Guild Gallery May 2015

Guild Gallery May 2015

The Dyslexia Guild Annual Summer Conference is returning to London and will be held on Thursday 18 June 2015 in the Brunei Gallery at the School of Oriental and African Studies right in the heart of Bloomsbury.

We are pleased to announce bookings are now open for this fantastic event which is not to be missed.

To receive your preferential discounted rate you will need to use the discount code GMCDJUN at time of registration

Early bird Member price only £100 with discount code (book before 16 May 2015) Non members £120                                                                                                                                                                                                        Guild Member bookings after 16 May 2015 £120, non-Guild Members £150

The conference will focus on the theme of SpLD Assessment in context.  Key speakers include Professor Amanda Kirby,  University of South Wales, who will focus on Dyspraxia through the ages - from childhood to adulthood.

Dr Meesha Warmington from the University of York,  who will focus on Bilingual Langague Assessment; Professor Julie Dockrell, UCL Institute of Education is presenting a paper on Assessing Language Skills in Young Children.  Mary Daly, The Dyslexia-SpLD Trust will talk about The Local Offer and the place of Diagnostic Assessment in School.  Registration is open.  For more information please Click Here

Continuing Professional Development Programme                            

Short Courses starting 2015  20-30 hours of study over 6 weeks

Dyslexia Action's Continuing Professional Development Level 4 and 5 online courses have been designed specifically for: Classroom Teachers, Teaching Assistants, Tutors working with those under the age of 18

The CPD Programme consists of independent Unit courses, most of which may be taken individually (start dates throughout the year).

You can build up these units over time to gain Awards and then a Certificate (two Awards).
Our online courses offer flexible learning to fit around your lifestyle.   Register now to ensure your place!

Dyslexia Action have been awarded with formal CPD accreditation by The CPD Standards Office, Professional Development Consortium.

Summer Programme July 2015

If you have some time over the summer holidays, why not use our Summer Programme to study three Units and gain an Award. Apply now for an Accredited Short Summer CPD Course to enhance your knowledge.

Courses include: Dyslexia and Co-occurring difficulties, Memory, Multi sensory tuition, Reading, Writing, Numeracy and Study Skills.                                                                                                                                                            

News

SASC Conference and AGM

The first Spld Assessment Standard Committee conference takes place on 10th June at Kings College, London following on from the AGM.

It should be an interesting afternoon with talks about DSA Modernisation by Anwen Jones and Elaine Shilcock and a talk about ADHD in adulthood by Phil Asherson.

Take a look at the SASC website for more details.  Places are limited so book soon.

Sound Check boosts reading skills says study

A reading programme designed by experts in dyslexia can significantly boost the skills of all children who fail the controversial new phonics check, research reveals.

Now an independent evaluation of the Sound Check scheme has found that 72 per cent of children who participated passed the test when they retook it a year later, compared with 65 per cent in a control group. Overall, the scores increased for 95 per cent of pupils who completed the programme.

The course takes children back to basics, helping them to relearn the alphabet, and focuses on building a better understanding of the links between sounds and letters.

Sound Check was also found to be particularly helpful for children who spoke English as an additional language (EAL), who improved more rapidly than native speakers. 

Helen Swanson, principal of Drove Primary School in Swindon, said of the programme, developed by charities Dyslexia Action, the British Dyslexia Association and Springboard for Children,  "We have 80 per cent of children with English as an additional language. They come to us with no English whatsoever in many cases. It has been a huge success in giving those children an opportunity and a boost to improve their phonic knowledge in an intense course".

For more on Sound Check click here

Does money make you happy?

A report on Britains' happiness and wellbeing by the Cabinet Office last year recorded average salaries and life satisfaction ratings for 35-50 year-olds in different professions.

The results have now been plotted out by recruiter Michael Page and show a direct correlation between peoples' level of happiness and their salary. Workers in the Education Sector fell above the line.

You can see more detail on the interactive graphic by selecting Explore and choosing by Education Sector.

18 June 2015 Dyslexia Guild Summer Conference  SOAS, London, UK - discounts for Guild members

08 July 2015 Controversies in Education  Orsmkirk, UK

23 July 2015 Working for Disability Equality in Higher Education Manchester, UK

20 Sept 2015  International Conference on Teaching, Education and Learning London, UK
 

Illiteracy in Prison 

Many prisons are unable to meet their services own regulatory requirements on library access according to panelists and audience at an Expert Briefing on prison libraries in the House of Commons.

Kay Hadwick, who oversees four prison libraries in Surrey, said: "The biggest problem for prison libraries is access. The new Prison Service Instruction allows each prisoner 30 minute per week in the library and that is up from 20 minutes in the earlier edition. But in practice it is not really achievable with the best will in the world". This was one of the many issues addressed at the Rehabilitation through literacy and learning: the role of prison libraries event at the House of Commons.  The full transcript can be found here

An independent evaluation of the National Literacy Trust's Early Words Together programme has found the six-week scheme can help children catch with their peers if they are falling behind in the lead up to starting school.

Early Words Together: Impact on Families and Children report by Coventry University shows that 86% of parents who took part now talk more with their preschool children, which will have a big impact on their school readiness and ongoing attainment.

A coalition of charities and organisations of which Dyslexia Action and the National Literacy Trust are leading members, launched a new report The Power of Reading  calls for all nurseries to be led by a qualified early years graduate, to help children get the best start in life. The report sets out key recommendations for the next government to prioritize early education, the report can be downloaded here

Dyslexia Action has also been calling for a national literacy strategy to tackle the one in five ratio of children whose needs are not being met by the current educational system - recommending a focus on early intervention and on enhancing the skills of the teaching workforce, highlighted more recently in its Dyslexia Still Matters Report (available in the Guild library). The report evidenced the expertise and good practice that works - skilled and knowledgeable teachers who can create the right balance and the right time for individual children.

In 2000, Neil Gordon, a retired pediatric neurologist, proposed the idea of musical dyslexia, based on growing evidence that the areas of the brain involved in reading music and text differed.  The idea that dyslexia could affect the reading of non-language symbols is not new. For instance, dyscalculia is the difficulty reading and understanding mathematical symbols.

Recent research supports dyslexia and dyscalculia as separate conditions with unique causes (dyscalculia is thought to be caused by a deficit in spatial processing in the parietal lobe). If the brain processes words and mathematical symbols differently, why not musical symbols too?

Read more on this from Jennifer Mishra Associate Professor, Music Education at University of Missouri-St. Louis here.

Scrambled Words may provide insight into dyslexia

Emma Trammel received a 2015 Undergraduate Research Grant to study how people process language at University of Missouri-St.Louis. The grant funds lab equipment and will pay for her to present her research at a professional conference.  In the study, participants will be exposed to a prime, or sample word, that will be subconscious, meaning they won't be aware they've seen it. Then, they will see words on a computer screen and identify whether the samples are actual words or made up. Equipment then tracks their brain waves and how quickly participants respond when seeing certain words.

The research measures orthographic processing skills, or participants abilities to process language. In orthographic processing, people identify a word according to its appearance. Most people read by identifying letters and words with specific sounds.  People with dyslexia have difficulty using sounds to identify letters and words, which makes reading difficult. By using orthographic processing to identify words, people with dyslexia could read more easily, Trammel said.

Click here for more on this story

Times Tables Rock!

The Times Tables Rock Wrangle in June aims to invite some 160 students from 40 schools to receive the red carpet treatment for a week, before challenging each other to race through their times tables via an online test at the Grande finale event. There will be an air guitar competition, fancy dress photos and roving paparazzi but the winners will be treated to a helicopter ride over London. 

Click here for more on this story