Improving Literacy Skills for Children with Special Educational Needs

Heather Duncan, Sarah Parkhouse

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138154957
• eBook ISBN: 9781134550654
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This practical book, written by experienced practitioners, will help teachers of pupils with Special Educational Needs assess, record and improve the literacy skills of their pupils. The creation of the National Literacy Strategy and the Literacy Hour has put additional demands upon teachers, particularly those concerned with Special Needs. The book covers all aspects of literacy development through the Early and Primary Years including early skills, reading, phonological skills, writing, spelling and handwriting. This resource pack includes advice and ideas on record keeping with Individual Education Plans, assessing pupils' skills and strategies for future learning. It contains photocopiable checklists and assessment sheets for both teacher and pupil to complete and has clear child-friendly illustrated worksheets throughout. An indispensable resource for all classrooms.

Handwriting Skills

The starting point for the teacher is to collect a sample of the child's handwriting. This will enable the teacher to be able to establish where the child is in the development of handwriting skills.

The assessment sheet contains a sentence for the child to copy. This features all the components in handwriting which are needed for analysis (ascenders, curves, descenders).

The handwriting checklist provides a means for recording observations made during the assessment. It clarifies where the child needs to start.

Once this has been done, the teacher should use the results of the assessment to decide which target to set for the child, e.g.:

• to use a comfortable and efficient pen grip
• to write letters with correct ascenders
• to use capital letters appropriately
• to improve ‘c’ pattern movements
• to write on the line

Handwriting– A checklist for teachers

Name:______________________________________ Date: ______________________

Mechanics (circle)

1. Which hand does the child hold a pen with?	R	L	Unresolved
2. Does the child hold his pencil correctly?	Normal	Tense	Loose
3. Does the child correctly position the paper?	Yes	No
4. Does the child sit correctly?	Yes	No
Letter Formation (circle)
5. Are letters started correctly?	Yes	No
6. Are letters finished correctly?	Yes	No
7. Are the letters reversed/inverted?	Yes	No
8. Are the letters closed correctly?	Yes	No
9. Is a cursive script used?	Yes	No
Creating patterns (circle)
10. Has the child got difficulty with:
• push pattern movements (m n)	Yes	No
• pull pattern movements (lt)	Yes	No
• vertical pattern movements (l h)	Yes	No
• diagonal pattern movements (w v)	Yes	No
• ‘c’ pattern movements (a c)	Yes	No
Presentation
11. Does the child use the correct size letters?	ascenders descenders middle letters
12. Is spacing between letters appropriate?	Yes	No
13. Is spacing between words appropriate?	Yes	No
14. Do they use capital letters appropriately?	Yes	No
15. Do they write on the lines?	Yes	No

Additional comments

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The Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator's Handbook

A Guide for Implementing the Code of Practice

Garry Hornby, Gregan Davies and Geoff Taylor

‘It offers clear guidelines through the assessment procedures and supplements them with helpful proformas and illustrative material. . . . All in all, it should enhance the educational provision offered to pupils with special needs by helping schools to implement the Code of Practice effectively.’ – Times Educational Supplement

‘Easy to read and well organized. The Handbook will be a useful resource in responding to the Code and in stimulating solutions to the challenges.’ – Educational Research

‘This publication will provide concrete support in making action for SEN pupils a reality in your schoo...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Improving Literacy Skills for Children with Special Educational Needs
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• The National Literacy Strategy
• Assessing early skills
• Getting started – reading skills
• Grapheme/phoneme correspondence and phonological awareness
• High frequency words
• Getting started – writing skills
• Handwriting