 

Reading aloud together is such a pleasure, and has so many health giving benefits.  If you recall fond memories of being read to as a child, or wishes you were read to as a child, then take up the call and read aloud to the young, old, sick, loved, people in your lives.

Meet Up - Parents Supporting Kids Struggling With Reading

I've taken my first step in creating a face to face community supporting parents who would like to do more than sit on the sidelines frustrated and unsure of what to do for their kids who may be struggling with reading.

Check it out.

http://www.meetup.com/Parents-Supporting-Kids-Struggling-With-Reading/

Reading Support Toolbag - for Parents

If I had to create a toolbag of goodies for parents who are dedicated to supporting their children to learn to read (and I mean really read - decode - not just guess) I would include the following.

 

The first is a recently compiled YouTube presentation from Alison Clarke of Spelfabet. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mafVooDom8k&feature=youtu.be  In this video clip Alison demonstrates the difference between teaching practices that teach guessing and the approach used in effective synthetic phonics programs.  She begins with a visual representation of a classroom of children, where they sit on the normal distribution curve and what happens to the little chap down the end with an undiagnosed language disorder.  She finishes with what happens to the normal curve when everyone in the classroom receives evidence based phonics instruction!  For those of you who don't know, Alison is a Speech Therapist in private practice in Melbourne and very active in promoting high quality information about reading and spelling.

 

The second item I would include in this toolbag are a couple of blog posts from one of the creators of the Sounds Write Phonics Program, John Walker.  ''Should Key Words be Taught as Sight Words' is the first post.  The second is 'Linguistic Phonics:  A Practical Example".  Both these posts give clear examples to parents of how classroom spelling lists or 'sight' words should be worked with at home and how the reading and spelling of all words should be approached.  Approaching reading and spelling in this way teaches children about how the English Alphabet Code works, an important ingredient missing in most classrooms.  And if you are interested in why children don't seem to understand how the code works then perhaps this recent post from John 'Sound to Print: The Appliance of Science' will help.  

Next, I think every parent should have a copy of the Alphabet Code Sheet in their homes.  A free, and very useful one can be found on the Phonics International website of Debbie Hepplewhite.  Given how much instruction struggling students and children with dyslexia, need, in order to learn to read, it is imperative that practice is done at home.  Which is why I work in  partnership with parents (and teachers) - to maximise consistency and repetition in skills and conceptual understanding.  But one of the areas which most adults are deficit in, is in knowing the 44 sounds of the English language and the range of spellings for each sound.  Everyone needs guidance on this, and an English Alphabet Code Chart, displayed in the home and referred to often, is invaluable.

And two books which I think are first rate.  The first is 'Overcoming Dyslexia' by Dr. Sally Shaywitz.  Whilst it is written for parents of children with dyslexia, I found it very approachable in terms of understanding the sound basis to reading problems and why differentiation of speech sounds is so important to all else that comes thereafter.  A great resource. 

The second is Raising Kids Who Read by Dr. Daniel T Willingham.  He is criticized slightly in the post quoted above from John Walker for what he says about teaching the code, but the bulk of the book is about promoting reading, and I think he has some great things to say.  I am a person who loves books, has written in a journal for most of my life, and who birthed a child who struggles with reading and learned to dislike it, and writing, intensely.  Thankfully, we are well past this result of poor teaching and lack of understanding about reading.  Some of the suggestions about small initiatives that can be undertaken in the home to open children up again to reading, and to slowly engage them in the pleasure of reading, helped me turn a very stressful and disheartening situation around.  For his suggestions I am grateful.

All of the suggestions and resources noted above have played a powerful role in turning my experience of parenting a child with reading difficulties around.  Due to their suggestions (and her very open teachers) my daughter and I are increasing our experiences of fun with reading and writing every week!  I have been on a very steep but exceptionally rewarding learning curve.  May all parents of children struggling to read and write be blessed with the same end result.  That is my wish for all of them, and why I am passionate about involving parents in learning.   

Stories Behind Dyslexia

I have just finished reading this beautifully written book, rich and full of much to think about.  In my specialist remedial tutoring with students with dyslexia I am so focussed on bringing the best of what we know about how to develop the neural processes so necessary to reading, that I sometimes overlook the experiences of the young people (due to their dyslexia), in their everyday familial and educational lives.  This book forced me to think about that a little more.

 

Phillip Shultz writes "Pain is always there, near the surface, ready to assert itself in demeaning, shameful memories ..."  He is writing about the pain that is spawned from all the demeaning and dispassionate comments and opinions proffered by uninformed and unthinking adults in the lives of children with dyslexia.  He asserts that 'dyslexics are conditioned by their environments to blame only themselves for their learning difficulties ...  For a child to know they're different and be branded as such from other children is always painful."  In his book he eloquently describes how the pain of knowing one is different and how the innocent self assessment as unintelligent, plays out in a child's life and how easily those scars can assert themselves. 

 

Every child with dyslexia and/or learning difficulties comes into remedial tutoring or the classroom with a lived story that has developed out of their specific experience.  And it is not just about how well they think they can read, spell and write.  At a deeper level it is a story about their brain, their thinking, their intelligence .... it is a story about themselves.  Phillip Shultz writes with heartfelt honesty about moments in which the scars from his story surfaced as a child and as an adult, and the strategies he developed and used to avoid circumstances in which his scars might "assert themselves".  To a child in a wheelchair, no one tells them they are lazy when they don't walk.  But for children with dyslexia or learning difficulties, they are told (way too often) that they are lazy, don't pay attention or write like a baby.  Phillip Schultz describes how his dyslexic thinking makes it impossible to respond to others in these moments.  He cannot gather his thoughts.  His experience is that others don't listen.  And he is unaware of the true culprit behind these words - the ignorance of others.

 

I am working with a number of high school students.  All of them have skilled, hardworking teachers who provide good quality feedback on how they can improve their writing, and also provide good information on what is required for specific writing tasks.  But in some of my students I see a look in their faces that says "I'm not touching it (the writing) no matter how much someone helps."  For them reading and writing is something to fear, and not just because of their skill deficits.  It is something to fear because the pain of thinking of themselves as stupid or alone is too much to bear.  Good writing is the result of so many factors, but not all of them are technical.  Skill development in writing techniques won't happen if writing tasks are simply platforms for painful scarring to assert itself.  Better to continually fudge the task than to actually give it a go and risk the shame all over again

 

So I wonder how to free up the story that binds them to isolation and restriction?  I wonder about the power of story and what might be released in telling a little of that story. Reading enables young people to gather information, to learn about the world.  This information, together with technical writing skills, is what the education system requires that they draw upon and put into their writing if they are to graduate from high school.  So if a young person is not reading, then their only other avenue is via life experience. But here again, difficulties with reading and writing, can curtail what a young person engages with.  Some activities become 'safer' than others.  It seems to me that if the surface validity of the negative and limiting story borne out of conditioning is somehow questioned and cracked open, then the scope of possibility in a child's life can also open up. 

 

So I am going to offer little windows of opportunity for some of my students to talk about their thoughts and feelings about their dyslexia.  And I am going to bring them stories and information that cracks open their isolation.   Maybe then a glimmer of interest can be ignited, and then we have the groundspace for the start of a new story.

Louisa Moats

For the past two days I have attended workshops conducted by the international expert, Dr. Louisa Moats.  Yesterday the focus was on reading comprehension, today it was on dyslexia.  Towards the conclusion of yesterday she made a brief comment along the lines that "there is no evidence of changing someone's reading competence in a short period of time.  It is only after 2 to 3 years of teaching (based on what we know from science) that change (learning) occurs."  It left me wondering whether school administrators and teachers really understand this very simple but powerful point.  Schools need to be doing the same thing over several years to have an impact on reading acquisition - it's as simple as that.

 

In today's workshop Dr Moats skilfully demonstrated how much we now know about what we have to do to impose reading on the brain. The brain does not have reading functions inbuilt in its design.  Other areas within the brain have to fire and coordinate to built neural pathways in quite separate areas of the brain in order for a child to read.  In a hundred years of mandated education (in the US) we have come a long way in knowing from research and science what is behind efficient coordination of inbuilt brain functions and what we need to do, as much as possible, to make that coordination happen.

 

So when we say that it is only after 2 to 3 years of good instruction to build reading in the brain, we are saying that it is only after 2 to 3 years of the very best of what we know from science that will build reading in the brain - not just a dabble here, a nice idea there, or some fun activities later on.  We are talking about very explicit practices, grounded in linguistics and our knowledge of linguistics, provided in a very systematic and cumulative way.

 

The implications of the very simple statement about there being no evidence showing that we can change someone's reading competence via a brief, short intervention, is that if a school is to effectively teach its students to read then it must be via a whole school, systematic, evidence based approach.  It means that all teachers must be thoroughly trained in the evidence based approach; and it means that all teachers must implement it with fidelity.  Then students would get the 2 to 3 years of evidence based instruction we know they need.

 

Louisa finished today's session with a comment about some of the teaching practices (taught in some Universities) that occur in many of our schools.  Some of these practices direct our children's attention away from the discrete elements in words (the letters) and the sounds they represent. When this is done children's neurological phonological processor is not engaged.  Learning to read requires the interaction and coordination of the phonological processor and the orthographic (letter) processor.  Distracting children's attention away from what they need to attend to is not a benign practice, it is not harmless.  If this type of conduct occurred in medicine it would rightfully be labelled malpractice.

PINK (Parents Involved iN Kids) Literacy Groups

NAPLAN results are out.  If, like me, you have a child with learning difficulties, the natural comparisons that occur between children in the classroom can lead to a crestfallen youngster at the end of the day.  "What does it mean?" was the question I was asked.  She had already had conversations with other children in her class and she knew what they scored.  So why were her 'black dots' so different?

 

Her initial response was one of anger.  She had assumed that her classroom teacher (who is not her literacy teacher) had marked her NAPLAN.  She felt she had put in a big effort (for her) to improve in literacy, and the person she assumed had marked her NAPLAN hadn't even been present in the classroom to SEE the effort she had been making.  Her indignation hid her hurt - she loves her classroom teacher.

 

In her experience (and mine) she has also made huge progress in the two terms since the NAPLAN testing was conducted (but how to convey the time lapse?).  Literacy instruction at her school has become much more focussed, she has been working with a tutor and short literacy activities are integrated into our daily routines during the week.  I KNOW she has made progress, I am within listening distance of her home tutoring lessons, I see her desire (something I have never seen before) to write, and I hear her read.  She has made so much progress!

 

But her results are not within the average range of the normal distribution curve.  My daughter's literacy is in the 'red flag' zone, whilst the school, on average is not.  So what happens for these kids?

 

From my experience in working with children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties (usually attention) my view is that it is a big ask of schools to come to grips with the nuances of each child's learning difficulties; to find the funds to hire people to do the individual remediation required (of both the original difficulty plus the resultant poor habits developed in response to an inability to perform classroom tasks); and to find people skilled in doing the work required (which at times can be very demanding).  What choices therefore do parents of children with learning difficulties have if they want to support their children in continuing to put in effort and to make gains?

 

The first factor parents need to consider is relationship.  Learning only occurs in the context of a fabulous relationship.  Fabulous relationships create a feeling of being supported.  Anxiety is the biggest impediment to learning - it knocks out the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain necessary to new learning.  Fabulous relationships are the antidote to anxiety.  In a fabulous relationship the person working with the child is attuned to what is going on and is able to shift and move in response to their observations.  In a fabulous relationship, self awareness is supported, the core of the child is enticed into discussions about what is being learned, where work needs to be improved and how they think they are going.  Parents need to think about where they want their child to experience that fabulous relationship.  Solely with a tutor?  Shared between a tutor and themselves, or solely with themselves?  (My daughter's learning difficulties have been the impetus for much of my learning in recent years and the resultant decisions I have made.  Whilst I have learnt a lot technically, it is our relationship that has really blossomed.  Our relationship enervates her mental health (and learning) and mine.)

 

The next question pertains to financial resources.  Tutoring is not inexpensive.  Research tells us that for the 'unnatural' task of reading, in neurologically typical children at least 2 hours per week is required if learning is to  have a chance of being transferred into long term memory and automaticity.   For neurologically 'atypical' children the time required to be invested in effortful engagement in the learning of a concept is longer, i.e. we need to be spending more time with children actively and effortfully deepening their experience of what is being taught. 

 

In a nutshell, where do you want the fabulous relationship with your child to occur?  And do you have the resources to finance the decision you make?  And if you don't have the resources to 'pay someone else', what do you do?  Our children with learning difficulties and learning disabilities need all the support and encouragement they can get.  It's tough for them being in a 'NAPLAN red flag' zone in a school.   If you ever want to have a look at what your child is expected to achieve in literacy go to the Australian Curriculum website, scroll down, and open the links to work samples.   But don't lose heart, I believe that collectively, we, as parents, can bring much to the literacy lives of our children - and we don't have to do it alone.  Which is why I am creating the PINK (Parents Involved iN Kids) LITERACY support program.

 

My intention is to run 4 sessions on consecutive Sunday afternoons on:

• A Simple (but powerful) Approach to Literacy with your children.
• Resources that can be used as the framework in a Simple Approach.
• How to work with those Spelling Lists from a Simple Approach perspective.
• What you need to know from your child's school.
• Games and activities for 10 - 20 minute relationship (and Literacy) building sessions in the home.
• What we can do to facilitate the development of writing.

These four sessions will be run as a program and are suitable for parents who wish to support their children's literacy on their own, and those parents who wish to support their children's literacy in partnership with a skilled tutor.

 

Following the program I am offering the opportunity for interested parents  to work together throughout the year, supporting their children, working with resources, sharing their learning and learning from each other and myself.   These learning sessions will be held once a month on Sunday afternoons.  Scheduling of the initial four afternoon sessions is yet to be finalised.  Anyone interested is welcome to contact me on 0417 949 179 for further information and costs.

 

How Parents Can Help Their Struggling Reader

Parents of struggling readers can have a hard time, particularly if they are not flush with resources to access good expertise that can offer research based information, guidance and support.  When I was working in schools it was heartbreaking to find parents accessing (and paying substantial amounts for) snake oil, particularly in some of our less resourced suburbs.  To pay for ineffective services and products when the parent is already stressed trying to understand and help, is not good.  The relationship becomes another area that needs remediating if the child is eventually to learn to read.

Having been through that experience myself, this is my list of recommendations to parents wishing to help their struggling reader.

1.  Relax and focus on connection rather than achievement.  Your relationship with your child is the factor that makes the most difference if you are going to try and bring understanding and reading skills to them.  You have probably been struggling for months or maybe years, taking another month to relax and just focus on having quality meaningful time with your child is not going to do more harm - it will help!  If you bring stress to their experience of words then you are exacerbating what they experience at school.  When tutoring I am aware that our one hour per week may be the only time the student gets to enjoy being around words.  This experience is important.  As  a parent you are in a powerful position to bring more of a good feeling to their experience of words, so work on the feeling in your relationship first, then engage in words.

2.  Look for ways to relax have fun with your child/children around words.  For years whilst my daughter was young I read to her every night.  Grimm's fairy tales mostly, I found they had a different feeling in comparison to the majority of modern day authors.  (Thankfully there are some wonderful exceptions.)  But when she got older, homework became the focus of my attention and I let go of our precious time each day in which to enter another world.  Instead I worked with her on her reading skills. She has improved, a lot, but something was missing from our relationship (and my own enjoyment).  So I reignited reading at night.  I started off with books she really loved when she was little and have moved into books from the library which I know she could read but which I read.  She now makes sure I am reading each night ... and with her growth in reading skills and development, our reading time is enriched.  I know she is following as I read, she tells me she could read what I am reading, we talk about where the story might be going, she recaps the story each night before I begin, and we talk about whether a book is 'grabbing' us or not.  We discard it if it isn't!  As per my recent blog I have also found a couple of community events around story writing and illustration.  Once upon a time my girl wouldn't have been interested in the slightest about attending, now she's quite keen.

3.  Learn about how literacy should be taught.  Attend Dyslexia Speld Foundation (South Perth) parent film nights and information sessions.  Look up government funded literacy resources (libraries often have flyers) and access them if you are eligible.  Learn about how you can help your child via incidental (in the moment or when they make mistakes) teaching.  Learn about the power of 'saying the sounds and reading the word'.  Learn about the power of your pointer finger!  Borrow books from the library at DSF (or buy them) or better still write your own with your child, that they have the skills and alphabet code knowledge to read.  Don't read books with words in them that have sounds and their corresponding spellings they haven't covered yet. 

4.  Don't interact with them in ways that suggest you are looking for whether they have advanced or not.  In other words, don't test them all the time.  If you know there are words in what they will read that they don't know, play with it beforehand.  If they still have difficulty provide it form them.  Have blank paper and pens on hand, to tease out the sounds of words.  Don't jump in too quickly.  Once they start to blend sounds together they want to see if they can succeed and become annoyed if we jump in too quickly because of our need to have them reading words.  This is what happens in schools.  We rush and cram them so that they look like they are reading. Lots of sight words, reading for meaning, cueing from pictures, all so it looks like children are reading.  And our testing in schools can look like children are progressing.  But they aren't really reading, they aren't using the skills of reading, and then when we test them again in High School (when words are more complex) we wonder why they have dropped behind again? They were never at level in the first place. 

5.  Hire a good remediation tutor.  Make sure they are using a well researched evidence based literacy program.  Can they articulate the deficits in your child's reading skills and how they are going to turn them around?  Have they provided you with a plan that explicitly lays out what they will be doing and when?  Are they available to guide you when you have questions?  Is it possible at all to have them and your child's teacher talking?  Based on questions you have put to the tutor and the information they have provided in remediation plans and reports are you feeling confident about what they are doing?

6.  Ask questions of your school. What literacy program are they using?  Is it one included in the DSF catalogue (which means it has some research and evidence behind it) or is it one without the research?  What is the sequence of sounds and spellings that will be taught?  Where is your child up to?   Are they using Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check?  Why?  (It is not recommended for children with reading difficulties - or most of the others.)

7.  Develop your own literacy skills.  A significant number of children with dyslexia also a parent with dyslexia.  If you don't know how to read, then learn to read, model learning to read for your child.  Not only will you go up in their esteem but you will be a powerful influence over their engagement with learning to read.

For any parent searching for information and guidance, there is an information session in my home (Spearwood) this Sunday 1.30 to 3.30 pm.  The cost is $35, if you would like to come along, give me a call on 0417 949 179.

Fun With Words

There is something about winter that must bring out the desire to go within and draw out words and drawings that give expression to our creativity.  In the last two days I have come across a couple of enticing events to engage children in literacy.

I first fell in love with Balingup 30 years ago ... the amazing smells when you walked through the door of The Tinderbox, camping by the Blackwood river, interesting country shops and cafes, fruit wine, a wonderful array of bed and breakfast establishments.  I pictured myself living there in years to come.  That didn't quite come to fruition but I still enjoy my visits to this beautiful town.  And over the years it has developed some notable events to attract people far and wide.  I came across the flyer for the Telling Tales in Balingup in my local library.  2 days of workshops for children from children's authors and illustrators, all nestled within the businesses of Balingup.  The program looks fantastic.  I am in the process of booking accommodation and intend to be there bright and early on Saturday 12 July to feast my eyes and senses on the books and workshops on offer.  Not to mention enjoying the offerings of the various locations throughout the town in which the workshops will be conducted.  I just hope my daughter is as excited as I am!

This next workshop first appeared in the Fremantle Arts Centre's courses for young people in Term II of this year.  The July holiday program is now out and it features two literacy based workshops.  The workshop on Concrete Poetry will be conducted during the holidays whilst the Creative Writing workshop will be conducted during school term.  It's great to see the definition of the 'arts' in the young people's programs extended into the realm of words and how they can be used to give expression to creativity and imagination.

Reigniting a Love of Words

How to reengage children with words when their relationship with them has been damaged?  This is a question I ponder often.  Three things seem pertinent:

1. A consistent, safe, playful, structured, (and probably lots more) relationship with at least one other - around words.
2. A solid structured, cumulative, explicit phonics program through which to learn.  One that makes sense, and on this last point I put linguistic phonics' programs at the top of the list.
3. Opportunities to play with words, learn about words, not be afraid to express words, put words into sentences .... immerse in imagination through words.

The second point is evidence based, that is, research over time has demonstrated the high correlation between this type of literacy program and performance on reading, spelling and writing.  I am also aware of research into programs which aim to make a difference at children's understanding of emotions and social interactions and the pivotal influence of the relationship in which this learning is supported.  On the last point, maybe there is a bank of research on this too but at this point in time I haven't started to explore it - at this point in time it just remains an important part of my passion.

Pie Corbett on the talk4writing website talks about activities in which "... a strong link is made with home playing an invaluable role in developing a love of words and gradually building the bank of language."  As a parent (who loves books) of a child who has developed reading difficulties, watching the  impact of their contaminated relationship with the written word play out at home (no reading) and at school (difficulty reading and reluctance to write) is soul saddening - particularly when she has the most wonderful gifted imagination.  Success with a solid phonics program really helps to boost a child's motivation to reengage with words.  But before success comes effort.  In that phase I try to ignite hope - hope that a child can understand words before them and hope that they can one day express all the wonderful ideas, stories and expressions that sit with latent potency inside them.  From my days in managing community markets, I have learned the value of images to hope and creativity.  In my remediation tuition this is where IT comes in.

In the 'igniting hope' phase I am experimenting.  With one boy I have gone to the library to find larger print, diary/comic type books on this favourite sport - I thank all those wonderful authors who write for a very varied audience!  With another I use post it notes to demonstrate how she has to hold information in her head whilst she reads and what needs to be done (lots of practice) to move the post it notes from working memory to long term memory.  She gets it.  And with parents I alert them to the voice to text and text to voice features on their iphones and ipads.  Eyes light up ... hope.

In the sounds write lessons we have the opportunity for children to generate silly sentences. Those who have been particularly damaged by their school experience with words clam up.  I look for ways to ease their reentry.  In the free resources section of the talk4writing website, Maria Richards, the talk4writing primary expert, gives a wonderful overview of apps that can be used to ignite creativity in children.  Somewhere on the site Pie Corbett makes the statement "Fear is the enemy of creativity."  I absolutely agree, and there is no bigger impediment to writing creativity than fear of words and the written word. 

I experimented with a few of the Apps over the weekend.  In particular I zoomed in on those that would support a selection of the learning objectives I have for the children:

• Improve their feelings towards words.
• Reinforce their understanding that letters are simply a code for sounds of speech in words, so play with the letters, move them around, see what new words emerge.
• Increase their vocabulary by learning new words.
• Give expression to their imagination.
• Practice spelling, learning more about how different combinations of letters represent different sounds and how the same combinations can represent different sounds depending on the words.

I am not an English teacher and nor do I want to be teaching about formal elements of writing.  I leave that to the experts. But I can help kids reconnect with words, have fun and learn.  I can build a bridge which children can later develop through formal classroom instruction from the experts.  In SW units we have children build silly sentences and they can also build silly stories.  I thought that if I explored poetry it might be less threatening.

Here are some of the incidental learning fun things my 10 year old daughter and I did over the weekend.  The first is a poem we put to writing using the pages app.  Together we made up the sentences and one by one my daughter dictated them into her ipad mini using the voice to text button.  I mailed it through to my word processor (and the app converted to Word format) then I tizzied it up on publisher.  Later I will print it up and paste it into a small book she has made over the years.  The poem was inspired by her meanderings whilst delivering our local paper.  She notices every little interesting thing along the way and they all end up in her pockets waiting to be carefully extracted to show and tell of her 'treasures'.  Earlier in the week I had found some of Pie Corbett's books for kids in the Kwinana library.  I am not a poet so these children's books on writing poetry served me well.  "Use powerful verbs, precise nouns and expressive adjectives."  (Poem-Maker, Word-Shaker, by Pie Corbett, 2005.)  As an added bonus, this little exercise made me look at my own language and how what I say sets the scene for my daughter's use of language and vocabulary development.  I am determined to at least become a better word shaker.

Next, we played with one  of the apps - Visual Poetry.  For $2.99 children can create their own poems, draw their own picture and the poem transitions into the picture.  Many of the girls I work with like to draw, so the combination of drawing and writing is a good one.  The poem began with an imaginative comment my daughter made about the night time antics of her teddy bears.  We quickly penned a poem into the ipad, she drew a picture of a bear and this is the end result. The next morning I realised I could take a photo, so I took one of one of the bears and the picture below is the end result of that one.  

I'm not sure it adds anything to the poem but again for a child wishing to put on paper what they see and feel, the photograph gives another avenue for expression.

There are other apps on the previously mentioned article on the talk4writing website.  I will blog them another time.  One creates stories using nouns, adjectives and verbs the child inputs.  I am going to use these with SW Extended Code Word lists.  Another creates silly sentences with an option to learn the meaning of words used.  I could use this in story creation, add the words to our sound dictionary, use Lesson 15 to explore the tricky bits in words and just show kids that people have fun with words - it doesn't always have to be serious.  

Another app allows the teacher to create their own spelling list for kids to play with and use in a version of hangman.  If I can only find the time to insert the spelling list this app will be invaluable for reinforcement of speech sounds and spelling patterns during wrap around at home sessions.

So now I am happy, a brilliant phonics program and an emerging comfort in using technology to playfully reengage children with words.  May their imaginations flourish like a village square fountain (I finally used a simile!).

Parent Information Session

I know what it's like to be the parent of a child with reading difficulties!  My personal experience was really the start of my journey in developing my understanding and igniting my passion to make a difference to children with learning difficulties and/or dyslexia.  In the beginning though I struggled to understand anything.  I spent money on seminars and interventions that were never going to support my child learning to read - learning to read, write and spell would only come through a great teaching relationship and an evidence based intervention program.  But in the beginning I was looking for a quick fix that didn't require my time - because as a working mother, time was something I was very short of.

When my early endeavours didn't bear any fruit, I then decided that I simply had to take the plunge and tutor my daughter myself.  I attended a substantial amount of training and started working with her at home. The training involved learning lots of steps and procedures, sure, grounded in what we know about dyslexia and how to remediate it, but it didn't provide me with an overall understanding that pulled our knowledge together.  I felt panicky most of the time and in this state I really wasn't going to make a positive difference for my daughter.

And then I attended the Sounds Write training .... I had read related research by Diane McGuinness, a psychologist who conducted extensive work on understanding our language system.  Finally I found information that brought coherence to the work that needed to be done with children.  Everything fell into place - and I was properly trained in how to teach!  I have heard and read of teachers with 30 plus years of experience in attempting to make a difference with children with reading difficulties/dyslexia but who had previously had limited impact - until they too came across some form of program originating out of the D. McGuinness material.  They commented that it was only when they came across the simple understanding that linguistic phonics offers were they able to relax and feel assured that they could achieve what they set out to do.

So I breathed again, and set about working with students and my daughter.  Something that felt stressful overnight became a pleasure, fun, something to be enjoyed with children.  My relationship with my daughter changed, and it continues to grow in richness as I learn more about bringing curiosity with words and language and reading to her.  John Walker (Sounds Write Co Founder) and Mary Gladstone (Sounds Write Australia) brought amazing enthusiasm and expertise to their training sessions and follow up support.  Thank you to DSF for being the conduit - I have benefited enormously from the trainings they have offered.  Through my exploration of many, many, websites I have also made a connection with Fiona Nevola (Sound Reading System UK) and have benefited from the material she has developed and graciously allowed me to bring into Australia.  I continue to read work by Diane McGuinness and the internet now makes it possible to be networked into conversations about the day to day issues of working with children and in schools.  But of course my biggest teachers are the children I am privileged to work with.  My understanding and interest has come a long way - and now I would like to share it with other parents so that they too can hope to move on from confusion and distress.

I am running a 2 hour information session for parents on Sunday 15 June, 1.30 to 3.30 in my home in Spearwood. The cost is $35.  If anyone is interested in coming along please contact me via email on g-mavor@ausconnect.net.  Places are very limited so get in early.  I look forward to seeing you there and connecting with other parents compelled to make a difference to the literacy lives of their children.

Teaching Spelling is Nothing to Laugh About

I recall reading somewhere over the past few months that research is suggesting that visual recognition strategies for the learning of spelling is now thought to be interfering with the neural development actually required for accurate spelling.  I am seeing that in action.

A child I was working with was reviewing her homework last night and was required to spell the word 'laugh'.  As usual she asked me how to spell it and as usual I asked her "what sounds can she hear".  She heard the three sounds /l/ /ar/ /f/ correctly.  She knew the word started with 'l' and then recalled that it had a 'gh' in it.  What then unfolded was what she had been taught in class.  The sounds of the word disappeared from her working memory, they were discarded as irrelevant.  Instead she added a 't' after the 'gh' and then she inserted an 'i' before the 'gh'. Why?  Because they were doing or had done 'ight' words in class.  Her neural connections said that whenever she saw a 'gh' then she must add in an 'i' before and a 't' after.  This was consistent with the word family spellings, LSCWC and flash cards that had been used with her to teach spellings.

Fiona Nevola in her work 'The Sound Reading System' says.  "It is not helpful to give the learner rhyming families (word families) to read. When they read real text (what we read every day) they do not meet word families.  Rhyming families encourage guessing and part reading of words."  This is what I saw in this girl's attempt to spell laugh.  Spelling is the flipside of reading.  They are interchangeable, therefore the strategies one uses in reading are also applied in spelling.  The child began with an accurate recall of the sounds in the word 'laugh', but she only went part of the way before abandoning the only solid entry into spelling a word (sounds) for the (detrimental) word family repetition she had been taught in class.

Teaching word families also attempts to overteach blends (establish blend neural pathways) through repetition.  Blends are a combination of sounds and should not be taught.  There are two sounds in 'ight' - /ie/ and /t/.  Children need to keep the separate sounds in their working memory if they are to read and spell them accurately.  Again I heed the words of Fiona Nevola "Teaching blends can also have another effect: many learners who are having difficulty with reading add extra letters whether they are there or not.  They may also leave sounds out and instead write what they are used to seeing together".  The 'hooks' into spelling that a solid connection with sound offers are discarded as the (taught) neural pathways associated with visual strategies kick in.  

And finally, "spelling involves recall memory:  memory without visual prompts. The more the learner writes, saying the sounds, the easier it will be for them to become an accurate and independent speller."  Time and again I have seen the truth in this.  Later on this girl was required to write the word 'smile'. Again I started with what sounds she could hear.  /s/ /m/ /ie/ /l/.  She wrote down the 's', 'm' and 'l'.  I then asked her how many ways she knew how to spell the sound /ie/.  She gave me 'i', 'ie' and 'i-e'.  I then asked her to write the word using each of the spellings and then to tell me which one was correct.  She identified the correct spelling - even though her personal mind was not so sure!  In every case with the children I work with, when I have used this approach, they have accurately identified the correct spelling - even when they weren't sure. This is because of what we know about orthographic processing.  If a child works with a spelling on at least four different occasions connecting the sound with the letters, those connections are established in long term memory. This is where they need to be if RECALL is to occur.  Recall is different to recognition. Recognition is used in reading, recall is necessary in spelling - recall draws information out of long term memory.  Long term memory offers up the correct information we need - if we have used sound strategies for establishing it there in the first place.  Teachers need to be mindful of the strategies they are using because strategies are also laid down as neural pathways - and not just the focus of those strategies.

The use of strategies such as 'Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check', Flash Cards, Word Families and Sight Word Memorization for spelling all interfere with the sound development of the neural pathways required for accurate spelling. Instead of linking a child's spelling with the sounds in words they distract a child's cognitive processes into scanning for words they have seen, rules they vaguely remember and letter clusters taught during word family spellings.  Spelling becomes a mental scanning with very little to link sounds with letters.  They create chaos instead of order, they exceed the fact of limited cognitive load and they waste the precious limited time children have to learn to spell and read whilst in primary school and the resources of the teachers who teach them.  They are a human made spelling 'crazymaker', it is tough watching their effect in our children.

Language Makes a Difference

The more I work with children and the older my daughter gets there are two things I realise more and more. One is that exposure to language and words is one of the key central pillars to how easily or not a child can engage with the demands of the educational curriculum.  The second, is that if children are securely engaged with the written word - this doesn't translate into being a brilliant reader - it just means they have a secure relationship with reading and writing, don't feel overwhelmed and have a trusting relationship with a great instructor, then they are naturally inquisitive about the meaning and use of words.

Research conducted in 1995 by Betty Hart and Todd R Risley tells us that children in low resource families are exposed to far less words than children in high resource families.  And their relationship to language is different - this translates into "discipline is different".  How parents guide behaviour with their words influences a child's relationship with language.  Both these things play out in acquisition of literacy skills in school.  And it really is a huge task to facilitate the catch up.

 I was reading some academic comments on recent research about the role mothers in particular play in laying down the foundations for literacy acquisition through their early talk, conversations, reading of books and involvement of their children whilst reading books.  As you would expect these behaviours and attitudes have a significant effect.  The challenge is to facilitate these behaviours in those families with less resources, i.e. less finances, less expertise, less information, less networks, less support.  As I was reflecting upon the 'bigger picture' of these types of early childhood relationships the thought came to me that as a whole society is in the process of elevating 'being literate' from the privilege of the noblesse, or the religious orders, to being the right of everyone.  'Being literate' enables access - access to information, access to power, access to understanding how things work (obvious and hidden), access to better paid jobs, etc. etc.  And there is a whole swag of people working in academia, in schools, in parenting support, in not for profit organisations, everywhere, all involved in the momentous task of enabling everyone to 'be literate'.  I think that is a rather noble intention.

Being illiterate and therefore being denied the level playing field that comes with it I think plays a big part in many of society's problems today.  I don't recall the exact figures but somewhere between 70 - 80% of young adults and adults in detention centres and gaols don't have levels of literacy that allow them to engage successfully with the written word demands of living in our society.  Have you ever stopped to think how frustrating and difficult this must be?  (This is one of the things the children I work with have brought to me - a deeper appreciation of difficult their life is, particularly in the classroom.)  And if, as a society, we could support more parents, and mothers in particular, to have the resources, time and support, to engage more with their children with language and vocabulary, how much would we save in money spent down the track.  I don't imagine it will be an easy task.  But at least many, many, people are trying.  Paediatricians are being supplied with books to hand out in conversations with new mothers, children are being supplied with books at every early years birthday, children in third world countries are being supplied with books, volunteer pre literacy services are being provided to new mums and their kids.  Much is being done.  

And there is still so much more to be done.  In my reflections an important question I think came to mind, "How do we support mums of younger children to be in the world, engaged with it, and inquisitive, so that they may bring richer conversations to their children?"  In the discussion threads I subscribe to some questions are being raised about the impact of more mums in the workforce, which translates into less stress free time to be and talk with their children.  Other questions are being raised about the impact of technology, children listening more and more to one sided conversations their parents are having on the mobile phone, and the reduced availability of their parents due to their time on the phone.  One of the questions asked is whether rather than seeing literacy levels of all being raised, may we not in fact see it reduce as parents across all resources levels increase their hours of work and increase their time on the mobile phone.  I guess, time will tell.

Asking for Longer Sentences is Gobbledegook!

When a child doesn't understand or been  taught explicitly that the squiggles on a page represent the speech sounds of words, and if they haven't been taught the way the alphabet code works, then this is how the material they have to read looks.  Gobbledegook with a few bits they recognise interspersed along the way.  This is how the written word looks to children with reading difficulties/dyslexia.  To work with the written word without solid instruction is confusing and threatening.

Imagine then their experience when they have to write sentences or stories?  In the past week I have seen three separate examples of comments from teachers to students with diagnosed dyslexia.  In each case the request was for longer sentences, an increased use of words and for better spelling!  This is unfair.  I understand that teachers have put in considerable effort trying to bring the curriculum to all their students but for those students who are confused and/or haven't been taught to read, write and spell by a teacher with a solid understanding of how our writing system works, how a child's brain works and how to bring the two together, then children will not be able to do what the curriculum and their teachers request - unless they are given specialist remediation.

This is also true in High School.  I hear High School teachers talk about the needs of their students being for greater vocabulary and language.  But if one looks closely the real need is for understanding of the alphabetic code and for someone to make the confusion understandable - because once someone has done this, the brain, with its innate drive for patterns and coherence, will take off.

Related to this is the cognitive ability testing that has been administered to children who have been diagnosed with dyslexia.  If a child has been assessed as having average or above cognitive ability then initially one should start with the assumption that the child is capable of achieving grades of 'C' or above.  (Of course this requires more sophisticated interpretation but it is a useful starting point.)  Assuming some key elements of your child's cognitive profile are not too aberrant from the average range, if your child is continually being assigned grades of 'D' or below, even after they have put in considerable effort, then a conversation with the teacher about how your child's disability can be accommodated in the classroom is required.  Average and above cognitive ability suggests your child has thoughts, ideas and knowledge, that they can express and which could potentially earn them a 'C' grade.  Their disability will get in the way of this - but remediation will help and processes can be put in place to separate out its impact.  Assessing their understanding and knowledge can be separated out from assessing the ability to hand write words and string them into sentences. It can be done.  Simple voice to text, and text to voice features on IPads make a great starting point.

Spelfabet

Have a look at the latest offering on Alison Clarke's blog.  I agree wholeheartedly!