Teaching Revolution Promises Solution to Dyslexia

A £3m programme to help dyslexic children who are struggling to read and write will be announced by the Government today.

Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Schools, will promise new financial support for pilot projects aimed at finding out which approaches are most successful so that they can be implemented more widely.

Ten local authority areas will participate in a scheme costing £1m a year for three years. Half of the pupils will receive one-to-one reading recovery support and half one-to-one tuition from specialist dyslexia teachers if they do not make progress during recovery support. The children's responses will be monitored and if they do well, the succesful approaches will be gradually extended nationwide.

The Government will also provide The British Dyslexia Association with extra funding of £150,000 over two years to develop its telephone helpline and £250,000 over three years to Dyslexia Action so it can run one-to-one tuition pilots in 10 more schools............

A ground-breaking project which has had extraordinary success in helping hundreds of dyslexic children and others struggling to read and write at primary school is poised for a major expansion across Britain.

Springboard for Children, an education charity which now has the enthusiastic backing of the British Dyslexia Association, has achieved a 90 per cent success rate in returning children with severe literacy problems to mainstream classrooms. The revolutionary scheme is being used in a dozen schools in Manchester and London, and the plan is now to set the scheme up in 10 other inner-city areas – bringing a lifeline to around 10,000 children suffering from dyslexia and other difficulties with reading and writing.

Experts say there would be no shortage of volunteers for the programme, with estimates putting the number of dyslexic pupils in state schools at more than 300,000. In addition, national curriculum tests for 11-year-olds show around 120,000 youngsters a year leave primary school failing to reach the required standard in English. A recent survey by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) showed the majority of teachers (77 per cent) believe they are not well enough trained to teach dyslexic pupils.

The secret of the scheme's success is getting immediate help to youngsters once a reading problem is identified in their first term in primary school. Pupils helped by the unit are normally selected by their schools by the end of their first term.

is a registered charity which provides literacy support to disadvantaged children in inner-city primary schools. We work in partnership with primary schools and specialise in giving the gift of reading and writing to children who find learning difficult for many reasons.

We are committed to working with all children who need literacy support, whatever their background, race or creed.

We seek to raise the expectations of the children we teach, and to strengthen their hope. We are passionate in our determination to give them the skills and aspirations that will enable them to escape from the frustrations of being unable to read and write.

A team of specialist teachers and trained volunteers offers one-to-one literacy teaching, to help children realise their full potential.

Dyslexia is thought to be neurological in origin although there is also growing evidence of a genetic link. Tens of thousands of parents have only realised that their child may suffer from the condition when he or she falls behind in school. The Springboard project, which has also transformed the reading and writing skills of non-dyslexic children suffering severe literacy problems, relies on intense one-on-one tuition for up to two years, during which a host of innovative techniques are employed to improve the child's skills.

Volunteers are recruited to read and work with the children. Springboard also uses a mixture of games and quizzes as well as reading to children to encourage a love of learning among the pupils it helps.

In one session, children take part in a card game – matching up the names of animals and objects on a dozen cards with those on a tray. If they get them all right, the tray flips over to form a perfect pattern.

It works because pupils like eight-year-old Rachel Lomas, who has dyslexia, finally get a sense of joy from reading if they succeed in making the pattern after years of frustration and anguish in the classroom, experiencing at last a sense of progress.

The most startling success has been achieved in Oliver Goldsmith primary school in Peckham, south London – which serves one of the most deprived inner city areas in the country – and was once on the "hit list" of failing schools compiled by Ofsted, the education watchdog.

The scheme was launched by a local resident, Jane Hastings, who had become concerned about literacy problems in the area and volunteered to teach at the school. The school's pupils come mainly from a tough council estate nearby.

The school, which has 530 pupils, was in "special measures" – the phrase used to describe those that have failed their inspection, but has now been taken off the list. In their latest report on Oliver Goldsmith, inspectors concluded: "The school has improved considerably since the last inspection."

One of the reasons for the success story has been the setting up of the Springboard unit in the school – which now provides a guaranteed 70 hours of one-to-one reading a year for 75 pupils singled out by the school as being in need of special help.

Inspectors said of the unit: "Pupils respond well to the support given by the Springboard charity which provides help in English and enjoy working in classes and individually."

Mark Parsons, the school's headteacher, said: "It has made a significant contribution to enabling us to improve educational standards and come off special measures." Volunteers on the project now receive extensive training and it is assisted by the British Dyslexia Association.

iansyst, an organisation offering independent expert advice on the best technology available to help dyslexic people has developed tips to help teachers and parents identify a child with the condition.

Sharon Goldie, educational consultant with iansyst has advice on how to spot the warning signs and how to offer the right classroom support.

Teachers and parents should consider if dyslexia is a factor when a child's written work is a real disappointment.

"Often children with dyslexia talk very well about a subject but the ideas and vocabulary do not translate to their written work," she explained.

"Is the child's work untidy and badly presented with lots of crossing outs, badly formed letters or upper case letters in the middle of words? Many children with dyslexia lack the fine motor skills needed for neat legible writing.

"Some children have little sense of the length of a word or how to segment it.

"They omit vowels, reverse letters or confuse letters such as b and d."

She explained that this can also extend to pronunciation.

Other warning signs include if a child is hesitant when answering questions or reading.

"The child may have a processing difficulty where the brain takes longer to sift information," she said.

"Children with dyslexia have problems with the memory shelf and may find it very hard to recall a sequence of instructions in the right order."

She says it is important to create the right atmosphere so that pupils feel secure and know they can make mistakes.

She continued: "Keep instructions and explanations short and repeat as often as necessary and remember that a child may have a limited working memory."

For more information log onto www.iansyst.co.uk