Essay on teachers' perspectives on their role and the way they felt it impacted on children with dyslexia

Essay on teachers' perspectives on their role and the way they felt it impacted on children with dyslexia

Teachers always wants their students to do well in the class but unfortunately it is always observed that one or two children in the class are not making expected progress One of the reasons in the lack of progress is in learning to read. Very often it is found that the teachers and parents are reluctant or not able to understand the problem behind the learning difficulty in a child. This difficulty in reading is a learning disorder termed as dyslexia. Understanding dyslexia is very important for teachers as they are the one who will guide the children to succeed in career and life. The teachers should have knowledge of the underlying behavioural and cognitive difficulties associated with dyslexia. It is the responsibility of both the school authority and the teachers working in the school to provide a best platform for the student to overcome the problems of dyslexia. Every school should have their own policy which will help them in better understanding of their role to guide and improve those students so that they can do as good as other normal children are doing.

St Edward’s Catholic Academy always believes in providing equal rights to all the students for which it follows certain principles and frame polices to help those students who really wants help. The school is very open and make it sure to all the parents that they have well trained teachers who are able to identify the problems in the children and help them to achieve their goal in life by providing provision for children with special education needs. There are guidelines in the school policy which are followed by the teachers which help them to recognise those students who have learning disabilities and the whole process is coordinated by Mrs Ann Cashmore who is very much experienced in SEN coordination. The teacher in charge discuss with parents the support they can provide to their child with special education needs and also can give suggestions to the parents to guide the children with SEN when they are at home To analyse the teacher’s perspective on their role in guiding the students with dyslexia and to find their impact on the children a semi structured interview is conducted in which few questionaries are framed and the responses are analysed under four headings:

Dyslexia and special educational needs: It is quite controversial that weather students who have learning disability or dyslexia should go for mainstream schooling or Special education schools. It is evident that children with dyslexia has normal intelligence and normal vision. A well-trained teacher can bring change in their life by giving them support. In our school two students are identified to have dyslexia. student with dyslexia can definitely perform well in a mainstream school but the teachers are required to play a vital role to help them compete with the other normal student’s Emotional support from the teacher play a significant role in this matter. The guidance is provided in 1:1ratio with special trained teachers and care is taken that the above students are provided extra 10 -15 mins daily so that they can perform like other students

Training inclusion: It is very essential that all teachers have adequate knowledge to effectively understand and manage the problem in the mainstream classroom. The class teacher regularly attends CPD training course of SEND inclusion. It is very important for the teachers to motivate the students to learn more and have confidence on themselves. The teachers should prepare the student for the life beyond school. They should have a positive attitude towards supporting dyslexia student. An awareness of what dyslexia is, its impact and how it can be supported within an inclusive school community can bring a major change in their life. In the interview two well experienced teacher, Teacher A and teacher B have participated and they are found to have knowledge and ability to recognise the problem. The researches have done qualitative interview by framing some question in which they have asked about the number of student having dyslexia; number of trained teacher who are assigned for them, progress that is noticed in them .They have also assessed about the time the student spent in the class, about the extra support for them and weather they have access to national curriculum. It came into limelight that all the teachers are required to participate equally to train the students with dyslexia by giving them extra time and support .Teacher A and B are found to be actively involved in this mission .They identified a student A who has been helped to overcome the problem and the school authority of the mainstream school; are very supportive in this work. She was helped by the class teacher when she was giving exam by verbally explaining the question and providing exam instructions. She has really performed very well.

Teaching styles: Many teaching styles are there that can be adopted to help the students with dyslexia. The study conducted shows the use of some of the most popular methods: The Orton–Gillingham Method: According to this method the style adopted by the teachers is to focus on the connection between letters and their sounds and develop overall comprehension. In this style a multisensory approach is used which means that sight, sound, touch and movement all work in tandem when learning word The Structured Literacy Approach: This style used by the teacher has focussed on connecting sounds to their symbols (letters) in two ways: visually, through reading, and auditorily, through spelling. The teacher can use any style in teaching but it is very important that they are compassionate and supportive to the students.

4.Literature Review: An extensive literature review done which has given the idea that dyslexia affect an individual’s ability to read, write, apply basic numerical concepts, and interpret or process visual information, as well as impacting on their short-term memory. The symptoms associated with dyslexia are to be identified by the trained teachers so that they can deal with their problem and it has shown a positive impact of interventions on the dyslexic individual (Duff & Clarke, 2011 p 3; Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2006 p 412; Savage & Carless, 2008p 365; Snowling & Hulme, 2011 p 23). According to Rose Report (Rose, 2009 pp91-92) phonological skills are very important for teaching children with dyslexia. Phonological processing skills refer to the skills needed to use phonemes (i.e., the sounds in language) to process spoken and written language (Wagner & Torgersen, 1987 p192). The broad category of phonological processing includes the cognitive skills of phonological awareness (the ability of focus on and manipulate the sounds in spoken words) and phonological working memory retrieval (the ability to store and recall the correct phoneme sound from memory). Deficits in these skills are commonly associated with dyslexia. Consequently, as intervening at this level can improve a pupil's literacy performance, it could be argued that teachers need to be trained to understand how to recognize a child who is struggling with these cognitive skills and how to intervene to improve performance. Furthermore, Snowling (2012 p 12) states that “a good starting point for developing an intervention is understanding the causes of a disorder. Research conducted in 1996 suggested that despite the increasing contact that teachers had with pupils with special educational needs (SEN) at the time, it was not adequately covered in initial teacher training (ITT; Garner, 1996 p 192). With continuous research into SEN and dyslexia, it would be expected that this situation has improved. However, research conducted by Webster and Blatchford (2015 pp 324-342) indicates that training of the teachers and teaching assistants are very important to guide the students with dyslexia and qualitative interviews shows that in majority of cases well training for teachers are not there to support SEN in their class.

Conclusion: The present study based on the interview conducted reveals that it is very important that all the teachers in the mainstream school are well trained and equipped to give personal attention and support to the students with dyslexia. This will help the student to cope with their problem and be ready to do well in their life. The school authority along with the teacher are providing the best support for all the students to excel. The main strength of the school is there highly trained teachers. The school can also make an arrangement for the future to provide TA for each teacher who can act as a support and they can use innovative technologies for improving the learning disabilities in the students.

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REFERENCES

1.Duff, F. J& Clarke, P. J. (2011). Practitioner Review: Reading disorders: What are the effective interventions and how should they be implemented and evaluated? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52(1), PP 3–12

2. Fletcher, J. M., Lyon, G. R., Fuchs, L. S., & Barnes, M. A. (2006). Learning disabilities: From identification to intervention. New York, 11(3 ) PP 412-414

3. Garner, P. (1996). A special education? The experiences of newly qualifying teachers during initial training. British Educational Research Journal, 22(2), 155–164.

4. Rose, J. (2009). Identifying and teaching children and young people with dyslexia and literacy difficulties (The Rose Report). Nottingham, UK: DCSF Publications. PP 91-92

5. Savage, R., & Carless, S. (2008). The impact of early reading interventions delivered by classroom assistants on attainment at the end of year 2. British Educational Research Journal, 34(3), PP 363–385.

6. Snowling, M. J., & Hulme, C. (2011). Evidence‐based interventions for reading and language difficulties: Creating a virtuous circle. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 81(1), PP 1–23.

7. Snowling, M. J. (2012). Early identification and interventions for dyslexia: A contemporary view. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 13(1), PP 7–14

8. Wagner, R. K., & Torgersen, J. K. (1987). The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. Psychological Bulletin ,101, PP 192–212.

9. Webster, R., & Blatchford, P. (2015). Worlds apart? The nature and quality of the educational experiences of pupils with a statement for special educational needs in mainstream primary schools. British Educational Research Journal, 41(2), PP 324–342.