How to Support Dyslexic Learners at Home
One of the anomalies of school life is that week after week children are send home spellings to learn but very rarely are we ever taught how to learn spellings. Some children learn spellings without even thinking, they just pick up spellings from what they read or copy from a book. Otherwise we adopt the…
Supporting Working Memory Difficulties
Working memory difficulties are probably one of the most overlooked aspects of many learning difficulties, including dyslexia. It is one of the “hidden difficulties” which many students experience, it makes classroom life exhausting. It is the reason very often children miss instructions, forget previous learning and struggle with multi-step tasks. Overcoming working memory difficulties can…
How to Create a Dyslexia friendly Classroom
1. Set realistic, achievable targets for each lesson The academic content does not need be ‘dumbed down’ but the expectation in terms of writing and volume of work needs to thought about carefully. There is nothing wrong with having high expectations, but remember that dyslexic children are often working twice as hard to process instructions…
ADHD Explained
When ADHD is mentioned many us of immediately think of a hyperactive boy who is out of control. We also question whether it is just caused bad parenting and a lack of boundaries. We wonder if the child is simply being naughty or lazy. But ADHD is far more than this narrow view and there…
Visual Perceptual Difficulties
Visual perception is the term used to describe the way in which the brain processes visual information. There can be differences in the way that visual information is perceived, processed, organised and understood. This is different from the idea of 20/20 vision and being long sighted or short sighted. We assume that when we show…
First Steps after Dyslexia Diagnosis
Whether you wait for a formal diagnosis or you know from your own observations that your child meets the criteria for dyslexia, realising that you child is dyslexic can be difficult to come to terms with. You may have suspected it for some time but hoped that things would improve in time or you…
The Early Signs of Dyslexia and Early Intervention
The signs of dyslexia show up very early, long before a child starts school, we may choose to ignore them because we hope they will go away…. Or we may be worried that there is nothing we can do at this early stage… Or we may think that if we acknowledge a difficulty it will…
Early Indicators of Dyslexia
Years of experience have taught me that the signs of dyslexia show up very early – we may ignore them and hope the difficulties are just ‘immaturity’. But 9 times out 10 the child who was struggling early on in their school life, goes on to be diagnosed with dyslexia later in Primary school or…
Helen Trethewey's Twice Exceptional Learners 