Back in May last year I wrote a post which asked whether dyslexia actually exists. Some people really liked it and others (particularly those with children who have been diagnosed with dyslexia) got pretty angry: it’s one of my most commented on posts.
With the imminent release of professor Julian Elliott’s new book, The Dyslexia Debate, a bit a media storm has blown up. Yesterday I was asked by BBC local radio to be interviewed on the Mark Forrest show and The Independent got in touch to see if I would write a short article summarising my thoughts. Naturally, being a big old show off I agreed to do both.
Here’s the link to my article. And here (for the next six days only) is the link to the radio debate. (My bit is about 50 minutes in.)
13 Comments
Constructive feedback is always appreciated
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For what it’s worth I couldn’t agree with you more. I think categories are a hangover from the enlightmnent whereas cognition is on a spectrum of blah blah I even bore myself sometimes.
After reading articles yesterday I was left feeling quite upset by the disregard and lumping.in with ‘poor reading’s. Your writing however supports the case much better.
My issue is I see great strides in my son’s reading but his spelling and inconsistency with writing is not the same. This leads to low self esteem, poor attention and behaviour in class (yr3). So what is the answer? Without the loose diagnosis of dyslexia we lead to Adhd, social and emotional issues… How can we support these children and recognise their learning needs without labels.
Reading and writing attainment is such a focus, without understanding that some children like my son find this the worst and hardest part of school life (not because they aren’t supported or don’t want to do well) could wreck a child’s school journey.
As a GCSE English teacher at an FE college, I teach 80 students across 5 different classes. The reason I am teaching them is because they all got a D in GCSE English at school, and now they have been told it’s compulsory to either be in Functional Skills English class, or, if possible, GCSE English, and, if in the latter, to try to get a C this time. I spend 3 hours of class time a week with each group, and started delivery of the course in December. I’m now on week 10 with them and we just did both creative writing controlled assessments next week, we’re doing the poetry controlled assessment next week, and between now and Easter will also do controlled assessments for Romeo & Juliet, and Of Mice & Men. We will also squeeze in 3 speaking & listening assessments. I’ve only just really “got to know them”, i.e. after having seen what they can do in controlled assessments, creative writing wise. It’s been a crash and burn couple of months and I’ve learned I should have put a lot more emphasis on SPaG within class time. Instead, I gave out “optional” homework on it for those who care enough to want to do it. Guess what? Loads didn’t.
Coming to the point… there is one… I have several learners who are statemented as having ‘dyslexia’ or other related stuff. They have note-takers providing support in class, and these assistants also give them other task related support in class. I didn’t realise, but if they are statemented to a particular level, they can have a scribe to write their controlled assessments for them. I’m sorting that out for the next assessments, and seeing what I can do about helping those who didn’t get a good mark in the last assessment, to see if I can get them to dictate their assessments to a scribe now, after the event.
I really do want to help them, because some of them really need that leg up. There’s one lass, who is an avid reader and a brilliant writer, but has really, really big difficulties with words and spelling. She can’t see what she’s done wrong when proof reading so she leaves these glaring mistakes in her work, which, if marked as all the other work, would never get her a C. If it wasn’t for those really weird spelling errors, she would get an A. She’s labelled dyslexic. Is she? If she is, how can I help her? If she isn’t, how can I help her? Whether she is or she isn’t, should I help her and not give everyone else the same help? How could I possibly give them all the same help? Has it helped her having a note taker? Other kids in the class wouldn’t get an A even if I discounted their SPaG errors. I think she *is* someone who is deserving of something, but I am not sure what, or how to give it. Should the playing field be levelled out so that we don’t take SPaG into account at all???
It’s a crying shame when many of the kids have written lovely narratives, immersed themselves in the task and genre, used a range of rhetorical devices and discourse markers, but then miss out on a C or above just because of homophones, commas and apostrophes.
I’d have loved to have been able to work with these students for a full two year GCSE course, as in schools. I think many of them have been really let down in schools under special measures, where books were never marked and I’ve had to fight hard to get the students to let me mark their work at all.
@cazzwebbo
I have a 10 year old son who a year ago was well on the way to a diagnosis of dyslexia and ADHD, thoroughly dispirited, angry and difficult to handle. One year on and he’s jumped 3 years in his reading age and 2 years in spelling. What happened? I researched like crazy, discovered http://www.dyslexics.org.uk and The Reading Reform Foundation, took a leap of faith and started to get him sorted out. I found a tutor trained by Sounds-Write (there are other similar synthetics phonics programmes like Sound Reading System) and for an hour a week he’s been coached to fill in all the gaps in his phonics knowledge. What a transformation! He’s happier, more confident and producing great work at school. I’m now doing the training myself in the hope that I too will one day be able to help children just like my son. Take a look. These programmes are producing amazing results in schools across the country and they see the SEN rates transformed – downwards.
Sounds like you’ve done really well, so well done! 🙂 I’ll give done thought to your advice! Thank you 🙂
Also this via Sky News http://bit.ly/1ewdmYw
[…] via The dyslexia debate – is the label ‘meaningless’? | David Didau: The Learning Spy. […]
@cazzwebbo – she prob is bit the label doesn’t matter too much – she may want to begin word processing as her usual way of working which will help – also a free piece of software called Balabolka will allow her to have her text read back to her – she will then spot more mistakes – As you are post 16 you can also download 2 voices Jack and Jess who are better voices. You can get this from Jisctechdis – I also advise you look at ADSHE website they have lots of advice. Finally the wonderful Scottish education dept has provided funding for MyStudyBar which is free downloaded from eduapps. These will all help her – good luck.
Thanks JulesDaulby! I’m certainly going to look into what you have suggested! Very valuable help. Thank you 🙂
I can tell you what helped me.
The main thing I experienced was a constant feeling that I was stupid, as I struggled with the basic tasks but the complicated ones came easily to me. I felt I had to hide my condition as I had no support in school. My attention span was very short and I became very tired very quickly when studying.
When I was at the Open University, dyslexia assessor recommended I try John Levine’s Alphamusic album Silence of Peace whilst studying. I also was given colored glasses, computer software – read and write gold and dragon software. The glasses helped me to read better as it stopped words getting mixed up. Computer software helped with spelling. Alphamusic worked in conjunction with these to help concentration and tiredness and helped lower my anxiety level. I found I could study for more than an hour at a time without any exhaustion. This increased my productivity immensely.
Amy’s story is very common and this is why Julian Elliot’s dyslexia debate and David’s blog are rather pointless – if julian got his way we would all be saying ‘ you know, those students we used to call dyslexic – i assess and teach students with varying difficulties; dyslexia is just one. The differences between the various specific learning difficulties overlap and there is a good Venn diagram on DANDA which explains this well. Some prefer the terms neuro typical and neuro diverse.
Whatever the outcome of Julian Elliot’s debate – I agree with him in that it is the behaviour we should be concentrating on rather than an over focus on the label. Your story explains this nicely, what are your difficulties and what strategies will support them to ensure you can reach your full potential? Coloured tints, screen readers, speech to text, concept mapping, music etc are all strategies which help and they really do level the playing field as there is no advantage for those who won’t benefit from these. I have tried various strategies for students and in my experience, those that it helps most use it religiously and for those that it doesn’t they soon stop using the equipment.
Please don’t be put off by those that say it doesn’t exist; even Julian Elliot doesn’t exactly say this – he writes the term is unscientific but still recognises there is a section of society who seem to struggle with reading and writing more than other skills.
I would urge all to look out for behaviours of learners who appear to have a ‘spiky profile’ and identify the need then put strategies in place. The term dyslexia is useful to explain certain behaviours in my opinion but I would always concentrate more on what I can do to help behaviours.
Finally we should be aware of the term hidden disability – the more hidden a difficulty is, the less people want to believe it. Anyone with a specific learning difficulty will at some stage been told they did not out effort in despite possibly putting lots of effort in. Written work can appear poor compared to contributions in class or work can appear random and confused despite clearly having all the information in their head.
There is so much brilliant Assistive Technology out there now and it can help many people; we shouldn’t wait for a label to use it – if someone can use speech to text instead of a scribe or a screen reader instead of a human reader, this is fantastic – it engenders independence and allows people to succeed and reach their full potential.
[…] recognitions skills depend on phenotypic plasticity, not academic ability; sometimes very bright students struggle to read, sometimes very weak students find decoding […]
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