Is Your Classroom Dyslexia-Friendly?

  It’s widely accepted that about 10% of the population is dyslexic (with about 4% significantly so), so dyslexic learners will make up part of your classes in your schools/settings.  How confident are you that you are meeting their needs?

If a parent asks you what you are doing to make your classroom dyslexia-friendly, would you be comfortable giving an answer?

It’s easy to feel nervous around the term dyslexia – it’s a broad term that can be hard to pin down or define precisely.   Teachers may assume that a dyslexic learner will need specialist equipment such as coloured overlays or specific dyslexia programmes.

The good news is that many of the inclusive strategies that you use routinely in your day-to day practice will be dyslexia-friendly and reminding yourself of what you are already doing can be a helpful exercise – make visible what may have become invisible to you.

Here’s are 10 Dyslexia-Friendly strategies that you will almost certainly already be using every day:

  1. Think about purposeful seating – can the pupils see you/the board clearly?
  2. Think about grouping/setting – is the pupil able to work at their cognitive level with others who will stimulate and provide good role models?
  3. Give instructions in small chunks – break tasks down and give one step at a time – provide written reminds and repeat when requested
  4. Present information in a range of ways to ensure that learners can access through a range of learning channels – use visuals wherever possible
  5. Allow plenty of thinking time – Talk Partners is a good way of giving time to think and rehearse information
  6. Don’t ask struggling readers to read out loud in front of others
  7. Allow pupils to demonstrate learning using a range of formats so that literacy is not a barrier – eg drawing, mind mapping, creating lists & diagrams, oral presentations, role play, debates, etc
  8. Focus on strengths – feedback on content rather than areas of difficulty eg spelling or handwriting
  9. Create an ethos within the classroom where it’s okay to ask for help & make sure learners know where to go for support when they need it
  10. Avoid asking your learner to copy from the board – if copying is necessary give the pupil a sheet to copy from that they can have in front of them – better still provide a printed copy for them to stick in, use paired/shared writing, write for the learner, etc

If you would like to do a more thorough audit of your practice to check how inclusive you are, have a look at this Audit of General Teaching Strategies for Pupils with Specific Literacy Difficulties.

Using Busy Things to develop phonological awareness skills

Using Busy Things to develop phonological awareness skills

Almost all schools now offer a literacy curriculum based on systematic synthetic phonics which most children respond really well to. But, there is a small group of pupils that don’t make the progress that we expect.

The building blocks to good phonic skills include really strong phonological awareness skills (the ability to identify and manipulate sounds in spoken language e.g. syllables, rhyme etc.) and phoneme awareness  (manipulating individual sounds).  Research shows that the majority of pupils that go on to struggle with spelling, reading and writing have a relative difficulty with their phoneme awareness and other phonological skills.  This group need extra time and attention.

Early Years settings are brilliant at developing phonological awareness skills, but as children move up into Key Stage 1 and beyond, it becomes harder for class teachers to find time to spend time on this.

One useful resource, available to all schools with access to the London Grid for Learning is Busy Things.  We found their phonic games very helpful when supporting children during lockdown, as they develop phonological awareness as well as phonics.

They updated a lot of the materials in May 2021.  We like the way you can customize the games to concentrate on specific grapheme phoneme correspondences.

Games

Our pupils loved the games. There are games to support rhyming skills such as Topple the Tower and Robert Robot:

As well as games like Feed the Monster and Build the Word which focus on oral blending and segmenting:

The software allows you to choose which scheme you want to follow, as well as your regional accent preference (north or south of England):

Once pupils are confident at using the games online, you can also produce pdf’s of specific patterns to reinforce areas that they are working on. This was useful to set as targeted homework.

Busy things does not replace the work we need to do to help strengthen phonological awareness skills but it is a really useful tool. Children can independently use the game on laptops during class reading time or other pockets of the school day.

Teachers can set up class profiles and monitor how their pupils are doing.

For more information, there are youtube videos on how to get started, as well as tutorials online. Alternatively, do contact us for more information. While not experts,  we are  happy to share what we have learnt!

Tower Hamlets Language, Literacy and Communication Team

September 2021

 

 

 

 

 

Technology is only part of the story when assessing ICT needs

At one level, determining the technology necessary to improve curriculum access and communication for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) might seem fairly straightforward. Once you have an appreciation of what the learner finds challenging you simply find the technology that can help them meet that challenge.

For instance, if a learner is dyslexic they might benefit from a screen reader to help them decode, maybe a predictor to help with spelling, and possibly a dictation app so they don’t have to use a keyboard. However, each of these comes with a range of variables.

First of all there is the device – or even devices – the learner will be using. This might be determined by what is available in school, or perhaps provided from home, or even purchased by a charity, so might fall short of what would be ideal. Otherwise factors that come into consideration might include whether it needs to be carried around all day (wherein size becomes a factor), or if it needs a particular quality of screen or sound system due to sensory needs. It might also be that more than one machine is needed, perhaps an iPad as a communication aid, a laptop to connect to the school network for academic work, and a mobile phone to help with organisation.

And the device will have an operating system, Windows, Apple or Android. Each of which offer different built in options for improving accessibility. Then there are considerations of whether an app or program needs to be installed, or if it can be web-based and run online. Some schools like to tightly manage internet access, so resources that rely on the internet might not be viable. Whereas the most appropriate software might not be available for the operating system involved. Or even that it is not sufficiently up to date to run it. There are also times when a school will have an earlier version of a programme, or something similar that they have already invested in, so they may be reluctant to invest in anything new.

The age and capabilities of the learner is crucial. There are several resources that will support dyslexic learners, including those built in to operating systems, browser and apps, such as the dictate function in MSWord, or Voice Typing in Google Docs. However, some of these have layers of sophistication that are great for students taking qualifications, but unnecessary for primary pupils.

It is always valuable to get an understanding of how well the learner can navigate a keyboard, or operate a touch screen, and whether they have skills learnt from home use of devices that aren’t evident in school. Parents are similarly important for appreciating wider uses of technology, such as keeping in touch with family and friends, pursuing hobbies, or following particular interests. In school the learner might only exhibit a limited skill set and understanding compared to what they actually know.

Curriculum content, and individual learning objectives for pupils, also make a difference, guiding decisions around aspects like the degree of content that is available, such as differentiated resources, or subject specific vocabulary support. What is it that is going to be taught, and learnt, and what technology will best support this?

It is not only the child or young person’s capabilities with technology that need to be considered. For it to be effective there needs to be a number of elements of support including maintaining it, creating and loading materials, updating it, and operating it. Any technology is only effective if people know how to use it, and learners will often need to rely on the adults around them – both at school and at home – to help them make good use of it.

Even when we have a good grasp of what a child or young person’s learning needs are, and a wide knowledge of all the technological options, the factors we need to consider when making provision for them are much broader. We also need to remember that all of these aspects will change over time, so assessment is seldom a one-time event.

The last factor we should consider is cost. When it comes to a enabling a child or young person to learn there should not be a price tag attached.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Communication aids – technology is only the start

When a child or young person has difficulty with speaking technology can step in and quickly provide a means of communication. There are simple, dedicated, devices, like Big Macs and GoTalks , which are designed solely for the purpose of providing a voice, or there are apps to install on iPads and PCs. The first of these take short, recorded messages that are replayed when a button is pushed. The latter are more sophisticated and can be developed to do much more than provide speech, including controlling aspects of the environment, such as lighting and heating, or to operate the device, opening and closing apps, running searches and sending messages.

So there can be many factors involved in determining just what provision to make. Whilst these will include other functions we might want it to perform, there is also the language level of the user, and their capability, not just with words.

For instance, does the learner understand cause and effect, that their action, whether pressing a button or resting their eyes on part of the screen (if they are using eye gaze hardware) has made something happen?

Perhaps more fundamentally than that, do they have a cause to communicate, a reason to push the button and broadcast a message in the first place? For those with more challenging and complex needs they may be in a situation of having the people who care for them speaking on their behalf, making choices and guiding their lives. This is most probably for practical reasons, rather than a desire to take control. However, this can lead to a situation where the learner has learnt that other people do this so they don’t have the imperative to do it for themselves – sometimes referred to as ‘learnt helplessness.’

It might be that it is the learner themselves who is driving the shift to AAC by showing frustration that they can’t communicate effectively, perhaps they are becoming stressed, or acting up, because they are unable to let you know what they want.

Do they have the means to operate a device, whether by touching the screen, typing on the keyboard, operating a switch or a button of some sort, or using eyegaze? There is always some way that can be found to get control, perhaps through sipping and blowing through a mouthpiece, or even through electrodes attached to the skin that pick up electrical signals from the nervous system when an action is thought about, not just when it is actually carried out. Once this operation is found, the user has to be able to understand it and regulate it. Sometimes it may prove not be durable or inconsistent. An eyegaze user, for instance, may get very tired quite quickly due to the degree of concentration involved, or a part of the body may have involuntary tics. So there need be supporters around who understand this and who can make adjustments.

Can they take turns? Do they understand the process of communication whereby it is an interaction, not simply a request or a response? Is their communication a dialogue?

Often AAC is a next step, so has the learner already used communication methods such as signing, or a communication book, providing a base on which to build? If they have this often means they have an understanding of symbols, and of categorisation, both of which can be integral to its use. The first because they may not be fluent with text, the second in order to find the words and phrases they want to use, whether that is ‘food,’ or associated with ‘home,’ or perhaps ‘colours.’

They will also need to be able to navigate the system, moving between screens, using swipes and taps, and understanding where a ‘back button’ or ‘home icon’ might take them.

Crucially there is also the need for a support network around the child or young person. Central to this should be a speech and language therapist, just as when a child is learning to use their voice, because that is what this technology is, and to develop their skills they need expert support.

Others in the network will include school staff, not only teachers, teaching assistants, and technicians, but also lunchtime supervisors to help encourage its use. As it is the learner’s voice the device will need to be with them at all times – home, school, and out and about. Whilst this might not happen immediately, that should be the plan, so everyone will need to know how to maintain it, and update it. There might be grids of words specific to home, or certain situations such as a weekend football, so these may need to be developed as the users’ needs change.

It is also going to be important to plan reviews of its use, as  the learners needs might change and the provision has to continue to meet them.

Determining the resources a learner needs can often be fairly straightforward, it is making sure they are used effectively, and that they remain up to date, that can be the challenge.

 

 

 

 

 

Multimedia Authoring, with Shakespeare…

Year 5  were studying Romeo and Juliet.  There was a small group of children in the class who were really struggling to get  their ideas, responses and their words onto paper alongside the rest of the class. The class teacher thought we might make podcasts with this group eg: interviews with characters, “What is the most tragic thing about this story?”  or video diary entries from the Montagues and Capulet families; but in the end we thought it would work better with multimedia authoring using either Book Creator or Glogster.We decided to use Book Creator.

Book Creator is an app on Windows and iPads which allows the user to include sound files, videos, images, drawings and text  as well as shapes and speech bubbles in their work and is excellent for using across the curriculum. It is  also great for science reports, research journals and comic adventures.

The children enacted and filmed the scenes, and then we interviewed the characters themselves, and interviewed onlookers who “witnessed” the fight between Benvolio and Mercutio. We gave our opinions about why this was almost inevitable, how this could have been avoided, and what the repercussions of the family feud might be.

We edited sound files (voice recordings of the interviews) using Audacity to create news reports of the events in Verona.

Our completed book included the “mobile ‘phone camera footage” of the deadly sword fight, the empassioned appeals for calm from innocent bystanders, interviews with people who knew both families and an official announcment from the Duke of Verona.

If you are doing something like this, also have a look at Glogster which is a cloud-based platform (app and website) for creating presentations and interactive learning. Glogster also allows users to combine text, images, video, and audio to create an interactive, Web-based poster called glogs on a virtual canvas.

            

Beginning Computing with SEND children.

There are various tools to teach coding to youngsters away from the computer before they get onto screens with PurpleMash’s 2Code or 2Go, J2Code,  Scratch etc; and doing practical activities is an essential aspect of multi sensory learning.

Beebots aren’t just for the nursery classes. KS1 children can use them to begin learning how to make algorithms instead of giving one instruction at a time. They can learn directional language and how to identify themselves with the beebot so that they can “project themselves” onto a pathway to aid with giving instructions.

Playing a game like “Back to Back, Ear to Ear” will help them to learn the importance of giving a clear instructions. 

Coding with Cubetto happens with hands-on coding blocks, which means children can use it irrespective of reading ability or language barriers. This introduces programming concepts like algorithm, the queue, recursions, debugging.

Things to learn after ALGORITHM, are  EVENTS and ITERATION.

Here is a nice lesson (away from the computers) that will teach both.

As we start to write longer and more interesting programs, our code often contains a lot of repetition.

In this lesson, students will learn about how events cause something to happen and (repeats) loops can be used to more easily communicate instructions that have a lot of repetition by looking at the repeated patterns of movement in a dance.

At this point in the course, students should have developed comfort with programming a set of linear instructions.

Frequently the linear set of instructions includes patterns that are repeated multiple times and as students want to write more complex and interesting programs, manually duplicating that code becomes cumbersome and inefficient. To enable students to write more powerful programs, we’ll need to rely on structures that break out of the that single linear list. Loops allow for students to structure their code in a way that repeats. In this lesson, we will focus on identifying patterns in physical movement before moving back onto the computer to look for patterns in our code.

This Dance Party lesson is done away from the computer again. We are all dancing the same dance, we’ll need to know what all of the steps in the dance are, and how many times we should do them.

Show Dance actions (on the wall) so that all students can see it. Talk through the different sections of the dance as a class. Demo each action and practice putting them together.   (Play Music)

Point out the section that repeats and discuss a quicker way of writing it.

Dance Party Unplugged

Tower Hamlets Support for Learning Service

The SLS during the Covid-19 pandemic

This is a summary of what schools can expect from the SLS during this extraordinary time .  For more detail please contact the head of service Roland Ramanan:  roland.ramanan@towerhamlets.gov.uk (020 73646458) or leave a message with Kathleen Duggan Kathleen.Duggan@towerhamlets.gov.uk

We continue to work in partnership with colleagues from Early Years, Early Help, Health, Social Care and across different agencies, so that children can best access some learning and stay safe. This often means working ‘behind the scenes’ with parents and professionals to join up services and systems. More information about the service can be found in the Local Offer.

(Please note – we cannot offer advice concerning the progress or processing Education Health and Care Plans or pupils with a diagnosis of Autism.   For general advice about SEND, schools or EHCps please call SEND Information Advice and Support Service on 020 7364 6489 email TowerHamlets&City.SENDIASS@towerhamlets.gov.uk )

Remote support for parents of pupils with SEND

At the moment, our teams have been focussing on providing telephone and online support for parents on our case load, especially for the Sensory Support Team (see below for more details) and the Physical Disability/Complex medical advisory teachers.

We have a helpline for parents/carers to put in touch with a specialist teacher from the Spld or Language and Communication Team for advice about supporting their child.

Language and Literacy Helpline from the Support for Learning Service 020 7364 6444

Or you can email janet.pritchard@towerhamlets.gov.uk

 

Online resources for blind and visually impaired learners

 

The Tower Hamlets Sensory Impairment Team have suggested a couple of sites for blind or visually impaired learners.

 

PositiveEye gives creative ideas for teaching and learning, many posted on Youtube, as well as bringing together information from other places.

https://www.positiveeye.co.uk/general-news/activity-shares-for-families-and-professionals-covoid19/

 The Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/PositiveEyeIdeaMachine/  talks about what PositiveEye is about, and by subscribing to it you can keep up to date.

 

It is also worth checking out https://braillebug.org/Games.asp for activities for braillists, that are suitable for all ages, and which sighted people can join in with.  For instance;

  • CountdownIncludes numbers and some knowledge of maths sequences
  • Braille Jumblerequires Grade 3/4  ability to answer, unscramble braille letters and then type in the word
  • Secret Message can be played with a friend of sibling

 

It is possible for braillists with some sight to zoom in and see the screen enough to decode the braille symbol, and then use touch typing skills.

A list of websites which might be useful for SEND learners at home

https://www.senteacher.org/  for lots of printables, nets, number lines, clocks, certificates, flash cards, etc

Do2learn https://do2learn.com/ provides thousands of free pages with social skills and behavioural regulation activities and guidance, learning songs and games, communication cards, academic material, and transition guides for employment and life skills.

Doorway Online  https://www.doorwayonline.org.uk/   is a collection of free and highly accessible educational games that learners will find easy to use independently. Each activity has a range of accessibility and difficulty options.  Managed by the Doorway Accessible Software Trust, a Scottish charity.

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/   252 free educational interactive teaching resources and activities for Primary/Elementary Schools.  84 free to use fun kids games/activities for kids aged 4 – 11.   170 plus links to free interactive teaching activities, educational games, image and software resources

British Council
https://www.britishcouncil.org/school-resources/find
Resources for English language learning

The Imagination Tree
https://theimaginationtree.com
Creative art and craft activities for the very youngest.

Nature Detectives  https://naturedetectives.woodlandtrust.org.uk/naturedetect…/
A lot of these can be done in a garden, or if you can get to a remote forest location!

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

https://www.starfall.com/h/

https://www.tinypop.com/special/artpad

http://www.magickeys.com/books/  Online Interactive Coloring Pages

https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/

https://www.twinkl.co.uk   This is more for printouts, and usually at a fee, but they are offering a month of free access to parents in the event of school closures. Setting this up is really easy to do – go to www.twinkl.co.uk/offer and enter the code UKTWINKLHELPS

Sites for blind or visually impaired learners can be found here.

Sites for learning at home for SEND children and young people

 

Whilst children are at home for extended periods, parents and carers – not to mention school staff looking to guide them – are all looking for quality materials, both online and off, to keep children engaged, and learning. That is as true of children with SEND as with any others.

Given the range of children and young people’s abilities, and the breadth of special educational needs, there is no one site that will cater for everyone, although 2Simple have made purplemash.com available for free during the Coronavirus crisis. PurpleMash covers the whole primary curriculum, with fun resources for literacy and numeracy and all other subjects that can be pitched at many levels. Have a look here for further information. https://2simple.com/free-access/?campaign=3f314708-5ef0-11ea-9175-062a0562a518.   Included in the offer is their online library of digital books (Serial Mash) with associated comprehension, spelling, grammar, punctuation activities.

Other sites providing literacy resources include audiobooks from Audible and StoryNory, both online and full of stories (some of which can be downloaded as MP3 files onto devices).

Another generic site that is always worth visiting is the BBC, with both Cbeebies, and Bitesize offering all sorts of educational, developmental, games and activities. You might need to search a bit to find what you want, but they are good quality. Have a browse at https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/primary and https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies to find useful resources.

You might also want materials that can be used away from the screen. TTS group, who provide all sorts of learning materials, have created workbooks for primary pupils to download and use offline. https://www.tts-group.co.uk/home+learning+activities.html

You can also find printable materials at:

If you are looking for on-screen games for literacy and numeracy then the well-established ICT Games, https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/index.html, has lots of stuff for primary aged pupils, that could be used with older learners, too. As always, it is advisable to try out activities yourself to make sure they are pitched at the correct level. You could also have a look at https://toytheater.com/ which has lots of games. As with many free sites, there are embedded adverts here.

For literacy resources there a number of sites that have paid-for content, but who also provide free tasters. The well known Oxford Owl – https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home – have activities for learning to read at home, along with information about how literacy and numeracy are taught in schools. Very helpful for parents wanting consistency for their children.

Then there is Pobble, a site dedicated to supporting the teaching of writing in school, who have created resources specifically for home use. https://medium.com/pobble/simple-and-fun-non-screen-activities-that-children-can-do-at-home-115543cb3b9c .

Another more specialist resource to support literacy is the highly inclusive set of apps and programs from Crick, usually known as Clicker. They are offering free access throughout this crisis. Further information can be found here cricksoft.com/uk

There are also places online that can engage learners with more challenging SEND. For many years Poisson Rouge have been providing playful, exploratory, activities that are engaging without necessarily having a fixed, desired, outcome. The free materials here https://www.poissonrouge.com/free/classic/ are showing their age, as they are largely Flash dependent. However, they are still useful, particularly for children discovering cause and effect, or early language skills.

More specifically targeted at these pupils is Helpkidzlearn. They have wealth of materials on their subscription site, with 10 sample activities available if you register here https://www.helpkidzlearn.com/join-free.

More immediately recognisable as SEND resources are those created by Widgit, known for their software which provides symbolised support to text. They also have some, free, downloadable materials on their site that can be printed out and used as needed –  including on good handwashing, and on dealing with anxiety generated by watching the news. https://www.widgit.com/resources/index.htm A bit of searching will also produce free curriculum materials, such as worksheets on verbs, adjectives, phonics, and minibeasts, along with many others. Start your search here. https://www.widgit.com/resources/literacy-language/language-development/index.htm

Then there is Incredibox. This is a site that is not designed for SEND, it a French site for visitors to explore beatboxing through a number of musical loops. It works for SEND learners, though, by allowing them to interact with the screen and to discover how different elements work and come together. https://www.incredibox.com/ .

 

Some learners will enjoy the opportunity away from school to follow their own interests, and there are a number of sites that have quality materials where they can safely browse. Both Dorling Kindersley, https://www.dkfindout.com/uk/ and National Geographic https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/category/discover/  have videos and articles on a range of subjects. However, the literacy levels can be demanding.

They might also want to spend some time learning to code: www.code.org has many diverse activities at all sorts of ability levels that budding programmers can work through progressively on their own.

Other children and young people will prefer to get ‘hands-on’ and the activities at https://www.redtedart.com/ will help them do just that, with ideas for art and technology projects. Again there are adverts on the site, but there is a wealth of ideas for practical and creative fun.

The internet is a vast resource, and there will be many more sites that provide valuable resources for learning at home, whilst schools are temporarily closed. But they can be hard to find. Hopefully those listed here will provide a useful starting point.

If you need further suggestions for online materials, have a look at this additional list, here . And for blind and visually  impaired learners there are some suggestions here.