News

Cameron Downing is a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Trinity University where he continues to build on his doctoral and postdoctoral work at Bangor University focusing on typical and atypical development of spelling and handwriting skills.

Introduction

Handwriting continues to be an important skill for children to use to communicate their knowledge in the classroom. It also remains an important component of wider literacy development. Furthermore, handwriting difficulties are often reported amongst people with dyslexia. Despite the importance of handwriting, there has been relatively little effort to understand handwriting development compared to reading and spelling. In this article, I explore what recent research tells us about handwriting and its relationship with other developmental skills, and what this means in school. Read more

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 May 2024 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.

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Article by Kate Sutton – Dyslexia Assessor

Being a dyslexia assessor is a highly rewarding profession that offers the opportunity to change lives by identifying specific learning challenges and guiding individuals toward appropriate support.

Kate Sutton is a dyslexia assessor and senior lecturer who has worked in education for over twenty-four years. She is an APC reviewer for The Dyslexia Guild and also tutors on Real Training’s Dyslexia Professional Report Writing Course, part of the route to becoming an APC-holding dyslexia assessor with Dyslexia Action.

In his article, she walks us through what happens in the run-up to an assessment, how she likes to prepare and what typically happens afterwards as she writes dyslexia reports and communicates with teachers and parents.

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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.

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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.

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Becoming a Dyslexia Assessor is a highly rewarding career. There are different ways to qualify depending on how much time you want to commit, current qualifications, experience etc.

Not sure which training route is right for you? Julie Trisnan walks you through all your options in our latest video. View the full video below:

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We are thrilled to announce that our Level 5 CPD Unit – Dyslexia in Multilingual Settings has been deemed a finalist in the CPD category of the Teach Primary Awards!

We are delighted to receive recognition for the hard work and dedication of our team in developing a course that addresses the unique challenges faced by multilingual learners with dyslexia.

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With summer just around the corner, why not save on our Continuing Professional Development units?

We have released a special summer offer for short courses starting 10 July. Save £10 +VAT per course when you join our July cohort.

Our CPD short courses are delivered entirely online and do not require access to a student or learner, so would be perfect to complete over the summer break.

Suitable for teachers, SENCos, practitioners, teaching assistants, learning support staff, language therapists, tutors, lecturers, and those who support students with literacy difficulties, dyslexia and other specific learning of all levels, our courses focus on nurturing the development of learners within the classroom/learning environment both with and without specific learning difficulties.

Each unit requires between 20-30 hours of study over a seven-week period and tutor support is given through online forums throughout the duration.

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Although dyslexia and ADHD are two distinct conditions, the two frequently co-occur and can have a knock-on effect on one another. Between 18-42% of people with dyslexia also have ADHD. Conversely, dyslexia is also the most commonly co-occurring condition for people already diagnosed with ADHD. 

However, the two conditions are often not diagnosed simultaneously and often the order in which they are identified frequently differs between boys and girls – impacting the support they will have access to. In this article, we’ll take a look at how to provide early intervention and support for children, as well as ways to nurture the positive skills and capabilities that both conditions can bring.

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Julietta Howell, a dyslexic individual herself, is an ALN (Additional Learning Needs) Specialist Practitioner at St John’s College in Cardiff, an independent school for pupils aged three to eighteen. For over nineteen years she’s helped many young people with literacy difficulties go on to achieve academic and personal success, and was recognised as Teaching Assistant of the Year in 2020, in the South Wales Argus Schools and Education Awards.

Below Julietta describes her personal journey with dyslexia, how she ended up doing a job she never thought would be accessible to her, and what it’s like returning to study with Dyslexia Action as an adult.

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