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

The main problem I see with supporting children with dyslexia is that it is boring.

What should we do? Stay on the same sheet of words because the child is not learning to recognise enough of them and can't process enough to bring all their phonics sounds with them even have they managed to learn them?

Rotate a few sheets of words? Just add a few more sheets to add some variation and compound the problem that already exists?

Plough on through the sheets week by week with a pat on the back for wasting time?

Watch their eyes glaze over during imput because they know they won't remember all the instructions and won't be able to hand in a piece of written work that in any way reflects all the interesting things in their heads?

Why are we boring the interest and effort out of dyslexic children?

Talk to type exists. Reading programmes exist. There are entire libraries of books online. There are programmes that can highlight important passages. There are reading pens.

Given that pretty much every child has a device in their hands by age 11, why do we care if someone can spell dyslexia if they can explain to you what it is?

Why do we expect a percentage of children to attain targets and allow an amount who can fail rather than having different avenues to the same target?

Doodledog

*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?

It was to Maizie, Doodledog. I'm sure you are aware that was her post I quoted, not yours. I was happy to accept what you said earlier. I'm sure if we could see one another these things wouldn't happen.

Why would I want to make you feel uncomfortable? We now seem to be going backwards.

This is an off piste remark but has anyone see Play 1981 by Samuel Beckett? It’s three talking heads in huge flowerpots? There’s something about posting on Gransnet that conjures up this experience.Cacophony of voices ..,. If you see what I mean? But then I like Samuel Beckett…..

It was to Maizie, Doodledog. I'm sure you are aware that was her post I quoted, not yours. I was happy to accept what you said earlier. I'm sure if we could see one another these things wouldn't happen.

Why would I want to make you feel uncomfortable? We now seem to be going backwards.

Oh. I'm sorry. I did think you were quoting me. Twice, possibly . Apologies.

VioletSky

The main problem I see with supporting children with dyslexia is that it is boring.

What should we do? Stay on the same sheet of words because the child is not learning to recognise enough of them and can't process enough to bring all their phonics sounds with them even have they managed to learn them?

Rotate a few sheets of words? Just add a few more sheets to add some variation and compound the problem that already exists?

Plough on through the sheets week by week with a pat on the back for wasting time?

Watch their eyes glaze over during imput because they know they won't remember all the instructions and won't be able to hand in a piece of written work that in any way reflects all the interesting things in their heads?

Why are we boring the interest and effort out of dyslexic children?

Talk to type exists. Reading programmes exist. There are entire libraries of books online. There are programmes that can highlight important passages. There are reading pens.

Given that pretty much every child has a device in their hands by age 11, why do we care if someone can spell dyslexia if they can explain to you what it is?

Why do we expect a percentage of children to attain targets and allow an amount who can fail rather than having different avenues to the same target?

Hurray!! If only this was policy in schools. Thanks VioletSky for restoring my faith and showing me some people understand.

My daughter uses the dictation facility in Word, but often with hilarious effect, particularly if she is tired, as she can't see the bloopers when she reads it back.

That didn't exist when she was at school (that is, I think there were assistive technologies but they were very specialist and not a feature of mainstream software). School work wasn't done on computers then, either. It is easier now for students with dyslexia as everyone uses technology in everything they do. The basics of reading large amounts of text make things difficult though, particularly when it comes to things like literature, which has either to be read with a robot voice or have the narrator's interpretation in the reading.

She does listen to audiobooks, but is very aware that it is a different experience from reading them herself.

VS I’m horrified to think that children in your care suffer the way you describe;
What should we do? Stay on the same sheet of words because the child is not learning to recognise enough of them and can't process enough to bring all their phonics sounds with them even have they managed to learn them?

Rotate a few sheets of words? Just add a few more sheets to add some variation and compound the problem that already exists?

Plough on through the sheets week by week with a pat on the back for wasting time?

Watch their eyes glaze over during imput because they know they won't remember all the instructions and won't be able to hand in a piece of written work that in any way reflects all the interesting things in their heads?
Do none of the teachers where you work have ways to inspire and support children with dyslexia?

Mollygo

VS I’m horrified to think that children in your care suffer the way you describe;
What should we do? Stay on the same sheet of words because the child is not learning to recognise enough of them and can't process enough to bring all their phonics sounds with them even have they managed to learn them?

Rotate a few sheets of words? Just add a few more sheets to add some variation and compound the problem that already exists?

Plough on through the sheets week by week with a pat on the back for wasting time?

Watch their eyes glaze over during imput because they know they won't remember all the instructions and won't be able to hand in a piece of written work that in any way reflects all the interesting things in their heads?
Do none of the teachers where you work have ways to inspire and support children with dyslexia?

In my care?

Are there any depths you won't stoop too to get at me?

Also it's entirely dishonest to only quote part of a post in order to deliberately take it out of context and be insulting

Just pointing that out

glorriany

This sort of thing has to be challenged and changed

The children I work with are too young for any kind of diagnosis and my adapted learning sessions are focused primarily on fine and gross motor skills and finding fun ways to help children bring sounds with them but I see the start of the issues and I'm a bit opinionated about it lol

Mollygo 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
Reading Recovery is a course designated for first year children in the USA and its use in children with dyslexia hs been widely criticised.
Toe by Toe relies on daily repetition of the same sounds etc. I can find no research that shows it is effective in dyslexic children.
How either of those systems inspires a child who is dyslexic I don't know.

The simple fact is that the child's ability to read and write without the assistance of technology will always be behind the child's real ability. In order to demonstrate their real abilities children need people who understand this and who accept that using and understanding language is not dependent on literacy. Not providing them with the equipment and the resources they need is equivalent to depriving a child with visual impairment of the resources they need .

Sounds like Mollygo would have followed the same systems I see so not sure why I was told off lol

I take your point Mollygo. Maizie I found ( 40 years early years teacher) the years of Literacy Strategy , Additional Literacy Strategy, Extra Literacy Strategy and Further Literacy Strategy unsuccessful with some children. It was the educational version of the " mixture as before" medical technique.

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.

Unfortunately the first paper is a study of adults who were already reading. As the neural pathways created by phonics instruction are different from those created by whole word, look & say instruction, and the research subjects were US adults who were more likely to have received that instruction (because 'phonics' is still in minority use in the US, the research paper tells us nothing useful about phonics instruction. A long term RCT on children being taught by different methods would have been more helpful.

The second website seems to rely heavily on this 'research'.

The thing I find most ironic is that Dr Orton, working on dyslexia in the 1920 (when whole word was the predominant instructional method) concluded that the best way to help dyslexics was a solid grounding in phonics instruction. The Orton Gillingham programme from the 1930s was the gold standard remedial programme in the English speaking world for decades.

Reading Recovery is a course designated for first year children in the USA.
No
Your version might be. The one we use was from New Zealand. It was highly successful with the children she worked with and we continued it after she left.
If the activity you refer to didn’t work-I hope you didn’t continue with it.

VioletSky

Sounds like Mollygo would have followed the same systems I see so not sure why I was told off lol

VS I’m sorry if your description of the children was inaccurate. I based my comment on that. Your excuse for your accusation is based on the same passage.

Chocolatelovinggran

I take your point Mollygo. Maizie I found ( 40 years early years teacher) the years of Literacy Strategy , Additional Literacy Strategy, Extra Literacy Strategy and Further Literacy Strategy unsuccessful with some children. It was the educational version of the " mixture as before" medical technique.

None of those incorporated any systematic phonics instruction and they promoted the 'three cueing' strategy, plus a nod to letter sound correspondence, in the 'Searchlights'. It's not in the least bit surprising that they didn't do much good.

Mollygo

I have no idea what you mean

But you know absolutely nothing about how I do my job so your opinion is invalid

VioletSky

Mollygo

I have no idea what you mean

But you know absolutely nothing about how I do my job so your opinion is invalid

🥱

Mollygo

Reading Recovery is a course designated for first year children in the USA.
No
Your version might be. The one we use was from New Zealand. It was highly successful with the children she worked with and we continued it after she left.
If the activity you refer to didn’t work-I hope you didn’t continue with it.

Reading Recovery originated in New Zealand but was extensively used in the US and part of a nationwide program which research showed was not an efficient method for teaching dyslexics.
www.ldonline.org/ld-topics/reading-dyslexia/researchers-urge-officials-reject-reading-recovery

VioletSky why was the term ‘children in your care’ offensive?
I don’t understand.

As an aside, I found Precision Teaching for reading a very good tool.
It’s quick, effective and free!
An Ed psych taught me how to do it when I was a Y2 TA about 15 years ago.
I told my secondary school team about it, and they adapted it for various different things.

Are you in Y1 or EYFS?

MaizieD

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.

Unfortunately the first paper is a study of adults who were already reading. As the neural pathways created by phonics instruction are different from those created by whole word, look & say instruction, and the research subjects were US adults who were more likely to have received that instruction (because 'phonics' is still in minority use in the US, the research paper tells us nothing useful about phonics instruction. A long term RCT on children being taught by different methods would have been more helpful.

The second website seems to rely heavily on this 'research'.

The thing I find most ironic is that Dr Orton, working on dyslexia in the 1920 (when whole word was the predominant instructional method) concluded that the best way to help dyslexics was a solid grounding in phonics instruction. The Orton Gillingham programme from the 1930s was the gold standard remedial programme in the English speaking world for decades.

What it tells us about phonics instruction (which I note some people in education are still reluctant to listen to) is that although phonics education and training may be an integral part of the basic skills for most children, for dyslexics more progress is made when other methods are used, and that brain imaging gives us real evidence of that.
Which would make most people at least question the validity of continuing to apply phonics. But proves once again that there are still people in education who fail to look at anything which questions their preconceptions.

Mollygo

Reading Recovery is a course designated for first year children in the USA.
No
Your version might be. The one we use was from New Zealand. It was highly successful with the children she worked with and we continued it after she left.
If the activity you refer to didn’t work-I hope you didn’t continue with it.

Reading Recovery is exactly the same the world over. It is very tightly controlled and has an intensive indoctrination programme for its certified teachers.

And, despite its claim to be able to successfully teach the 'hardest to teach' students it actually has a failure rate of about 20% of pupils 'disapplied' from the programme. This from looking at their 'research'...

Glorianny that’s exactly what I was up against as a Reading Teacher.
I was expected to deliver the Read Write Inc scheme to Y7 and 8 children who had been taught phonics since they were 4.
It drove me potty.
I pretty much refused to do it

Glorianny

MaizieD

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.

Unfortunately the first paper is a study of adults who were already reading. As the neural pathways created by phonics instruction are different from those created by whole word, look & say instruction, and the research subjects were US adults who were more likely to have received that instruction (because 'phonics' is still in minority use in the US, the research paper tells us nothing useful about phonics instruction. A long term RCT on children being taught by different methods would have been more helpful.

The second website seems to rely heavily on this 'research'.

The thing I find most ironic is that Dr Orton, working on dyslexia in the 1920 (when whole word was the predominant instructional method) concluded that the best way to help dyslexics was a solid grounding in phonics instruction. The Orton Gillingham programme from the 1930s was the gold standard remedial programme in the English speaking world for decades.

What it tells us about phonics instruction (which I note some people in education are still reluctant to listen to) is that although phonics education and training may be an integral part of the basic skills for most children, for dyslexics more progress is made when other methods are used, and that brain imaging gives us real evidence of that.
Which would make most people at least question the validity of continuing to apply phonics. But proves once again that there are still people in education who fail to look at anything which questions their preconceptions.

It's entirely spurious research, Glorianny. There's no 'gene' for reading, reading is not a 'natural' process, there are no neural networks established before learning to read, it is the act of learning and practising which establishes the networks. If you are teaching the wrong technique the brain will use the area which seems most suitable for processing that technique. Teach words as wholes and the brain will use a picture processing area, teach phonics and the brain will use a sequential processing area.

The brain imaging research was done on adults who had been taught by whole word methods. Of course their brains responded that way.

It tells us nothing at all about phonics instruction. Twenty years ago the Orton Gillingham phonics programme was the absolute gold standard for remediation of dyslexia. Phonics was absolutely Key. (albeit OG was a tortuous and long winded programme that put massive loads on memory).

Now show me a peer reviewed RCT that proves that phonics taught children develop dyslexia.