This year’s dyslexia awareness week did run from 14th to 20th October. It focused on the theme ‘Beyond the Words’. The theme has been chosen to highlight that people with dyslexia can face difficulties with maths, organisational skills and short term memory, and not just difficulties with spelling, writing and reading.
It’s especially important to recognise dyslexia in schools. One in ten people in the UK are dyslexic, which works out at around three students in each classroom. At the same time more than half of the teachers they surveyed received no specific training on dyslexia.
It is important to treat Dyslexia as a continuum. There are no clear cut-off points. Dyslexia occurs across the range of intellectual abilities and is not an indication of intelligence. It is defined by an inability to develop phonological awareness. This means they find it hard to split words into speech sounds (phonemes), and to blend individual sounds into words.
The impact of dyslexia is extensive: if you cannot learn to read, you cannot read to learn and everything we do at school and throughout life requires us to have the skills to be able to read fluently and accurately. Above and beyond the difficulties and barriers that dyslexia presents, is the damage that low self-esteem can cause. However, with the right help and support, strategies to overcome difficulties associated with dyslexia can be learnt and dyslexia needn’t be a barrier to achievement.
At ASLTIP there are a number of members that are specialised in dyslexia and you can find them all here:http://www.helpwithtalking.com/directory/specialty/8
The views expressed in the blog do not necessarily represent the views of ASLTIP. Publication does not imply endorsement.
