The AchieveAbility project welcomed last week’s House of Lords debate on dyslexia.
Several important points were highlighted, including that as 10 per cent of the population has a specific learning difficulty (SpLD), dyslexia could be managed better if catered for earlier in childhood.
A recent poll of teachers showed that 90% believe dyslexic students should remain in mainstream education but only 12% believe they have the resources and training to support them. If ‘every child matters’ is to be more than just rhetoric there is an urgent need for teacher training to be changed to address the needs of SpLD learners.
The HEFCE-funded AchieveAbility project has been working strenuously to raise awareness of this issue. A current pilot project seeks to enhance teaching practice by embedding excellent teaching practice for SpLD learners within mainstream classroom planning. The pilot demonstrates that this practice can benefit a wide ability of learners, as well as support the learning of those students with SpLD.
The Project wishes to state its concern that 10% of the population might not have had their educational needs met, and the massive intellectual loss this represents in terms of wasted talent.
www.bdaweb.co.uk/bda/downloads/Lords.pdf - for BDA Response
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4510516.stm - BBC Article
