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| Training courses
Our courses are designed to strengthen the expertise and confidence of teachers, teaching assistants, SENCos, instructors, tutors, learning support staff or lecturers. These programmes aim to raise awareness of co-occurring difficulties, improve the school and classroom environment and change teaching approaches. 20-30 hours learning over an 8 week period, at level 4/5 and include:- Supporting Study Skills
 - Dyslexia and Co-occurring Difficulties
- Supporting Adults with Dyslexia
- Dyslexia in Multilingual Settings
- Multisensory Tuition
- Support for Memory Weaknesses
- Numeracy Skills and Assistive Technologies
- Reading, Writing and Spelling
The Dyslexia Action Postgraduate Certificate and Diploma programmes at Master’s level 7 provide training for qualified teachers to become informed practitioners and specialist teachers and/or assessors. The courses are modular and flexible and are undertaken part time, through online learning.
For further details and to apply for entry to our September 2016 programme please visit our website. |
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Units of SoundUnits of Sound version 6 has had a fantastic first year and has witnessed more and more students benefitting from the online literacy programme.
In case you don’t know, Units of Sound is an online literacy intervention programme suitable for those aged 8 years old through to adults. Units of Sound develops reading, spelling and writing skills. Its structured, cumulative and multi-sensory approach works really well for dyslexic students and anyone who wants to improve their literacy.
Online access to Units of Sound has opened up even more potential for students working independently. With students being able to log on at home, there is faster progression through the programme. Currently, we have on average, 4000 Units of Sound sessions every week, and our client base has spread to just about every type of educational institution, not just in the UK, but different corners of the globe: state primary and secondary schools, independent schools, international schools, academies, Pupil Referral Units, FE colleges and ESOL language schools.
We are working on the home version, which will be available soon. This will be ideal for parents who wish to set up their child at home, to work on Units of Sound independently in their own time. Excitingly, Units of Sound on iPads is under development, so watch this space and more information can be found out on the website. |
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Taskforce to look at apprenticeships for those with learning disabilitiesThe taskforce comes as part of the government’s goal to create 3 million apprenticeships by 2020, and to halve the disability employment gap. Only 6% of people with learning difficulties are currently in employment. Making apprenticeships and training opportunities more accessible will support many more people into work. The taskforce will meet 3 times throughout May and June: once to identify issues, then to explore solutions and finally to form recommendations to make to ministers. It will be led by Paul Maynard MP and include employers, training providers, charities and educational experts. Read more here: |
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Pupil interest in reading drops in secondary schoolSecondary school pupils are far less interested in reading than children at primary school, with only 40% of 14-16 year-olds saying they enjoy reading compared with more than 70% of 8-11 year-olds, according to a new National Literacy Trust (NLT) report. Read the report here: |
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The key to learning a new skill? Wanting it badly enough Learning is all about motivation. When we really want to learn something, we generally succeed, even when the going gets tough, says Matthew Youlden, linguist, lecturer, translator, interpreter and polyglot.
More can be found on The Guardians website:
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Special offer for Guild members on this new book edition!
Study Skills for Students with Dyslexia by Sandra Hargreaves and Jamie Crabb. Packed full of advice on topics including essay writing, reading strategies and exam techniques, this fourth edition is an essential read for students with dyslexia and other SpLDs in further and higher education. It also comes with a fully editable digital download of the book, so it can be accessed in the readers’ preferred format.
Get 25% off!* Find the book at www.sagepublishing.co.uk and enter discount code UK16CF09 at the checkout. *This code is valid until 30/09/2016 and cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer. |
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Dumb or Dyslexic? A personal exploration of dyslexiaThomas James Trueman has refused to let dyslexia hold him back and is passionate about how those with dyslexia are perceived, not only by others but also by themselves. This has inspired him to write his first book. Details here: |
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Neurotechnology could help treat dyslexiaAs director at the Wyss Center, Donoghue works in the field of neurotechnology – brain computer interfaces. While it sounds like the stuff of sci-fi, it's not as distant a prospect as the idea might suggest. Cochlear implants, helping the deaf hear again, are a relatively common example, but Donoghue's work goes a lot further. "When [a non-dyslexic] looks at a sentence, their brain sees the words are spaced correctly. What lands on the eye of a dyslexic person is exactly the same – it's in the brain that this is broken up improperly, so you get a perception of the words in a way that isn't orderly and doesn't make sense, which makes it challenging to read," said Donoghue. "[Researchers at the University of Geneva] found that we have a rhythm in the language centre of our brains, a kind of hum of the brain. Some people think it's like the idling of your car, but it's been hypothesised that in fact this might be the rhythm that helps us break up our words into phonemes, or pieces that make sense to us." In dyslexics, this rhythm is wrong, running faster. If a device could 'retrain' the brain, stimulate it so that frequency shifts downwards, then dyslexia could be effectively cured in much the same way that spectacles correct vision. More on this story here: |
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How long to read this?
 The database “How long to read this” gives you access to 12 million books where you can search for a title and it will tell you how long on average it takes to read, using an average reading speed of 300 words per minute. The search bring up different editions and will give you a page count as well as the approximate amount of words. You can also start a reading speed timer to see exactly how long it will take you to read it, based on your own reading speed.
Find it here: |
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Computer screens change how you think about what you read
 Reading something on a screen as opposed to a printout, causes people to home in on details but not broader ideas, according to a new article by Geoff Kaufman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, and Mary Flanagan, a professor at Dartmouth. The studies covered in the latest article were prompted by earlier research from Kaufman and Flanagan that found players using the iPad version of a disease prevention strategy game struggled with long-term strategy much more than those playing a physical copy of the game. More on this story here: |
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Next IssueNext issue of Guild Gallery will be sent out August 2016 Dyslexia Review was sent out in May 2016. If you have not recieved your copy, please let us know at: guild@dyslexiaaction.org.uk |
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