Imogen Barber
Could the approaches we use to help our most vulnerable learners sometimes hold them back? The well-intentioned goal of making language accessible in the classroom for autistic and ELL pupils risks embedding an absolute and inflexible practice and literal bias, says Nick Morgan Baker, Dyslexia Action Tutor, member of The Dyslexia Guild, and Local Authority SEND Adviser.
Nick’s article first appeared in The Dyslexia Review, Spring 2026. A condensed version appears below.
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Imogen Barber
Adrian is a dedicated learning support specialist at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. He recently completed the Level 5 CPD Certificate in Supporting Adults with Dyslexia and Co-occurring Difficulties, which also qualified him for ADG FE/HE membership with The Dyslexia Guild.
We caught up with him as he shared his journey from higher education lecturer to becoming a specialised study skills tutor. Adrian shared what he finds so rewarding about supporting dyslexic students and why he prefers being a “guide on the side” to “sage on the stage”.
Imogen Barber
After twenty years in the classroom and a successful tenure as a Headteacher at a school with enhanced specialist provision for autism, Shelley England left her role in leadership to train as a psychoanalyst.
While training, she wanted to take on a position that would allow her to continue supporting young adults with additional needs. Her search led her to the role of a Specialist One-to-one Study Skills and Strategy Support – Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD), also known as Non-Medical Helper or Study Skills SpLD tutor in Higher Education.
Shelley chose Dyslexia Action’s Level 5 CPD Certificate in Supporting Adults with Dyslexia and Co-occurring Difficulties as it would qualify her to practice as a Study Skills SpLD tutor by awarding her Associate FE/HE of The Dyslexia Guild membership after completing just three online CPD Units of the six Unit Certificate.
We were encouraged by the proposals in the Schools White Paper to support more children with special educational needs within mainstream settings. The announcement of a £1.6bn fund to be made directly available to schools to become more inclusive is a welcome step forward.
You can read a summary of the major changes on our sister company, Real Training’s website here.
Notably, however, there was little direct mention of specialist literacy teachers or dyslexia per se in the proposals. The continual shortage of highly trained dyslexia and other special learning difficulty (SpLD) professionals is an ongoing concern, and for the Experts at Hand service to be successful, it is our view that this should include improved early access to specialist literacy teachers. Many of these were trained with funding from the Labour Government 17 years ago in the wake of the Rose Review (2009) and constitute a large resource. Findings from the No to Failure (2009) study indicate that literacy interventions designed and supervised by dyslexia specialists effectively mitigate long-term reading and writing challenges. Furthermore, the research highlights that early intervention offers the best outcomes for pupils as well as representing the most cost-efficient strategy for schools.
It’s Dyslexia Awareness Week 2025! This year we’re particularly focussing on our dyslexic learners aged sixteen and above. With this in mind, we asked our network of learners and experts with dyslexia to send in some of their favourite study hacks.
We hope these top tips can help anyone who is engaged in any kind of further or higher education; whether it’s an apprenticeship, undergraduate/postgraduate-level study or CPD.
Congratulations go to Helen, an inclusion leader and dyslexia assessor and Elizabeth, a secondary school teacher, who have won our prizes for the best study tips!
You can watch all the tips in the post below.
Send your videos to imogen.barber@realgroup.co.uk by Monday 29th September!
Dyslexia Awareness Week is coming up in October and we want to hear from learners who have dyslexia about their top study hacks! The best three will receive a £50 voucher each – but more than that you’ll also be helping our wider learning community.
Are you dyslexic or do you work with a dyslexic student (16+) at college, university or in another higher education or FE setting? Have you come across a smart way to make learning more efficient?
If so, we’d love to hear from you! Send us a short selfie video (1 min max) and tell us more. We’ll be sharing your videos on our social media channels.
Send your videos to imogen.barber@realgroup.co.uk by Monday 29th September. Full terms and conditions are below. Read more
Imogen Barber
Teaching assistants have the opportunity to build close bonds with the pupils they support and play a highly significant role in shaping their experience of learning. In this article, we take a look at how TAs can provide the best support to dyslexic pupils, not only in terms of developing reading and writing skills, but also helping to build self-confident, independent learners.
We’ve included some top tips from teaching assistants currently working in Primary and Secondary schools as well as other Specialist Practitioners and Dyslexia Action tutor, Claire Green.
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This article was updated to reflect the amendments to the articles (Dr Anna Smith, 03/2026).
Professor Julia Carroll, Caroline Holden and Paul Thompson have released a paper looking at a new definition of dyslexia.
The highly anticipated Delphi study was published in February 2025 and presented at the SpLD Assessment Standards Committee SASC conference. It outlines a new definition for dyslexia and will have implications for the assessment of specific learning difficulties (SpLD). The papers are free to access but are yet to be peer-reviewed and further edits may occur.
We highly recommend that dyslexia assessors and teachers read the articles in full, these are available on the Open Science Framework and also on the SASC website.
You can read more about the definition in the article below.
Article by Kate Sutton – Dyslexia Assessor and tutor for Dyslexia Action
When you hear about someone working as a dyslexia assessor, you might picture someone who’s a master of language, with a mind like a dictionary and a perfect sense of grammar.
But what if that assessor is dyslexic too? At first, it might sound ironic – like someone with a fear of heights becoming a skydiving instructor. However, being dyslexic while working as a dyslexia assessor is not just possible; it’s a superpower.
For someone without dyslexia, understanding what it’s like to struggle with reading or writing is difficult. They can observe it, learn about it, and teach strategies to manage it – but they’ll never fully know the frustration of letters flipping around on a page or words that refuse to come together. This is where dyslexic assessors shine.
The theme for Dyslexia Awareness Week 2024 is “What’s Your Story?” We caught up with Luke Hearne-Brown to hear more about his experience of dyslexia.
Luke is a successful young filmmaker and co-founder of Imprint Films. He has worked on projects for clients including Running Bear and British Boarding Schools and is currently collaborating on a project with the Director behind Netflix’s drama, Top Boy.
Luke was diagnosed with dyslexia when he was in Year 3. His experience of primary school was not particularly positive until he started receiving specialist help from an external tutor who was trained using the Dyslexia Action Literacy Programme – DALP. Luke took the time to share his story with us and what motivated him to persevere with A-Levels and a degree in filmmaking, when at one point he’d fallen very much out of love with education.
