[senco-forum] Re: literacy

"I think Graeme and Aly would deem automatic imposition of SP on those  with 
APD, quite unhelpful and possibly even damaging. My view is that the needs  of 
such children must be individually assessed and if SP is recommended as being 
 a productive counter for that particular child's learning difficulty then of 
 course it should be used with that child. "

In reply I would say that any child who is failing to learn to  read with 
Synthetic Phonics should not be made to continue with it and  should be taught 
other methods of learning to read. 

Not ALL children with APD have problems with phonics and/or phonological  
processing, but some might have one of these or both, manifesting in differing  
ways and to varying degrees. There is not one set of  characteristic 
difficulties that is "APD" but it covers a wide  ranging set of difficulties of which a 
problem with reading is just  one possible area and for a variety of reasons. 
A child with APD may  be able to read and not spell and vice versa, both 
affecting literacy. Those with APD may have other difficulties too such as those 
asociated  with visual processing problems (or in fact anything else) and it is 
those  visual processing difficulties(which I will call VPD) which may  be 
causing the reading difficulties, not the APD, although APD is present  too. My 
son has both APD and visual processing problems and reads exceptionally  well 
although very slowly because of the VPD and he spells unfamiliar words  
phonetically because he cannot always make the correct grapheme  choices.

I agree with the needs of any struggling reader being individually  assessed 
otherwise how are we to know the cause or causes...and to me that,  leading to 
instruction and support individually tailored to their needs, is a  vital 
component in access to literacy, and to education in all areas, for all  
children.  

Best wishes,
Aly

Chair Auditory  Processing Disorder in the UK/APDUK
www.lacewingmultimedia.com/APD.htm 
www.apduk.org