All practitioners in each sector, in each department and in all settings have a responsibility to develop, reinforce and extend the skills which are set out in the literacy experiences and outcomes (Curriculum for Excellence).
Teaching:My remit covers all schools in the region. Therefore I do not – cannot – use my time to teach [...]
Archive for the ‘Dyslexia’ Category
Reading and Writing Chinese and Dyslexia
December 11, 2009
In a comment on a recent post about auditory processing Alan Coady remarks on the differences inherent in learning Chinese. I have just read a bit around the subjexct but cannot claim to grasp all the implications. Here goes:
There are very real differences in how dyslexia manifests itself in different languages, says Maryanne Wolf whose important [...]
Indicators of dyslexia across different languages
December 10, 2009
Once more I have been dipping into Maryanne Wolf’s magnificent book, Proust and the Squid, for enlightenment on the differences inherent in identifying dyslexia in speakers of different languages.
The specific phonological skills used in reading depend on the reader’s expertise, the word to be read, and the writing system, involved. A highly regular, highly frequent [...]
Dyslexia and modern foreign languages
December 9, 2009
In a previous post I wrote about the difficulties inherent in learning a foreign language for some people with dyslexia.
It seems that children who learning more regular alphabets, such as Greek and Spanish, gain fluency and efficiency faster than children who have to tackle less regular languages such as English. No surprises there.
This does not [...]
Clicker 5
December 7, 2009
I have long promoted the use of Clicker 5 to support independence in reading and especially writing. But I have reluctantly decided to abandon advising its use. Crick Software claims that,
Clicker is the proven reading and writing tool that helps pupils of all abilities to achieve success in reading and writing. Clicker is used on [...]
What Causes Dyslexia
December 3, 2009
A couple of years ago I attended the Dyslexia Scotland annual conference at which Dr Alex Richardson spoke about the causes of difficulties such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD and specific language impairment. Her research focuses on the genetic background to dyslexia and how nutrition and the immune system contribute to auditory and visual attention difficulties.
She [...]
Dyslexia: the Three Ds
December 1, 2009
In a previous post I wrote about the difficulties that many learners with dyslexia experience.
All learners have their own constellations of strengths and weaknesses and to focus exclusively upon characteristics that hinder learning under current school systems is not always helpful. For some 4 or 500 years, our schools have concentrated on the skills of the medieval clerk [...]
Auditory processing
November 26, 2009
Here are 2 stories from the World of Dyslexia newsletter that may be of interest:
Catching Dyslexia Before it Catches Your Child
“Children with developmental dyslexia may be living in a world with in-between sounds,” Nadine Gaab says. “It could be that whenever I tell a dyslexic child ‘ga,’ they hear a mix of ‘ga,’ ‘ka,’ ‘ba,’ [...]
Visual Stress
November 26, 2009
My colleague, Morna MacDonald has commented here on a talk we heard from the optometrist, Dorothy Crystal.
I found these links which may be of interest:
Wilkins Intuitive Overlays – Cerium Overlays are colored sheets of robust transparent plastic which can be used for all reading tasks. The use of an overlay has been shown by [...]
Parenting for Beginners
November 25, 2009
Memory plays tricks, sometimes mercifully allowing one to forget stressful times. I had genuinely obliterated how many things need to get done in a single day just to tread water for families with young children until I offered to take L to nursery in the latter stages of her mum’s 2nd pregnancy. You forget that [...]
