Dyslexia Workshop for Year 3 Parents 10 May 2018 Mrs Adams - SENCo

Introduction What is the dyslexia screening? What do the results mean? How do we support children with dyslexia at Hayes? 2

What is Dyslexia? 'Dyslexia can be described as a continuum of difficulties in learning to read, write and/or spell, which persist despite the provision of appropriate learning opportunities. These difficulties often do not reflect an individual's cognitive abilities and may not be typical of performance in other areas. The impact of dyslexia as a barrier to learning varies in degree according to the learning and teaching environment, as there are often associated difficulties such as: auditory and /or visual processing of language-based information phonological awareness oral language skills and reading fluency short-term and working memory sequencing and directionality number skills organisational ability Dyslexia exists in all cultures and across the range of abilities and socio-economic backgrounds. It is a hereditary, life-long, neurodevelopmental condition. More details can be found on the British Dyslexia website which is full of useful information. The link is: http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyslexic/dyslexia-and-specific-difficulties-overview 3

What is the Screening? The screening we use is called LUCID Rapid. The children are taken out in a small group, each child wears headphones and goes through the activities on a laptop. It takes approximately 15 minutes. There are three parts, they identify difficulties with: phonological processing, auditory memory and visual verbal integration (phonic decoding skills) (During the workshop parents were shown the computer based test). Below is a link to the LUCID manual which has some very useful explanations of the screening tool, case studies with how the results are interpreted and suggestions for ways to support children’s phonological processing and auditory memory at home: https://www.lucid-research.com/documents/manuals/manual_lr_tg.pdf 4

What do the results mean? It is useful to screen the whole year group to ensure we haven't missed a child who is having difficulties. We look at results inline with the child’s progress in reading and writing (we might carry out an early screen before this point in year 3 if we have concerns about a child’s reading and writing). The results indicate low, moderate or high likelihood of dyslexia. Each of the three scores is shown as a centile score – with 50 being average. The National Percentile Rank (NPR) indicates the percentage of students obtaining any score or below. NPR of 50 is average. NPR of 5 means that the student’s score is within the lowest 5% of the national sample and NPR of 95 means that the student’s score is within the highest 5% of the national sample. For moderate likelihood indicators – intervention is put in place to address areas of weakness (additional support with ready or writing, spelling support, memory support) and consideration given to further exploration of dyslexia, this involves an in school 1:1 assessment with the child using the ‘Dyslexia Portfolio’. For high likelihood indicators we would carry out the ‘Dyslexia Portfolio’ to gain further information on the child’s areas of strengths and difficulties. Next steps from this point may involve a specialist dyslexic assessor carrying out further assessment either through school or privately.

Dyslexia Friendly Classrooms A list of strategies (see below) was given out to parents and discussed. Strategies that support children with dyslexia support all children. Research shows the best indicator of supporting progress for children with dyslexia is in class support and differentiation, not always specific interventions. The pdf from the NASEN website below has a thorough overview of how to support children with dyslexia in the classroom: http://www.nasen.org.uk/utilities/download.286D7D63-9AA4-4E39- 85E3A04B72D0C618.html 6