What am I doing here?
Hello and welcome to my site and blog! I am going to try and explain why I decided to start up this page and what my blog is all about. So here goes……
I worked in primary education for around 18 years and studied dyslexia in depth, investigating why many children I work with have difficulties in reading, writing and spelling. By researching how the brain works to develop the skills for reading and spelling, I have discovered many new strategies to support learners to strengthen these skills. I have been trained by the British Dyslexia Society, taught how to teach a structured dyslexic programme and I have researched many different theories and teaching styles. I am qualified as a Specialist in Dyslexia for literacy support and intervention for teaching children with dyslexia, gaining a Level 5 certficate from the British Dyslexia Association and now work as a self employed online Specialist Dyslexia Tutor. I have been awarded a teaching practice certificate from PATOSS (the Professional Association of Teachers of Students with Specific Learning Difficulties). Therefore, PATOSS officially advise that ‘it is recognised that I am a current specialist teacher with relevant practical experience, committed to maintaining best practice and ongoing development of my professional teaching skills’. I am definitely committed in trying my best to help learners reach their full potential! However, the research never ends and there are always new strategies to discover. There is never enough time in the day to read through all the information that is available, but I will try and see what I can find and then share the highlights with you all on here.
It is thought that at least 10% of the population are dyslexic, but there are probably a lot more than that who are unidentified, so that would be at least 3 children in a class of 30 and their difficulties can range from mild to severe. As dyslexia affects so many people and their families, I feel it is so important for everyone to have an understanding of the difficulties a dyslexic individual may face and how they can be supported.
I now want to share what I have learned (and what I continue to learn) with parents and educators to help children develop the necessary skills to help them with their reading and spelling. I am using these strategies and explanations to support children I work with on a daily basis and I am seeing positive results, so I hope this information will also be beneficial to you. Just be mindful, that this blog contains my personal views, ideas and understanding and as each child learns differently, teaching should be adapted to the needs of the individual child.
I still actively explore new strategies to help the children learn, as each child is unique. Therefore each time I learn something new, I thought I would share it with you, so together we can try out new strategies to find out what will help the children we work with reach their full potential. Also, if I find any information, webinars etc that look as if they would be helpful, I will post the links on here.
Individuals with dyslexia may need a personalised, specialist programme to make good progress, which I am fully qualified to deliver and is best delivered on a 1:1 basis. However, by making some small adjustments to general phonics teaching, more children, including those who are dyslexic are able to understand the concepts of learning to read and write. WHAT WORKS FOR THE DYSLEXIC CHILD CAN HELP ALL CHILDREN TO SUCCEED IN THEIR LEARNING. I do want to emphasise how important phonological awareness skills are when learning to read and write. It is often at this early stage the dyslexic child starts to find difficulties and unless they are shown how to strengthen and build on these skills, they may continue to have severe difficulties.
Finally, this blog will also be my own record to remind me of new information I discover and evaluate its effectiveness – so if nobody else decides to read this, it has still been useful to me! 🙂
Thanks for reading this.
Have a good day,! Best wishes from PJ 🙂
You are braver than you believe,
Stronger than you seem,
Smarter than you think
And loved more than you know.
Help your child learn to read, write and spell 