Inclusive Practice - Dyslexia
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this Booklet
This booklet is designed for class teachers and Support for Learning teachers to help them identify pupils with dyslexic difficulties and provide practical strategies for use in the classroom.
WHAT IS DYSLEXIA?
Definition of Dyslexia
Dyslexia can be described as a continuum of difficulties in learning to read, write and/or spell, which does not respond well to conventional teaching techniques. These difficulties often do not reflect an individual’s cognitive ability and are often not typical of performance in other areas.
The impact of dyslexia as a barrier to learning varies in degree according to the learning environment and the demands of the curriculum as there can be associated difficulties such as:
· Auditory and/or visual processing of language-based information
· Phonological awareness
· Oral language skills and reading fluency
· Short-term and working memory
· Sequencing and directionality
· Number skills
· Organisational ability
Motor skills and co-ordination are often affected.
Dyslexia exists in all cultures and across the range of abilities and social-economic backgrounds. It is neurological in origin; a hereditary, life-long condition. Unidentified, dyslexia is likely to result in low self esteem, high stress, atypical behaviour, and low achievement.
The Scottish Government 2009.
WHOLE SCHOOL ISSUES (See also Dyslexia Friendly Schools Audit Tool)
ASSESSMENT
Principles and Aims of Assessment
The purpose of assessment is to provide pupils, teachers and parents with sufficiently dependable information and feedback to inform judgements, choices and decisions about learning, and to inform planning for improvement … No decision about a child’s attainment or future learning should be made or reported on the basis of a single assessment or test score, as it will not, on its own, be sufficiently reliable for that purpose … All assessments and tests used to monitor children’s progress and attainment should be demonstrably fit for their purpose. (Assessment and Reporting: Circular 2, June 2005, SEED)
Assessment in relation to literacy difficulties to establish whether or not dyslexia is evident “will typically involve a combination of formative, observational and standardized assessment. It will consider a child’s progress in a range of skills and any barriers to learning in reading, spelling and written work. A complex profile of the strengths and weaknesses is built up, and factors that may seem to be peripheral to the essential literacy skills are also considered.” (Framework for Inclusion, Assessing Dyslexia Toolkit for Teachers, 2009)
Any assessment proposed should have a clear purpose which will inform the choice of most appropriate method(s) of information gathering.
The Framework for Inclusion, Assessing Dyslexia Toolkit, is an on-line resource launched by the Scottish Government in 2009. It provides advice for teachers (at all levels of experience in identifying dyslexia) in the areas of evidence gathering, record keeping, assessment, reporting and links the information to the different stages of CfE.
http://www.frameworkforinclusion.org/AssessingDyslexia
· Assessment is a dynamic process which takes place over time and forms part of the ongoing cycle of assessment, intervention and evaluation.
· Assessment should take account of the whole child. The involvement of parents and pupil in the process of assessment is therefore crucial.
· The GIRFEC model and the Staged Assessment and Intervention process is used to address concerns around learning and teaching for all pupils
· Pupils may have other difficulties which co-exist with Dyslexia e.g. current or past speech and language or hearing difficulties, Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Dyspraxia (DCD) or current or past speech and language difficulties affecting literacy development. While these guidelines are written with reference to Dyslexia, assessment in practice needs to consider the child as a whole.
· No two pupils with Dyslexia will have the same profile of strengths and needs: each pupil needs to be considered on an individual basis.
Key roles and responsibilities
Class and subject teachers have responsibility for all pupils in their class. Support for learning teachers can offer support through any of the 5 roles of: Co-operative teaching, Consultancy, Staff development and training, Tutoring and teaching, Providing specialist services
INTERVENTION
The following are suggestions which may be implemented as part of whole class practice or for individual pupils. The ideas suggested here are not exhaustive and you may have additional ideas of your own. GLOW and Edubuzz are platforms for teachings to share ideas. Use them to share your ideas and find out from other teachers what they have found useful. Different strategies will be effective in each case and assessment information should help to inform which strategies are most likely to be appropriate. Other teachers involved with a pupil, as well as parents and pupils themselves, are likely to provide valuable contributions in terms of which strategies to select.
Class and Subject Teachers - general advice for teaching and learning
§ Ask Support for Learning staff for advice and strategies that might help individual pupils with dyslexia. Useful information will include strengths, challenges and strategies that help.
§ Class teachers should adapt their teaching to allow dyslexic pupils (and others with learning difficulties) full access to the curriculum.
§ Many of the needs of dyslexic pupils can be met by proven, effective teaching approaches e.g. multi-sensory teaching (hear, see, imagine, speak, feel. trace, write), which can benefit all pupils.
§ Teach answering techniques such as “Do what the question says. It asks for 2 examples so give 2, not 1 or 3.”
§ Use regular encouragement – e.g. Have a go. That is a good piece of work. You have achieved well. What is your best guess?
§ Consider the pupil’s preferred learning style (Visual, auditory or kinaesthetic) – does your teaching style suit?
§ Acknowledge the frustrating and tiring consequences of dyslexia for the pupil(s)
§ Provide opportunities for strengths and talents to be used.
§ Acknowledge the pupil’s level of understanding, which often does not match reading/writing abilities.
§ Encourage pupils to take responsibility for their own learning.
§ Provide the ‘big picture’ for new topics – give an idea of content. A note of the intended learning outcomes for each topic/unit of work supplies a list of areas for reinforcement or revision.
§ Promote thinking skills. Dyslexic pupils often excel in this.
§ Use open-ended questions.
§ Give a plenary after each lesson and particularly at end of each topic to reinforce what should have been learned.
§ Pupils need help to develop automaticity. This comes from repetition or over-learning.
§ Make use of handouts rather than have pupils writing/copying. Dyslexic pupils can take a lot of time and use up considerable energy and concentration in copying and taking notes. This time can be much better used reading through and discussing key points.
§ If overheads are used provide a photocopy for highlighting.
§ If PowerPoint is used, provide a printout for highlighting, or make into cloze giving the required words at the end.
§ Give all the required sentences, but jumble them up for the pupil to sequence and stick.
§ Make up ‘prompt notes’ or ‘think sheets’
§ Make out practice cards to reinforce work, e.g. learning new words, formulae or sequence of events.
§ Make up additional revision materials for supported use at home.
§ In whole class teaching involve the pupils in techniques such as:
- recapping from previous lessons
- story telling
- class discussions
- giving explanations
- drama
§ Instructions:
- keep to a minimum
- give one step at a time
- break down into sections e.g. “turn to page 44, look at exercise 2. [pause] Look at Section A, Question 1”
§ Dyslexic pupils can learn skills by working with other pupils who can provide models e.g. organising tasks, planning time, identifying key information.
§ Make full use of visual images in teaching activities and classroom displays:
- mind maps/spider diagrams
- large labelled diagrams and/or with pictures
- classification
- keyword concept maps
- graphs
- continuum diagrams
- ripple diagrams
- Venn diagrams
- flow charts
- tables
- PowerPoint presentations
- poster of topic words
- slogans
Worksheets
These can be made more dyslexia friendly by using:
- typed rather than hand-written text
- a simple font e.g. Comic Sans, Arial, Century Schoolbook, Garamond
- left justified text
- font size of no less than 11
- shorter words
- short, simple sentences
- short paragraphs
- high frequency words
- active verbs
- small blocks of text rather than large blocks
- colour coding of text
- clearly defined spaces (paragraphs)
- large spaces between different ideas
- boxes to separate ideas or functions e.g. instruction in one, explanation in another
- concrete text rather than abstract
- bold or underlining – but do not overuse as underlined words can run together
- bullet points
- lists
- diagrams
- pictures
- flow charts
- number instructions
§ Place comprehension questions close to the information text rather than at the end. e.g. a paragraph with one or two questions afterwards, followed by another, similarly set out.
§ Provide write-on worksheets instead of having to copy out information or IT supported versions which allow individual adaptations (e.g. text size / colour or voice input)
Avoid:
- condensing or stretching the text
- italics
- bright white paper
- multi-clausal sentences
- use of passive voice contributions
- use of metaphorical language
Spelling
Learning to spell helps learning to read. To be a good speller requires good visual recall, accurate mental imagery, good auditory discrimination and awareness of sound/symbol correspondence. These skills should be taught as an integral part of every lesson – in all subjects.
Suggested Approaches:
- provide a list of key words with their meanings to pupils for each topic/unit of work as this will help with spellings and allow pupils to consolidate ideas at another time
- display key words on the classroom wall – helps discreetly
- teach the reason why words are spelt a particular way
- teach spelling rules – these help to jog memory
- teach understanding of short/long vowels (this is important)
- teach understanding of the part that syllables (this is important)
- clap the rhythm when teaching the spelling of new words
- use look – cover – write – check
- use cued spelling
- teach the use of mnemonics to help with spelling or phrases
- make up an individual subject dictionary/word list with all key words for each topic contained
- provide self-help spelling aids such as ACE Spelling dictionary and electronic aids
Do not over-correct spelling errors. Rather, pick on a few important words which are wrongly spelled.
Writing
§ Structure written work by using:
- sentence starters
- a brief outline of required paragraph content
- use of who/which, what, why, how, when, what happened
- organisational frames (for note taking, planning, sorting and arranging)
- writing frames – suggested paragraph openings, sentence stems (We know ... because ...),
- scaffolding (thumbnail sketches of areas to include in work)
§ For grammar, make out rule cards to use/keep in jotter.
§ When pupils are asked to write, reduce the quantity expected by teaching how to use mind maps/spider diagrams.
Reading
To develop reading skills:
- teach scanning and skimming of text to be read
- teach when to read in detail (for comprehension exercises), when to skim (for a general overview) and when to scan
- read the text out to the class so that the work is familiar and memory strategies can be used
- use pictures with text where possible – helps with memory
- teach use of clues from pictures, diagrams, graphics, captions, headlines and subheadings
§ When using text books, direct to the place by:
- holding up the book and showing the area to be read
- pointing at the text
- giving paragraph number
- cueing in e.g. above the picture, on the right-hand page, half-way down, just after the questions, the blue text
§ Discuss the topic with the whole class before individual work begins.
§ Ask pupils to predict what will happen next.
§ Use coloured pens on a whiteboard/chalk on a blackboard as this can help with scanning and relocating. (Beware of dyslexic pupils who have Scotopic Sensitivity and areas of light contrast within the classroom).
§ Ask pupils to summarise what was taught at the end of each lesson.
ICT Support
ICT can motivate learners with specific difficulties more than most. IT can help them to acquire specific skills for reading, spelling, writing and maths, as well as give more general support across the curriculum. ICT offers a whole toolkit of strategies from simple word processors to speech recognition, software and the Internet.
Strategies and types of ICT
Access to print
Black print on white paper is difficult to focus on for long periods and some learners report that the words ‘dance’ on the page. Microsoft Word allows users to experiment with the background and text colours, and alter the font and character size to suit their preferences. In Word 2010 on the Home tab, go to Font, click on down arrow in bottom right hand corner, choose the Font then click on Set as Default tab. Comic Sans, Sassoon and Arial are clear fonts which make reading from the screen easier. Double spacing can also make text clearer – to do this it is helpful to customise Tools and put the icon on the toolbar. There are many shortcuts to using Word which enable the slow writer to produce more text with less strain on the memory.
Touch-typing
While it is not essential to touch-type to use a computer, increased speed and fluency can be very motivating and make composing a less arduous task. Reasonable typists can look and choose, building up letter strings and words instead of worrying about the orientation of individual letters. In this way they are developing and practising skills whilst composing. There is considerable evidence that the finger patterns children learn through typing reinforce correct spellings. Popular touch typing programmes are BBC Dancemat Typing and Doorway Text Type