Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

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Pippa255
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri May 04, 2012 1:37 pm

Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by Pippa255 »

My 7 year old has had a diagnoses of dyslexia. His school were keen for us to get a diagnoses but now dyslexia has been confirmed they appear to have very little specialist support to offer, in fact he is put with children with behavioural problems for writing support which is knocking his self esteem and not really helping his writing, he is in tears a lot and becoming very despondent. He's due to move up to year 3 in September.

Does anyone know of a school that has proper provisions and a good record of helping dyslexic children. We live near Uxbridge Middx but we're more than willing to travel or even move!

Many thanks
yummycool
Posts: 148
Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:55 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by yummycool »

Hi - have you considered going onto the PATOSS website / and or Dyslexia Action - they are usually very good at giving advice. They might put you in touch with local groups and from there speak to others in the same situation as yourself. This way you can make and informed decision and see what your best options are.
Pippa255
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri May 04, 2012 1:37 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by Pippa255 »

Hi, many thanks for your advice. I contacted Dyslexia Action re a tutor but I haven't asked them about schools, I'll definitely contact them and PATOSS next week. Thanks again.
CReSTeD_Admin
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat May 05, 2012 9:41 am

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by CReSTeD_Admin »

My user name gives away my bias but CReSTeD - Council for the Registration of Schools Teaching Dyslexic Pupils - can help you out. We register schools on the basis of their (SpLD) Dyslexia provision, it's the reason we exist. Please check out our website for details. CReSTeD are completely independent, our board has representatives from the BDA, Dyslexia Action and the Helen Arkell Centre as well as Head Teachers and Ed Psych's. A school doesn't get on the Register unless it's provision for dyslexia is very good - if not better.

Our information is supplied completely free of charge to parents.

I hope I am allowed to post links: http://www.crested.org.uk

Good luck with your search?
Pippa255
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri May 04, 2012 1:37 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by Pippa255 »

Thank you so much for your advice. I have looked at your site and found it very useful, unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a state school anywhere near us and the private schools are so expensive, double the price of an independent. I will look again though as moving house looks like something we will have to seriously consider. Thanks again.
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by mystery »

Sorry to hear about the school troubles. Maybe you just need a "better" school rather than one with a particularly good way with "dyslexia".

What are the literacy difficulties your child is experiencing, and to what degree? Are you both working full-time, or do you have some time to do some appropriate tuition at home yourselves?

It's generally (but not always) the case that children in the early stages of learning to read, write and spell will make significant improvement with a systematic phonics programme that teaches reading, writing and spelling. Also a focus on handwriting is quite often needed.

To what extent can your son read and write, and what method(s) has he been taught by so far?

What did the Educational Psychologist suggest was necessary to produce good gains in his literacy learning? Some are good at this, others really just focus on the "diagnosis" (a controversial one it would seem). Can you do any of it at home?

Have you read the recent threads on this section about Toe by Toe etc?

There are also quite a few ipad apps these days that help a child learn to read by phonics. You will find a whole thread devoted to it on the rrf website. Also try the website mentioned in another thread on here ........ I think it was http://www.dyslexics.org.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There is no particular evidence that there is a subset of children with "reading difficulties" who have "dyslexia", and the effective methods for improving reading, spelling etc etc work just as well on children with "dyslexia" as on the rest of the population of children with "reading difficulties" or "literacy difficulties".

So if you do look for a different state primary school you might prefer not to focus on "dyslexia" as such but how they would do a systematic, and strongly phonics based "catch-up" with your son. Another route in to choosing a new school, if you really need to, might be to find out about some programmes that get good results (e.g. Sounds-Write, Read Write Inc) etc etc and then see if you can contact the programme authors to find out schools in the area(s) you are interested in who currently get good results with those prgorammes. You would then still need to see if that school suited your son in other ways, and how they would deal with a "catch-up" situation.

Even if you have a school that is really experienced in this or a private tutor worth their salt, it's going to take some well-focused daily work at home to effect a catch-up. Even with the right support, it takes a while to get improvement. With at least 30 mins a day of effective one to one or small group work, either at school or at home, you should start to have noticeable improvement and a gain in self-esteem quite early on.
Pippa255
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri May 04, 2012 1:37 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by Pippa255 »

Thank you so much for such a comprehensive reply. Thankfully I work from home so I'm able to spend time on his reading etc everyday. He has a private tutor twice a week and he's able to go to gymnastics and have some nice hobbies which he enjoys so its not all work and no play. I heard that touch typing is a good thing to learn so he has a programme which is helping him in that area.

I have to admit that I find it very hard to help him anymore than I do as he's very stubborn and gets very frustrated with himself very quickly which ends up with him in tears. I try reward systems which have helped his reading but the writing is very weak although starting to happen.

We have just bought an ipad so I'll look at the apps and I will go through your posting in more detail a bit later as we're on our way out in a sec.

I only joined this sight on Friday so I haven't been through the toe by toe threads, I will definitely do that too. I hope you don't mind if I come back to you when I've had a chance to digest and look into what you've said? Thank you
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by mystery »

Hi, yes it would be great to hear your thoughts again soon. He is still very young, so with the right instruction there is time for him to make massive gains really quite quickly. Thing is not to waste time on approaches that don't work. There are some weird ideas out there.
999 mum
Posts: 422
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 12:02 am

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by 999 mum »

have a look here

http://www.barringtonstoke.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The books are for reluctant readers, my DSs both enjoyed several of their books.
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by mystery »

Yes they are lovely books with high interest material and a modest reading age. With some children that will be sufficient to get things going, particularly if the reason is no reading because of lack of interest. However, they do need a minimum reading age of 8 it would appear. To get to that point, there are a lot of children (and it's nothing to do with general IQ) who need to learn to read systematically using phonics - and for these children nothing can beat a good synthetic phonics programme; hopefully it will include some high interest reading material which as well as being enjoyable, gives them practice reading material which uses the phonic "code" they have learned so far.

Although "synthetic phonics" is the in- thing at the moment, individual schools teach it to a greater or lesser degree, and even in schools that do teach it thoroughly there are some children who don't keep up for lots of different reasons.
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