Brilliant post, Nathaniel. The CPD we get as teachers is often so generalised and working so hard to cater to as many students as possible that it ends up being relevant for none of them. I particularly think of autism training when I think this, but dyslexia is the same - no two children present it in the same way to the same degree.
Your strategies really are applicable and useful for most students though. Explicit teaching of English in my classroom has been the difference for some dyslexic children who have improved so much in their time in our school.
I couldn’t agree with you more Nathaniel. If students are screened in preschool and foundation for language and literacy difficulties, including phonological and phonemic awareness; are taught, explicitly and systematically in their first and second years of school; and interventions occurred early rather than taking a wait to fail approach, the educational outcomes would be so much better for our students. Our biggest challenge is convincing our leaders of this! Not just leaders in primary schools, but system leaders who may be completely barking up the wrong tree and wasting copious amounts of money at the same time by implementing ineffective approaches to literacy and literacy intervention.
Brilliant post, Nathaniel. The CPD we get as teachers is often so generalised and working so hard to cater to as many students as possible that it ends up being relevant for none of them. I particularly think of autism training when I think this, but dyslexia is the same - no two children present it in the same way to the same degree.
Your strategies really are applicable and useful for most students though. Explicit teaching of English in my classroom has been the difference for some dyslexic children who have improved so much in their time in our school.
That’s great to hear! Thank you for sharing Jack
I couldn’t agree with you more Nathaniel. If students are screened in preschool and foundation for language and literacy difficulties, including phonological and phonemic awareness; are taught, explicitly and systematically in their first and second years of school; and interventions occurred early rather than taking a wait to fail approach, the educational outcomes would be so much better for our students. Our biggest challenge is convincing our leaders of this! Not just leaders in primary schools, but system leaders who may be completely barking up the wrong tree and wasting copious amounts of money at the same time by implementing ineffective approaches to literacy and literacy intervention.
Thanks Teresa! Will get back to you on chat soon