Dyslexia and Inclusion

Classroom Approaches for Assessment, Teaching and Learning

Gavin Reid

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138487499
• eBook ISBN: 9781351043083
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Now in a fully updated third edition, this book will equip all teachers with the necessary knowledge of dyslexia in order for it to be effectively understood and managed in the mainstream classroom. Offering comprehensive guidance and support strategies, this resource is based around Reid's signposts for successful inclusion: acknowledging differences; recognising strengths; understanding what is meant by inclusion; planning for practice; and ensuring attainable task outcomes. In identifying the key issues of inclusive practice, the book supports teachers as they strive to fulfil the social, educational and emotional needs of children with dyslexia.

Key features of the new edition include:

• Up-to-date references to current research and legislation
• New sections on evidence-based teaching strategies, developing independent learning and communication with parents
• Detailed information on wider reading and additional resources, including websites, apps and software available to support learners with dyslexia

With practical strategies and resources designed to meet the needs of the busy classroom teacher, this book is crucial reading for educators and education students looking to help students with dyslexia reach their full potential.

1 Dyslexia and inclusion

Introduction

The main thrust of this new edition is, as in previous editions, to focus on how mainstream education can fulfil the social, educational and emotional needs of children with dyslexia. It is important that children with dyslexia have full curriculum access in every way. This means that their learning and teaching should be an integral component of mainstream education. There is no reason for them to accept a restricted curriculum or even off-site provision.

It is important that the specialist tag that has been attached to dyslexia for so long is less prominent and that the differences rather than the deficits are acknowledged. All teachers in all schools need to be able to accommodate these differences within their day-to-day teaching practice. This is the major factor towards full inclusion for children with dyslexia.

Dyslexia and inclusion

‘Dyslexia’ and ‘inclusion’ are terms that have international currency but can both be misunderstood. Every country is now striving towards an inclusive education system and many claim that they cater for dyslexia. Yet many parents will disagree with this. Education professionals themselves will likely embrace different perspectives on dyslexia and specifically whether it is fully catered for within an inclusive education system. Dyslexia and inclusion can be seen as challenging concepts for many in schools and developing an education system that successfully caters for both at the same time is quite an accomplishment.

The inclusion challenge is to develop not only an inclusive system, but also an effective one – one that caters for all and will help all children and young people reach their potential. Too often an inclusive policy means taking the middle ground and displaying a token acceptance to minority groups, which can at times be ineffective and inconsistent. Reid (2016) indicates that the following four key points need to be considered when supporting a child with dyslexia in an inclusive setting:

1. The need to consider the concept of effective learning – what is effective learning and how do we tailor it for an individual child in an inclusive school?
2. Understanding dyslexia – this is fundamental but often overlooked. An enhanced awareness of dyslexia needs to be prominent in schools and every teacher needs to know and understand what dyslexia is and how it can impact on the individual.
3. Learning strategies – these are different from learning programmes. Learning programmes tend to be externally driven but learning strategies are internal – that means the child’s individual have to be considered. This can help the young person achieve a degree of independence and self-sufficiency in learning. This is essential for the child to develop educationally, socially and emotionally in an inclusive school.
4. Learning environment – children with dyslexia can be very sensitive and particularly so in certain environments. It is crucial that they feel comfortable in the learning environment otherwise they may well stagnate or even regress. The best judge of whether they are comfortable or not is the child him/herself. Children will be able to let you know if they are comfortable in the school situation. They can communicate this directly but if they cannot find the words to express their feelings they may act out in other ways (e.g. school refusal/homework refusal, illness, headaches and psychosomatic complaints). It is important to identify this and take some action. Finding a classroom buddy for the child can help and giving him or her responsibility can also be useful. As well as making the child socially and emotionally comfortable it is also crucial that the curriculum and the pace of learning is appropriate for the child. It is important that children with dyslexia feel that they are keeping pace with the work of the class and not falling behind.

Provision

There is little doubt that over the last 20 years at least much has been done to support students with dyslexia within the school system. But support does not necessarily equate to inclusion. A group or individual can be supported and still not feel fully included in the mainstream curriculum. In the case of dyslexia, much of the effective support that has taken place has been in the form of specialised help and that has actually promoted the practice of exclusion rather than inclusion, although the conventional response to that statement would be that the specialist intervention is actually preparing the child to fit in more successfully in a mainstream class. Nevertheless, it is interesting that in the UK there are over 60 independent schools that claim they provide specialised support for dyslexia and on top of that there are countless education authority mainstream schools in the UK that have some form of specialised provision for dyslexia. This can be a dedicated off- and on-site support unit or specialised support within the classroom. Yet there is a national commitment to full inclusion in mainstream education! What is still a long way off is the comprehensive training and equipping of classroom teachers to deal with dyslexia without the need to refer to special provision. This would be the ideal in a fully inclusive education system.

Making it work

Teaching and specific strategies used in mainstream education for children with dyslexia are usually adapted and differentiated so that the student with dyslexia can benefit from mainstream classroom teaching. This can be augmented with specialist input depending on the needs of the child. But the extent and effectiveness of this differentiation can vary considerably. In the UK, the British Dyslexia Association’s (BDA’s) campaign promoting dyslexia-friendly schools and the materials that accompany this campaign have gone a long way to increasing dyslexia awareness in all schools. These provide suggestions and strategies that can be readily implemented by the class teacher to help make inclusion for the child with dyslexia a reality. But this is merely the tip of the iceberg and the conceptual understanding of dyslexia as a specialist area is still prominent. This in itself is not detrimental as a number of children with dyslexia do need support from a specifically trained and dyslexia accredited teacher. It is, however, the responsibility of those teachers who have obtained specialist qualifications in dyslexia to disseminate the appropriate areas of their training to all school staff.

Dyslexia

‘Dyslexia’, it might be argued, is a term that has been surrounded by confusion, ambiguity and on occasion controversy. This can give rise to anxiety for teachers and parents. Learners with dyslexia can display different types of profiles and this can be confusing for teachers who may see two dyslexic children but each has a different profile and different challenges. This emphasises the importance of obtaining a full and informed assessment of the student’s needs. Often, however, parents have to reach out to private independent psychologists or specialist teachers to obtain this. On paper, many schools do have provision for assessment and ascertaining needs, but in practice the situation where parents have to join a lengthy waiting list for a school assessment is still prominent.

Identifying needs and labelling

A label – such as dyslexia – can be useful for the teacher as it does provide an idea of the type of barriers the child will experience, but at the same time it is crucial that a needs assessment is carried out. This can be in terms of i) identifying the barriers to learning and ii) the support the child needs to access the curriculum (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Barriers and supports

Barriers to Learning	Supports to Access Curriculum
Decoding print/reading accuracy	Programme in phonological awareness and phonological processing
Reading fluency	Hi-lo books/audio books
Reading comprehension	Reciprocal reading/discussion (see later chapter)
Spelling issues	Use laptop and spellchecker – programs such as TextHelp – spelling programs
Expressive writing	Front-loaded vocabulary/writing frames
Processing speed	Extra time/fewer examples to be completed, e.g. in homework exercises/computer games
Working memory	Short instructions – overlearning/repetition
Self-esteem	Opportunities for success – use strengths – work with buddy
Motivation	Group work/focus on child’s own interests/success/constructive and positive feedback
Social integration	Group work – but select the group carefully and appropriately/team games

Core difficulties

There are a number of core characteristics of dyslexia that are important for identification and assessment and some of those can be spotted by the class teacher through observation, as shown in Table 1.2.

Table 1.2 Observation and barriers to learning

Observation	Teacher Comments
Level of attention	Comment on when and how the child attends and the duration.
Organisation	This includes personal organisation (e.g. bringing the correct books and other materials to school) and also organising work on a page in a notebook and in written work in general.
Can he/she sequencing sequence information (e.g. a story)?	This is important as many children with dyslexia do have difficulty with sequencing. Provide routines and structure.
Does he/she interact with others in class appropriately?	This can provide information on how the child adapts to his/her learning challenges and the learning environment.
Can the child express him/herself fluently?	This can be observed quite easily and it is important to take note of this. There can be a number of reasons for a lack of fluency such as a word-finding difficulty or indeed nervousness/anxiety or lack of confidence.
Are responses spontaneous or does he/she need to be prompted?	This can indicate a processing difficulty and the fact that the child needs cues and a structure to progress with the task.
How readily does the child comprehend information? Does he/she need the information to be repeated and explained further?	Quite often children with dyslexia do require repeated and clear explanations. This should not be seen as a problem but rather part of their learning needs.
What type of cues most readily facilitate comprehension? Does he/she prefer visual cues or demonstrations, or just repetition?	This can provide some information on the child’s learning profile and can give an indication of the type of strategies that may be effective for the child.
It is important to ascertain what types of instructions are most easily understood – written, oral, visual?	Obtaining a learning profile with some suggestions of the type of learning and teaching that can be effective for the child should not be overlooked. This is important even in a mainstream classroom where there will be a diversity of learners.
How readily can knowledge be transferred to other areas? For example, spelling rules – can he/she use a rule with different words?	This gives some clue to the child’s comprehension and also metacognitive abilities. This is important for effective and efficient learning.
Reading preferences – aloud, silent? It is a good idea to use both reading aloud and reading silently to test reading comprehension.	This is important as some children with dyslexia can have better comprehension when reading silently as opposed to reading aloud.
Type of errors made – this is important as it may indicate visual problems, phonological difficulties or lack of confidence in reading.	This is the diagnostic component of assessment and it is important to take account of the type of errors made and to use this information to inform teaching.
Difficulties in auditory discrimination – this can be seen when words that sound alike are confused (e.g. infringe/impinge, anonymous/unanimous). Similarly when words are visually similar (e.g. boat/bait).	Auditory processing difficulties can often be associated with dyslexia and can in fact be one of the key challenges. If auditory issues are identified it is important that a multi-sensory approach is used as the child may be more conducive to learning through the visual or kinaesthetic modality.
Motivation level? It is important to ascertain the level of motivation and specifically to find out what in particular motivates the child.	Often lack of motivation is misunderstood and can be wrongly attributed to laziness. Usually with children with dyslexia it is due to the challenges they experience with literacy and the challenge facing educators and parents is to locate materials that can facilitate motivation.
It is also important to try to work out how motivation increases and what kind of prompting and cueing is necessary for extending motivation.	This can be observed and is important in order to sustain interest in a topic.
To what extent does the child take responsibility for his/her own learning? This is important as it can help to identify the child’s confidence level or indeed his/her level of understanding....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Dyslexia and inclusion
• 2. Dyslexia and inclusion: perspectives and research
• 3. Five signposts for successful inclusion
• 4. Inclusion and intervention
• 5. Curriculum access: Identifying needs
• 6. Curriculum access: Classroom approaches
• 7. Curriculum access: Differentiation
• 8. Successful inclusion Six dimensions to consider – the learner, teacher, interventions, the curriculum, management and the home/school
• 9. Resources and summing up
• References
• Index