As well as starving the NHS, Education has been starved by this government too.

Ronib The metaphorical walls to which I referred weren’t the kids; they were my superiors!

Yes, sadly I know all about illiteracy, dyslexia and poor outcomes

FannyCornforth I didn’t think it was the kids …. Interesting. We had the same issues as you with one headteacher.
What I need to say is that we avoided poor outcomes by finding schools which could work well with dyslexia up to a point. Better than jail time I suppose.

You did very well Ronib
I recently worked at a school that wouldn’t even say that a child had dyslexia.
You had to say ‘dyslexic tendencies’.
It was to discourage the parents for asking for extra help, as none was available.
This was from the SENDCo, my manager. Like many of her team,
I was never convinced that she actually knew much at all about SEN.
It was very difficult as I’m sure you can imagine.

FannyCarnforth bit sad for you. All to do with funding?
Managers do seem to have a lot of control in your situation. I don’t know if the Institute for Dyslexia is campaigning for a more coherent approach? I am disappointed that having experience of poor State provision for dyslexia in the 1980s, it’s still not fully recognised and supported.

Goodness, there are some rude people on here. Why do those who believe in ideological extremes think they can tell others, not only what they should believe, but also how to write their posts on GN? Obviously, we cannot jump to the conclusion that all ex-teachers from a time now gone are naturally bossy, but it does give pause for thought.

So, Doddledog, you tell me I should be talking about dyslexia. That's as maybe, but it has nothing to do with what I was saying about dyslexia. My post picked up on your point about the misguided idea that all who lack education certificates are less bright. I thought it important to add to your comment the fact that, in many cases, lack of educational success is due to lack of opportunity and not lack of "brightness". I am concerned about the lack of opportunity, so I wrote about it. Even when I agree with you, you have to be the bully!

Why should I talk about dyslexia? I have lived with it; my daughter and my cousins have lived with it, and I have written at length about it in the past. Seriously why do you think you can tell me what I may write about? This is becoming so pathetic.

And then we have Mamie who tells me that You talk DaisyAnne about a plan for state education without very much reference to the strengths and weaknesses of the current system. Strangely, Maimie I feel okay with not writing about the strengths and weaknesses at this point, as we all seem to agree they exist. If someone comes on who doesn't, then I may think about doing so. Once again, who do you think you are to tell me what I may write about?

It seems as if those on the extreme left, those who want the government to use repressive measures, cannot bare people disagreeing with them, cannot discuss it and think they, by the tone of the two posts above, are already in the repression business.

Doodledog Doodledog

Yes, Ronib, it was all about funding. The reading scheme that I had to use was over 20 years old and literally falling to bits.
I spent a fortune ( £1000 plus) on resources as I couldn’t stand giving the kids a substandard education.

FannyCarnforth The Dyslexic Institute has a map showing where specialist assessment and tuition can be given. I don’t know if any of your students who require extra help can access this service? I think it’s quite expensive but money well spent.

Also does your school not have an active PTA? Can you ask for extra funding for books and other essentials through the PTA? Or additional support for dyslexia?

So, Doddledog, you tell me I should be talking about dyslexia. That's as maybe, but it has nothing to do with what I was saying about dyslexia. My post picked up on your point about the misguided idea that all who lack education certificates are less bright. I thought it important to add to your comment the fact that, in many cases, lack of educational success is due to lack of opportunity and not lack of "brightness". I am concerned about the lack of opportunity, so I wrote about it. Even when I agree with you, you have to be the bully!
Wow!

If I misunderstood your comment, I apologise, but first someone claims that ed psychs and dyslexia specialists are wrong about dyslexia and it's just that sufferers are unable to read, and then that people without qualifications are ok. Now I'm a bully! And other people are rude?

My point was that it used to be commonplace for people with no knowledge of the subject to sneer that people 'claiming' they or their children were dyslexic were doing so as a cover for lack of achievement, and it appeared that this attitude was coming back.

My daughter is dyslexic (as assessed by the Dyslexia Society, and by the university she attended). When she was young we were told that the LEA didn't recognise dyslexia, so we had an uphill struggle through her schooldays in high performing schools who weren't interested in children whose results were not as good as they could have been. Without going into details of her story (which isn't mine to tell) she has IMO, been let down by the system, so yes - maybe I am a bit sensitive about it. You quoted my point about old-fashioned attitudes in your post, so of course I assumed that your comment was in response to mine. Wouldn't you have done?

What is your definition of a bully?

Hello again ronib
Unfortunately I had to take early retirement due to ill health.
It was a great shame as in lots of ways it was my dream job; I was actually head hunted for it, and I was so proud.
The Head was incredibly supportive of me, but the SENDCo was my immediate manager, and she didn’t appreciate me being proactive.
It was a case of just get on with it.
All that she seemed interested in was data from me.

And fwiw I’ve never seen anything even verging on ‘bullying’ from Doodledog

I don't think dyslexia will be properly tackled in schools until two things happen. Firstly that all teachers recognise that literacy is no measure of intelligence and secondly that they accept dyslexia as a disability and provide the necessary support at an appropriate level in the form of technology, and accept and provide information in accessible forms such as recordings/videos etc. This doesn't mean the teaching of reading stops, it simply becomes less important and the child's abilities are recognised and developed through appropriate means.
HE providers already recognise the need to do this. I'm waiting for someone to sue a school because they were discriminated against because of their dyslexia. I'd rather things changed without this but I very much fear it is the only way some things will change.

Doodledog

*So, Doddledog, you tell me I should be talking about dyslexia. That's as maybe, but it has nothing to do with what I was saying about dyslexia. My post picked up on your point about the misguided idea that all who lack education certificates are less bright. I thought it important to add to your comment the fact that, in many cases, lack of educational success is due to lack of opportunity and not lack of "brightness". I am concerned about the lack of opportunity, so I wrote about it. Even when I agree with you, you have to be the bully!*
Wow!

If I misunderstood your comment, I apologise, but first someone claims that ed psychs and dyslexia specialists are wrong about dyslexia and it's just that sufferers are unable to read, and then that people without qualifications are ok. Now I'm a bully! And other people are rude?

My point was that it used to be commonplace for people with no knowledge of the subject to sneer that people 'claiming' they or their children were dyslexic were doing so as a cover for lack of achievement, and it appeared that this attitude was coming back.

My daughter is dyslexic (as assessed by the Dyslexia Society, and by the university she attended). When she was young we were told that the LEA didn't recognise dyslexia, so we had an uphill struggle through her schooldays in high performing schools who weren't interested in children whose results were not as good as they could have been. Without going into details of her story (which isn't mine to tell) she has IMO, been let down by the system, so yes - maybe I am a bit sensitive about it. You quoted my point about old-fashioned attitudes in your post, so of course I assumed that your comment was in response to mine. Wouldn't you have done?

What is your definition of a bully?

I said it was an emotive subject, DoodleDog and you have proved it.

I have good reasons for saying what I did. I have worked with 'struggling readers' and researched the history and science of the teaching of reading pretty thoroughly, especially its correlation with the rise of dyslexia. . It's a complex area and I don't, as I said, intend to get into any argument about it.

We seem to have taken a detour from the original postulation a dyslexia debate. If I could bring it back a little, I so agree with FannyCornforth that phonics is an excellent way of teaching reading, but that it's not the only way . For some children, it makes more sense to look at the shape of a word ( so they can visualise the object such as cat or ham ) and then deconstruct the individual phonemes. Unfortunately, government diktats insisted that phonics was the only way - so poor children who didn't understand it the first time around were then subjected to endless revisiting of the same strategy. Hmm - maybe a different approach might be successful??
Along with funding issues, sadly, teachers, parents and students are at the mercy of ministers hobby horses.

Glorianny historically some parents and students have brought claims associated with bullying and dyslexia plus insufficient support for dyslexia as compensation claims. There are a few online.

I don’t think that will bring about a change in policy however.

My point was that it used to be commonplace for people with no knowledge of the subject to sneer that people 'claiming' they or their children were dyslexic were doing so as a cover for lack of achievement, and it appeared that this attitude was coming back.

And I agreed with you and expanded on that theme. So why do you want people to feel unsafe posting by telling them they are not writing about the right thing?

It is interesting to see that the actual level of dyslexia changes little or nothing over the years but that those given the opportunity learn a great number of coping skills. The great thing is, that though it may not always get things right, my software isn't dyslexic

Sorry (again). That was to DoodleDog.

Chocolatelovinggran

We seem to have taken a detour from the original postulation a dyslexia debate. If I could bring it back a little, I so agree with FannyCornforth that phonics is an excellent way of teaching reading, but that it's not the only way . For some children, it makes more sense to look at the shape of a word ( so they can visualise the object such as cat or ham ) and then deconstruct the individual phonemes. Unfortunately, government diktats insisted that phonics was the only way - so poor children who didn't understand it the first time around were then subjected to endless revisiting of the same strategy. Hmm - maybe a different approach might be successful??
Along with funding issues, sadly, teachers, parents and students are at the mercy of ministers hobby horses.

Can you cite the peer reviewed academic research that supports your view on teaching reading?

Because, search as I might, I could never find it.

Up to date primary schools have already had ongoing whole school (including TAs) training for working with dyslexia.
This has proved much more valuable than parents paying a fortune for a piece of paper that says their child is dyslexic because their Velcro -shoed, polo-shirted child can’t tie shoelaces, or ties, or kick a football, (Yes I have been faced with that on more than one occasion) and demanding a coloured overlay for their child. (We already had those and other tools and they do actually benefit some children, but being accused of getting the wrong sort/colour, when it didn’t immediately turn a struggling child into a reader-not helpful)

FannyCornforth

And fwiw I’ve never seen anything even verging on ‘bullying’ from Doodledog

Thank you Fanny. That word gets bandied about a lot on here, and it seems to mean different things to different people. I know I can be forthright, but I would never deliberately bully anyone.

Maizie, you are right that it's an emotive subject, but it's hardly fair to drop in an opinion that you know will cause people to react emotionally and then close down debate by saying that you refuse to discuss it further after you've had your say.

MaizieD

Chocolatelovinggran

We seem to have taken a detour from the original postulation a dyslexia debate. If I could bring it back a little, I so agree with FannyCornforth that phonics is an excellent way of teaching reading, but that it's not the only way . For some children, it makes more sense to look at the shape of a word ( so they can visualise the object such as cat or ham ) and then deconstruct the individual phonemes. Unfortunately, government diktats insisted that phonics was the only way - so poor children who didn't understand it the first time around were then subjected to endless revisiting of the same strategy. Hmm - maybe a different approach might be successful??
Along with funding issues, sadly, teachers, parents and students are at the mercy of ministers hobby horses.

Can you cite the peer reviewed academic research that supports your view on teaching reading?

Because, search as I might, I could never find it.

www.dyslexia.com/research/articles/alternative-brain-pathways/
www.dyslexia-reading-well.com/causes-of-dyslexia.html
Both of these explain why phonetic teaching which relies on left brain development is not always suitable for dyslexics who benefit from teaching that encompasses and develops right brain neural pathways.

Doodledog

FannyCornforth

And fwiw I’ve never seen anything even verging on ‘bullying’ from Doodledog

Thank you Fanny. That word gets bandied about a lot on here, and it seems to mean different things to different people. I know I can be forthright, but I would never deliberately bully anyone.

Maizie, you are right that it's an emotive subject, but it's hardly fair to drop in an opinion that you know will cause people to react emotionally and then close down debate by saying that you refuse to discuss it further after you've had your say.

So who are you suggesting dropped in an opinion that you know will cause people to react emotionally and then close down debate by saying that you refuse to discuss it further after you've had your say. Maizie?

As far as I am aware, it was ronib who first mentioned it. Are you now having a go at how they post? Why can't you just let people be themselves - whether or not they agree with your politics? Making people feel so uncomfortable they consider not posting, as I have done, is bullying. Why are you doing it?

Chocolatelovinggran, I agree there is no ‘only way’ of teaching reading. Pre synthetic phonics, children were faced with ita and Look and Say and sounding out cuh-a-tuh or cuh-ar-tuh neither of which sounds remotely like cat. They used shapes of words, (draw a shape round book, then see how many other words fit that pattern), contextual cues, picture cues and many others dreamt up not just by the government but by teachers.
The one thing all those ways did not have was consistency and continuation between teachers and methods.
Repeating a failed strategy is not helpful, but being faced with a different strategy just as you might be getting to grips with the first one isn’t helpful either.
I’ve used Reading Recovery and Toe by Toe, both of which proved really helpful for children with dyslexia and were enjoyed by the children along with other strategies learnt from the INSET courses.
All children are different. The best action for me is to apply a general strategy that works for most then find something that works for individuals.
Let’s not forget here, the problem of children from non-reader families. Parents who can read, but don’t see it as a valuable activity as well as those for whom reading is a struggle.

So who are you suggesting dropped in an opinion that you know will cause people to react emotionally and then close down debate by saying that you refuse to discuss it further after you've had your say. Maizie?

As far as I am aware, it was ronib who first mentioned it. Are you now having a go at how they post? Why can't you just let people be themselves - whether or not they agree with your politics? Making people feel so uncomfortable they consider not posting, as I have done, is bullying. Why are you doing it?

I'm really not. I am joining in just as you are. You are certainly making me feel uncomfortable, but I assume that is intentional, and that you justify it as you think you have some sort of right to do what you are accusing me of doing? Why are you doing that?

Mollygo one of my children had a visual problem which meant there was an imbalance in the sight of his eyes. This caused difficulties tracking words along a line.
The other child had a hearing impairment which also slowed his reading down. We waited until he was 3 for grommets which I later regretted.