Neil MacKay:Removing dyslexia as a barrier to achievement

Neil MacKay:Removing Dyslexia as a barrier to achievement

http://www.4d.org.nz/edge/about_neilmackay.html

Sara and I went on this course and have the following condensed ideas to use in classrooms:

1. Make adjustments by using visual supports and time allowances
2. Leave up models and info on the board...don't rub off ! Allow time for questions and give    specific examples.
3. Use over-learning and repetition
4. If a dyslexic child raises their hand ...ask them first as they may have "forgotten"by the time you get around to them
5 . REPEAT what you have said...don't rephrase it

Below are further ideas from the website http://www.4d.org.nz/edge/about_neilmackay.html

Some info on Neil MacKay

Neil MacKay is one of the world’s foremost thinkers on dyslexia and author of the acclaimed resource book Removing Dyslexia as a Barrier to Achievement. (This book is in the DL resource area)

The creator of Britain’s Dyslexia Friendly Schools concept, Mr MacKay is an experienced teacher with 26 years in mainstream schools. As a consultant to the British Dyslexia Association, he also successfully initiated a national campaign to encourage multi-sensory teaching in British schools. 
These are some of the main ideas:

Equity in education means doing the right thing for each individual. It is not about treating everyone equally – one size does not fit all. And inclusion is about meeting needs, not physical location. In other words, it can be inclusive to actually take a student out of class to meet their needs. Conversely, it is very ‘un-inclusive’ to keep the student sitting in the classroom while ignoring his/her needs. 

If you get it right for dyslexics, you get it right for everyone. The classroom interventions and personalised teaching that benefit dyslexic students can also produce constructive results for all students, lifting performance across the board. This results in ‘school improvement by stealth’, enabling self-managing schools to pursue whole school improvement goals within a dyslexia-aware agenda. This is because dyslexia provides a manageable, defined group of students to deal with as a starting point. Importantly, Maori and Pacific Island students, who historically have oral cultures, can also gain significant benefits with this approach. 

Overall, dyslexic individuals tend to think in big pictures and concepts, taking longer with detail. Often, it is not that the dyslexic student doesn’t know the answer, it’s just they have trouble retrieving it. This neurobiological fact provides the science to support why extra time, for example, is a very important classroom accommodation that dyslexic students have a right to.

This new teaching paradigm is based on the highly effective classroom strategy of ‘notice and adjust’ – notice those children who are getting stuck and make reasonable adjustments in the way they are taught and assessed, including personalised learning and alternative evidence of achievement.

Personalised learning includes strategies based on developing comprehension through use of context, syntax and grammar, and looking at areas such as organisation of ideas, planning skills, learning to remember, raising self-esteem and valuing emotional intelligence. Multi-sensory techniques, effective use of language, chunking of tasks and instructions, assessment for learning and marking alternative evidence of achievement (work presented in forms other than writing, for example mind maps) are also valuable tools.

Overall, it is important to understand dyslexia as a learning preference and work with, and support, students from this preference perspective. Put simply, this means understanding that dyslexics think differently, and so naturally prefer to receive, process and present information in the way that makes more sense to them.