Study skills for students with SpLD.

Discussion and advice on GCSEs

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KB
Posts: 3030
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:28 pm

Re: Study skills for students with SpLD.

Post by KB »

Special consideration in exams-
All sorts of things are allowed so its worth asking.
In hindsight we should have pushed more for being able to take the exams in a different room as it was very disruptive when others were finishing and leaving thus negating much of the value from extra time.
One of my DCs was at a very helpful Uni who provided a suite of rooms for those who needed their own space to sit the exams.

I'd be a little bit careful about over use of ear defenders except when necessary for studying. Rather than becoming over reliant on them it might be better to practice shutting out the background noise. Obviously not while under pressure of exam revision.
Tinkers
Posts: 7240
Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 2:05 pm
Location: Reading

Re: Study skills for students with SpLD.

Post by Tinkers »

It would be worth asking the exams officer at school if she can wear them. I’m not sure why it would be an issue though, apart from making sure she hears time announcements but ear plugs don’t drown out noise completely. Might be worth asking before mocks so they can be tried then to see if there’s any issues before the real thing.

Listening whilst taking notes, even just one or two word memory prompts, will make a big difference I’d think, at least it does for me. It helps me focus on the listening, even if I never actually look at the notes. Other people often wide eyed at look at my notes, and wonder how on Earth they make sense. The thing is they don’t really need to. The act of writing that one or two word note means I remember what was said and can expand on it. It’s all about finding a way to get stuff out of the short term memory and into the long term one. In fact dyslexia is all about finding the right coping strategy. For the most part your DD is going to have to do this for herself, maybe with help from someone who ‘gets it’ too. You are unlikely to be the right person, I’m afraid. You can be as understanding as possible, but you won’t understand quite how her brain is functioning.

Maths is an easy one. As you say it’s just practice. My best and favourite subject. No essays and not too much reading.

Writing technical reports is easier than writing for humanities subjects. I don’t write three words when one will do and I don’t write long ones when short ones will do. In my line of work this is a Good Thing.

If you want a taste of what reading with dyslexia is like have a look at this.
http://geon.github.io/programming/2016/03/03/dsxyliea" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Mine isn’t quite like this and usually isn’t this bad. For me similar shaped letters change shape (so o,e and c for instance) and can be font dependent. I do have letters moving in words but it’s usually adjacent letters swapping places. (So salt and slat I’d misread some of the time). I hate trying to read textspeak or stuff all in upper case.
Moon unit
Posts: 654
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 9:14 am

Re: Study skills for students with SpLD.

Post by Moon unit »

My DS did GCSEs this summer.
The music composition was without a doubt the worst part for him of the whole of his GCSEs.
As your dd is diploma level she should score very highly on the performance parts. My advice would be to just get the composition to a reasonable standard and not spend hours tweaking it.
Whole evenings are easily lost this way.
Whether you have a learning problem or not every child has to try different revision methods and see what works.
Different subjects will often need different approaches.
My DS started all his revision with PPQs and that worked really well.
No time rewriting notes.
The only subject he reported a question coming up he had not seen before was Geography and even that was two halves of previous questions put together.
He revised hard from end of Fed half term onwards.
When there were whole days at home he set himself up to mimic a school day which worked well.
I’d caution against getting overly involved.
We made a point of not talking about exams unless my DS initiated the conversation.
With 7 8 and 9s at this stage your DD is building on a solid foundation so she must already be using some strategies successfully.
Well done to her to have got herself to those levels despite her learning issues.
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