[SENco-forum] Re Literacy/Dyslexia

My daughter was V hampered (unable to read whole words) although visually
inclined ( she sees videos running in her head).  She was hampered by poor
phonics even though she had learned individual synthetic phonics Aa = 'a'
before reading.  She could not move on to blend or read by analogy
mill/hill. Her A weakness was in Short term memory  for symbolic language
but not concrete nouns.  She was an excellent player of 'I went to the
supermarket to buy....'. I think she just 'saw' them in her head.

She could do things by ear - rhyme or manipulate words (cat to pat or cot or
can) etc  None of the more usual SpLD indicators.  It just all fell apart
when it was on paper.  At one point I was actually wishing she was blind so
that she could learn Braille, be able to read and thus access an education
at school.  How sad is that!

Nothing could be taken for granted and everything taught in short steps.
This will be what you are doing already.

Every time the student does it right it hammers it home to the long term
memory and every time a teacher lets them fail  it takes the student not one
step back, but 4.  This is what the current education system seems unable to
cope with and has huge built in failure points.  Nothing else will fix it
but addressing this  There are no magic reading formulae.

She copes at school by using a laptop with TextHELP although prefers writing
by hand (!)  TextHELP screen reader helps remind her what she was about to
write ( memory problems) and alerts her to her mistakes.  Without it she
cannot 'see' what words are right or wrong. Touch typing has improved both
her spelling and speed.

Sharon Tringham SpLD Dip.

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk]On Behalf Of John Bergin
Sent: 03 January 2007 10:16
To: Becta Senco
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Re Literacy/Dyslexia

Thanks to every one who contributed to
this thread.... it really is interesting to read.

I must admit I'm firmly on Eddie's side.
Cost effective and didactically sound.

I was asked about phonics by a classics
undergrad last Easter... took somewhat under 10 minutes
with the aid of the big THRASS box of sound patterns.
We also forget kiddies come to school able to read.

I dyslexia private tutor nowadays and get kiddies
from Y1 and up.

I was very impressed with a course I went on last
year re the Ruth Miskin synthetic phonics..

I read the 80% too. It was in the literature a while back,
I'm sure.

Re VAK. I've read V is the academically important
learning mode, can't remember where, sorry.
But what does one do with a V disabled as
well as an A disabled learner?
.....I'm
teaching a student so zapped presently.(And an
unusally kind LEA EP told mum, 'appropriately'.)

& Dyslexia....
The dyslexics who can read and write and spell
....what about them after early reading and spelling has been cracked?
It's *not* single word reading and spelling that remain as "the problem".
But that's another can of worms.

John

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