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 [...]
Neuroscience in Education: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
December 11, 2009
Professor Sergio Della Sala will be speaking about Neuroscience in Education: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at the Playfair Library Hall, Old College, Edinburgh EH8 9YL on Tuesday 23rd February 2010 at 6.00pm.
This is part of The Edinburgh Lectures 2009/10 Making Scotland.
Anyone who combines Venice, scepticism and learning gets my vote. I heard Sergio [...]
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 [...]
Edublogs Awards
November 30, 2009
The nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards are open! Now in their 6th year, the Edublog Awards celebrate the achievements of edubloggers, twitterers, podcasters, video makers, online communities, wiki hosts and other web based users of educational technology. This year Classroom 2.0 is co-hosting the awards, and Elluminate is supporting the event.
In order to nominate [...]
