About
About Me
Having worked as a primary school teacher for many years and seen the difficulties some children face with developing early literacy skills, I decided to train at the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre to become a Specialist Teacher and then a Specialist Assessor (SpLD Postgraduate Diploma Level 7). I have since worked both as an assessor and a learning support teacher within an independent school. I love working with young people to help them build on their strengths and develop their own strategies for success.
About Dyslexia
Every child's literacy skills will develop at a different pace but for most children the daily diet of school reading instruction and synthetic phonics alongside a supportive home environment is enough to get them started on their journey to literacy. However, for some the process seems to be harder and if it is persistent and unexpected, or if there is a family history of literacy difficulties, early action, before frustration sets in, is the key to success.
What Might I Notice?
Dyslexic learners have many challenges which may include some of the following:
- Difficulty retrieving information - for example words that 'are on the tip of the tongue'.
- Poor short-term memory - making it harder to transfer knowledge to long-term memory.
- Poor phonological processing skills - making it hard to work with sounds and form links between sounds and letter patterns.
- Poor visual processing skills - for example remembering sequences of letters.
- Problems with automaticity - using skills you have learnt without having to think about them.
- Poor organisational skills - having difficulty planning ahead.
