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Dear Guild Member,
Save the date! The Dyslexia Guild Summer Conference will be held on Thursday 30th June 2016 at University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield. More details will be published early in 2016 and will be found here.
The Winter issue of Dyslexia Review, Volume 26 No 3 2015 is due to be issued later this month and the publishing schedule will now move to two issues per year. This will enable the editors to concentrate on the quality of the content to enhance your professionalism. Would you like to review books for the Dyslexia Review? We are always looking for people working in all types of setting and you get to keep the book as a thank you. If you are interested, please contact the Guild Administrator.
New Membership grades are now available. If you have not updated your qualifications on our system you will automatically be given Affiliate membership. Please update your record here.
Season's Greetings and a Peaceful New Year to all our members. Have a question? Email us at guild@dyslexiaaction.org.uk |
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Special offers for Guild Members
The interpretation of Assessment Findings
£10 off to Guild members on this DACDP701 unit for January 2016. Apply your discount code: Vol26DR when you book your course here before 13th January.
Discounts are always automatically available to guild members on these level 7 courses.
Applying for an Assessment Practising Certificate – online course.
Exam Access Arrangements: Mentored Training for Form 8 Report Writing. |
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Work for us in the New Year
We are looking for specialist teachers in Lincoln, Leicester, Leeds, Coventry and Collingham. For more information on these positions and opportunities in other areas, see here. http://www.dyslexiaaction.org.uk/work-for-us
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Upcoming courses from Dyslexia Action Training
We have courses for every stage of your SpLD career with start dates throughout the year.
Wanting to acquire some skills in supporting those with dyslexia and other SpLDs? See our CPD Programme.
Are you support staff who are working alongside psychologists, specialist assessors and teaching professionals but are being asked to implement Exam Access Arrangements within your school? See our new Exam Access Arrangements for Support Staff course starting March 2016.
Do you want to build upon your degree and become a Specialist teacher or Assessor? See our Postgraduate Programme.
Are you concerned that your professional practice might need brushing up? See our Courses for Qualified Specialist Teachers and Assessors.
For all our courses please see here.
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Special offer to our readers on ALL Routledge titles
You can get a massive 20% discount on all titles ordered via the Routledge website.
Apply the code: DAC15
Hurry as the offer expires: 31st Dec 2015
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Students of BDA Accredited Courses
If you are studying on a British Dyslexia Association (BDA) accredited course such as our Postgraduate Programme and would like to apply for Approved Teacher Status (ATS), Approved Practitioner Status (APS) or Associated Member of the British Dyslexia Association (AMBDA), you must do so within three years of the completion of your course.
For more details see the BDA's accreditation page. |
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Free Primary Resources
Teachit Primary has teamed up with Penguin Schools to bring to you their book-based resource packs. With a range of modern and classic authors, these teaching materials will enable children to get to know the characters, explore the story lines, examine language use and establish a love of reading along the way!
Download these free primary resources here.
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New Initial Teacher Training guidelines in SEN could be published in the Spring
Following the publication of the Sir Andrew ‘Carter Review of Initial Teacher Training (ITT)’ in January this year, the Government commissioned an independent working group made up of expert representatives from the sector, including a specialist in SEN issues, to develop a framework of core ITT content.
In a letter to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Dyslexia and other Specific Learning Difficulties, Schools Minister Nick Gibb reveals: “The report will include recommendations as to whether or not the entire framework of core content should be mandatory.”
Mr Gibb informed APPG members that the working group will consider the extent to which SEN and disabilities should be covered and is expected to report in spring 2016. More on this story here.
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Free Talking Books
To celebrate 80 years of Talking Books the RNIB are offering their talking books service for free. Find out more here.
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Developing Great Teaching
The Teacher Development Trust commissioned a review of the international research into what constitutes effective professional development for teachers and have launched the review’s emerging findings: “Developing Great Teaching: Lessons from the international reviews into effective professional development”.
This important review of reviews provides a rigorous update and overview of the lessons that can be taken from the international reviews into effective professional development.
The key finding of the review was that professional development opportunities that are carefully designed and have a strong focus on pupil outcomes have a significant impact on student achievement.
The report can be downloaded here.
The Good CPD Guide is now called the TDT Advisor.
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Memory weakened by digital dependence
A study has shown that an over-reliance on using computers and search engines is weakening people’s memories. Dr Maria Wimber from the University of Birmingham said the trend of looking up information “prevents the build-up of long-term memories”. The study, examining the memory habits of 6,000 adults in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, found more than a third would turn first to computers to recall information.
The UK had the highest level, with more than half "searching online for the answer first". But the survey suggests relying on a computer in this way has a long-term impact on the development of memories, because such push-button information can often be immediately forgotten. "Our brain appears to strengthen a memory each time we recall it, and at the same time forget irrelevant memories that are distracting us," said Dr Wimber.
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How Technology can help dyslexic learners help themselves
The Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) has published an overview of how you can use technology - including free and open source software - to support dyslexic students’ learning. Read more here.
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Attention training can wire your brain to be less fearful
A study has used executive control training to help participants to ignore irrelevant information and so change the brain to make it less responsive to threatening images.
The participants who completed the more intense version of the training (but not the other participants) showed reduced activation in their amygdala – a brain region involved in emotions, including anxiety and fear – during the second emotional task, as compared with at the study start. This reduction in amygdala reactivity also correlated with their performance on the emotional task. That is, the more their amygdala was calmed, the less their responses were slowed by scary pictures. There was also some evidence that, after the training, the high-intensity training group showed increased connectivity between their right amygdala and frontal cortex.
For more on this story, click here.
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Prisoner’ literacy and numeracy levels
Brian Creese has written about the report produced by UCL’s Centre for Education in the Criminal Justice System and their efforts to update the statistics on prisoner literacy and numeracy levels. Read more here.
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Early intervention in dyslexia can narrow achievement gap
Identifying children with dyslexia as early as first grade could narrow or even close the achievement gap with typical readers, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, and Yale University. Emilio Ferrer, a UC Davis psychology professor and his Yale colleagues, Bennett and Sally Shaywitz, report the results of a longitudinal study of reading from first grade to 12th grade and beyond.
Compared with typical readers, dyslexic readers had lower reading scores as early as first grade, and their trajectories over time never converge with those of typical readers. These data demonstrate that such differences are not so much a function of increasing disparities over time, but instead reflect marked differences already present in first grade between typical and dyslexic readers. For more on this story click here. |
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Psychology's 10 Greatest Case Studies
The British Psychological Society (BPS) has produced digests of the greatest case studies that have had an influence on the research into particular areas. For those of you interested in these subjects, see the following case studies:
- Long-term memory – H.M. (Henry Gustav Molaison)
- Language impairment – Victor Leborgne (“Tan”)
- Language acquisition – Wild Boy of Aveyron
- Autism – Kim Peek
See the digests with links to further reading here.
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