Audience: Teachers and Support Staff

Phase: Primary

Price: £25 for participants who are not staff members of GEP or Athena Trusts.

Humans are genetically programmed to develop speech and language, but reading is a complex process which needs to be taught using a shared and collaborative approach. At secondary school, learners transit from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’ which requires efficient and accurate reading skills. Reading with automaticity often remains problematic for secondary learners with dyslexia. The Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity has been supporting learners with dyslexia for nearly 50 years.

In this presentation we will explore the reasons why such learners often struggle to read efficiently and reflect their understanding of texts, as well as highlighting the strengths that many bring to the learning process. In our work with schools, we find that teachers naturally use a range of tools and strategies to support reading.

As part of our mission we aim to empower teachers and parents further by signposting them to a range of tips, strategies and resources to support dyslexic learners in the classroom. For this presentation, we will consider strategies and resources to support secondary-aged children’s reading accuracy and comprehension, to aid successful access to the curriculum.