[senco-forum] dyslexia

Hi Biffe

Hi Graeme - if you have some of the gifts that Howard has, that's definitely 
some compensation for the difficulties.  I think he was probably laughing 
inwardly at our efforts to support him, despite the frustrations.  He got 
through University (no idea how) and came out as a still very likeable young 
man who sees the world differently from most of us.

Regards

Biff
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dolfrog at dolfrog.org.uk>
To: "'Biff Crabbe'" <ba at biffc.vispa.com>; "'julie cozens'" 
<juliecozens at yahoo.co.uk>; "'senco-forum'" <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 6:52 PM
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] dyslexia - screening/testing/assessment (Long)

> Hi Biffe
>
> I am a Howard.
>
> Best wishes
>
> dolfrog
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
> [mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Biff Crabbe
> Sent: 07 March 2008 15:36
> To: julie cozens; senco-forum
> Subject: Re: [senco-forum] dyslexia - screening/testing/assessment (Long)
>
> Julie - I hope my response was in two parts:
>
> 1.  Mourning the passing of a practice in which EP assessment was one of 
> the
> routine foundation steps towards identifying provision;
>
> 2.  (Last paragraph) I would find the label 'dyslexia' a more useful
> starting point than knowing simply that the child shares a difficulty with
> 'common or garden poor readers'.
>
> The first time that my school's liaison EP assessed a Year 7 child that I
> had thrust to the front of the queue, she came back and suggested that he
> was 'classically dyslexic'.  As a first year SENCO I had suggested to her
> before she met him that there was undoubtedly a great deal of 
> understanding
> 'in there', but it seldom came out in a coherent form (although when it 
> did,
> his comments could be piercingly insightful).
>
> She characterised this as 'tip of the tongue syndrome' - the point where
> such huge strain has been put on processing 'what I know' into 'how I say
> it' (or worse still, 'how I write it') that the hold on 'the answer', or
> even 'the question', becomes loosened and key information slips out of
> working memory.  So the learner either provides the right answer, but it's
> buried within an avalanche of related information that isn't directly
> relevant to the question, or struggles so much to prepare a 'refined' 
> answer
> that it just doesn't get out.  (The odd thing is that this seems to occur
> naturally in middle age, whether we're dyslexic or not.)
>
> Howard (we'll call him) knew an awful lot, but couldn't organise it into
> retrievable chunks, or shape it neatly in words; his processing of 
> language
> into writing was extraordinarily laborious, quite something to behold.
>
> Even as a greenhorn SENCO, I knew before the EP stepped across the 
> threshold
> that Howard couldn't read and write.  So while determining that I should
> really try to find out about 'dyslexia' properly, beyond 'it's word
> blindness and confusing b and d, isn't it', I followed the EP's advice 
> about
> support to allow Howard to show what he knew (by reducing the processing
> demands) and some strategies and teaching to help join some bits of memory
> together. He also needed a very structured package of teaching to move his
> reading and spelling forward (which I can provide now, but back then what 
> he
> got was a greenhorn SENCO, trying to implement EP advice on teaching
> approaches, plus some supplements of own devising).
>
> I've since met far less intelligent Howards, but who still shared some of
> his characteristics, including a fiendishly convoluted and misguided
> understanding of the relationship between letters, sounds and words, a
> difficulty in 'becoming automatic' at anything, problems with 
> organisation,
> weak short-term memory skills...and so forth.
>
> I've also met stacks of weak readers, with very little in common with the
> Howards except weak reading and spelling skills (and weaknesses in
> phonological processing).  I know now that it isn't too difficult to get 
> the
> majority of non-Howards to move forward with the right sort of teaching.
>
> But this isn't quite the same type of teaching that the Howards needed, 
> even
> if there would be a common core.  Howards often seem to have made more
> progress when looking at morphology, analysing the way written words work,
> generating their own rules or specific ways of remembering something, and
> learning to apply a fairly mechanical but functional set of rules for both
> decoding and encoding.  Howards seemed to need to find a way of 
> remembering,
> understanding and applying this stuff that worked for them, however arcane
> and complicated it appeared to me; non-Howards were much more likely to
> benefit from 'standard' approaches to teaching about the written word.
>
> Howards also needed strategies for managing 'life in the classroom' and 
> 'how
> to remember something'....but you know what I would be going on to list.
>
> Now I know that I've shown hints of a heretical belief that 'discrepancy'
> might be a component within my conceptualisation of dyslexia, but actually 
> I
> just think that 'discrepancy' should also inform the nature of the support
> intervention.  (So the BPS won't strike me off the list, not that I was 
> ever
> on it.)
>
> 'The question I am still wrestling with  is just how, exactly is 
> 'dyslexia'
> a good starting point?   How would this label in itself inform what you 
> do,
> - what would you do differently for a 'dyslexic' pupil as opposed to 
> another
> struggling pupil who had presented similarly but who didnt get the label?'
>
> I hope that Howard answers your question, but dyslexia is a useful 
> starting
> point for me, because it guides me firstly to consider the nature of the
> support that the child is likely to need; and this is not the same as the
> nature of the support that 'the common or garden poor reader' is likely to
> need, even if they share a difficulty and an aim in common.  I find the 
> idea
> that I shouldn't attempt to differentiate between the two groups pretty
> alarming.  I'm likely to need to differentiate further within my dyslexic
> group, even if it's just as far as labelling them as L- or P- type 
> dyslexics
> (if I can), because I often find that a useful distinction, too.
>
> 'I agree that 'qualifying' rather than needing is a horrible notion -  but 
> I
> sometimes think this construct is maintained as much by the very process 
> of
> labelling as it is by mean LEAs.'
>
> Ooh, no, won't have that.  LEAs, mean or otherwise, produce astonishingly
> complex criteria against which children's special educational needs have 
> to
> be specified, but without using any 'diagnostic' labels like dyslexic, or
> autistic.  Increasingly, these criteria 'qualify' children for access to
> intervention at Wave-something, or access to '2.5 hours per week TA 
> support'
> according to the LA delegated SEN funding system.  Was it in this forum 
> that
> we met one LEA's new qualification category - SA Plus Plus Plus?  Now
> there's a label that really tells us nothing.
>
> I'm glad to hear that you've wrestled with many of my statements - 
> exercise
> is healthy.
>
> Regards
>
> Biff
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
>  From: julie cozens
>  To: Biff Crabbe ; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
>  Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 6:48 PM
>  Subject: Re: [senco-forum] dyslexia - screening/testing/assessment
>
>
>  Biff  - I found your posting really thought-provoking. Thank you for
> 'wrestling with my statement' - I have done the same with many of yours!
>
>  I agree absolutely that assessment has to identify needs - I just dont
> think it has to be about labels.
>
>  The question I am still wrestling with  is just how, exactly is 
> 'dyslexia'
> a good starting point?   How would this label in itself inform what you 
> do,
> - what would you do differently for a 'dyslexic' pupil as opposed to 
> another
> struggling pupil who had presented similarly but who didnt get the label?
> For me, the label just isnt important - certainly not when there is still 
> no
> one agreed definition of dyslexia, and when it does not in itself 
> highlight
> a particular path of intervention.
>
>  By 'assessment through teaching and appropriately targeted support..' I
> meant that there is no one- off  testing that EPs come in and do to 
> 'assess
> for dyslexia' . Its a process of promoting of high quality teaching, and a
> careful evaluation of the pupil's response to it, and to increasingly
> refined and individualised interventions over time. EPs and specialist
> teachers support schools with this in many ways - and individual 
> asssessment
> is still likely to be one of them.
>
>  I agree that 'qualifying' rather than needing is a horrible notion -  but
> I sometimes think this construct is maintained as much by the very process
> of labelling as it is by mean LEAs.
>
>  Julie
>
>
>  Biff Crabbe <ba at biffc.vispa.com> wrote:
>    'My point was that this is assessment to inform intervention - not
>    assessment with a purpose of identifying 'dyslexics', or a special 
> group
> of
>    students who qualify for a particular type of support.'
>
>    Julie - I have wrestled with this statement, but still hate it. In 
> order
> to
>    inform intervention, assessment has to identify needs. And the notion 
> of
>
>    'qualifying' for support (rather than simply 'needing' it) is 
> definitely
> an
>    LEA construct that schools have been forced to embrace.
>
>    A few days back, Martin (Miles) asked the forum about ways in which
> SENCOs
>    seek to use and deploy the EP resource.
>
>    In my first few years as a SENCO I hoped to draw on the expertise of 
> the
> EP
>    in identifying the nature and scope of a child's needs, and we would
> then
>    put our heads together to identify the type of support interventions
> that
>    would meet the needs. The EP knew stuff that I didn't about the nature
> of
>    children's learning difficulties; I learned to devise individual, small
>    group and curriculum-based support interventions. But it started with
> the
>    EP making an assessment of the individual child's difficulties and
> needs,
>    and this always involved (her) spending some time in the child's
> company.
>    The more completely I could describe the child's difficulties 
> initially,
> the
>    more refined and focused the EP's assessment could be (and it might 
> only
> be
>    an observation of and a chat with the child).
>
>    In later years (and with different EPs) more of the EP time came to be
>    allocated (by the LEA) to 'systemic' bits - assistance in understanding
> and
>    completing the latest new whizz of a paperwork scheme for 'monitoring',
>    looking at 'criteria' for placement at a particular support stage,
>    moderation processes etc. There was more discussion about longer lists
> of
>    children (and the longer the list, the shorter each segment of the
>    discussion). Inexorably, less and less time was spent by the EP with
>    children.
>
>    You say that, 'we promote a careful process of assessment through
> teaching
>    and appropriately targeted support for any pupil who needs it.' And
> therein
>    lies a summary of the change in the role. What is 'assessment through
>    teaching', and who is carrying out the assessment that the EP is
>    'promoting'?
>
>    As to your previous message about the usefulness of 'dyslexia' as a
> label
>    (long discussion issue that has cropped up often on the forum), I'd
> still
>    find it more useful as a starting point than 'shares some of the same
>    difficulties as the common or garden poor reader'.
>
>    Regards
>
>    Biff Crabbe
>
>
>
>
>    ----- Original Message ----- 
>    From: "julie cozens"
>    To: "senco forum"
>    Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 9:11 PM
>    Subject: Re: [senco-forum] dyslexia - screening/testing/assessment
>
>
>    Hello Phillipa
>
>    I have a copy of your book and I have heard about your successful work
> in
>    Dubai.
>    I am also aware of Martin Turners work.
>
>    I certainly didnt mean to give the impression in my posting that we
> never
>    assess children in Devon! I did say in my email that we promote a
> careful
>    process of assessment through teaching and appropriately targeted
> support
>    for any pupil who needs it.
>
>    My point was that this is assessment to inform intervention - not
>    assessment with a purpose of identifying 'dyslexics', or a special 
> group
> of
>    students who qualify for a particular type of support.
>
>    Hope this clarifies
>
>    best wishes
>
>    Julie
>
>
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