In his review, Jim Rose said, 'The indications are that, when children do not get a really good start [well taught, Wave 1, synthetic phonics teaching], they are likely to need interventions to enable them to 'catch up' and 'recover' ground that they should not have lost in the first place. (Rose 2006. 100)
The Options:
1. Rely on 'in school' support based on the content of an IEP
(Individual Education Plan) which, presently, due to the wide-spread
lack of knowledge of the most effective way to teach reading,
usually amounts to little more than learning the high frequency words as 'sight words'; ''I am working
with some who know loads of the NLS high frequency words but
who cannot blend an unknown CVC word unaided'' (Y2
teaching assistant doing remedial work with poor readers) Ruth Miskin (ex. headteacher, now synthetic phonic programme developer and trainer) visited..'an Islington school of 400, 120 children were on the SEN register. 115 of these could not read. The SEN co-ordinator was so busy filling in Individual Education Plans that she had no time to teach them. Comments would be made such as ‘He needs to learn his sounds’. Ruth’s response was ‘Then teach them!’ Schools often want children on the SEN register: the more children it has there, the more excuse it has in OFSTED inspections. In two months, Ruth managed to get 80 children off the register '(RRFnewsletter 59 p21) 'Across the country more than one in five of all pupils are on 'Special Needs' registers - and in some schools the figure is as high as a staggering 55% or more' (Marks. RRF46. p12) The majority of the children with unstatemented SEN are on the register simply because they have not been properly taught how to read. All schools should have a PREVENTION strategy in place for those children who are slower, for whatever reason, learning to read. This should be more of the classroom synthetic phonics programme, or one that follows exactly the same principles, but done one-to-one for a short period daily for however long it takes to get the child 'on board'.
The DCSF 'Wave 2' small group, intervention programmes (ELS /ALS/ FLS) were whole-word based. When the the Rose Report appeared they were withdrawn and should no longer be in use. ELS was rewritten (Jan 2008)
with the aim of bringing it in line with the Rose Report which stated that, 'High quality (synthetic) phonic work, as defined by the review, should be a key feature of the provision in each of these 'waves' (Rose 2006. 133) Unfortunately, the revised ELS appears to consist of the new DCFS programme, Letters and Sounds, bolted on to the original whole-language programme, rather than a genuine rewrite. It still includes a miscue analysis assessment, uses 'real books' rather than decodable texts, and contains a high percentage of superfluous whole-language exercises and 'busy-work' which will not help your child learn to read.
WARNING: Inexplicably, the programmes recommended by the DCSF for 'Wave 3' interventions, i.e. highly personalised interventions for children on School Action, School Action Plus or with a Statement of special educational needs e.g. Catch Up, Sound Linkage, FisherFamilyTrust Wave3 and Reading Recovery (a.k.a the 'Every Child a Reader' project), are based on mixed-methods and should NOT be used. They teach children the multi-cueing strategies, which the Rose Report rightly rejected, and rely on the memorisation and guessing of high frequency words through the use of repetitive/predictive text found in whole-language books; any phonics element is of the intrinsic/embedded variety. They do not teach the Alphabet Code. The result is to 'add insult to injury' and your child is likely to have limited reading ability on completion of these programmes. They will not have learnt the complete code or how to de-code novel words through sounding-out and blending and the unhelpful guessing habit will have been strengthened. For evidence-based, high quality phonic intervention programmes see Resources 10 and Sound Reading System .
2. Obtain a Statement. It is assumed that most children
with less severe learning difficulties will receive 'in school'
help for their difficulties with funding from the school budget,
the type of help being specified in their IEP (Individual
Education Plan) The only way to get extra LEA funding for
more specialist help is to obtain a 'Statement'. This is a
document that sets out a child's needs and all the extra help
he or she should get. Statements for 'dyslexia' are notoriously
difficult to obtain and the experience of trying to obtain
one can be extremely stressful, time consuming and very expensive. Also, unless you manage to employ the
services of an educational psychologist to help you, who is
keen on, and knowledgeable about evidence-based reading programmes,
your child's statement is unlikely to result in the school
problems disappearing and in them being taught how to read. It is the CONTENT of the statement which is important. By
law, the content must be "specific, detailed and quantified".
Unless it specifies the use of a fully evidence-based, remedial
reading programme and resources, (see Resources 10) and there are trained personnel
READY, ABLE and WILLING to deliver the specified content one-to-one, the statement
will be of no use whatsoever..
3. Only for the wealthy, or for the few who can obtain a grant
- an independent, specialist 'dyslexia' school. This usually involves the child boarding,
which can be an extra trauma for an already unhappy child,
and there is NO guarantee that the school will use the most
effective remedial method (a high quality, synthetic phonic intervention programme) to teach reading. www.rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?t=3432
4. Home education, possibly on a short-term basis only, whilst
the parents or a tutor concentrate on remediating the literacy
problems- see UK Home Education.
5. Privately arranged specialist tuition. Carefully chosen remedial reading tuition can be the solution
if it can be afforded, and as long as the child is happy to
attend. For school-attending
children specialist tuition can take place, legally, off the school premises during
school hours, at the discretion of the school - Registration
Code B / Approved educational activity off-site. For the youngest children, 6-7 yr. olds, this is almost essential as they are far too tired after school. Parents should approach the school in a spirit of co-operation and negotiate a mutually agreeable time to withdraw their child for tuition. It is, after all, in the school's interest to have their pupils able to read and write effectively.
In law it is always the PARENTS' duty to provide a SUITABLE education for their children, including catering for any special needs. Normally parents delegate this duty to a school. If parents believe that the school is failing to provide their child with a 'suitable' education then the parents are obliged to do something about it. It would irresponsible of them if they didn't do so. By arranging specialist tuition, they are merely trying to fulfil their lawful duty by setting up what the school can't/won't provide. The school needs to have a very good reason to withhold consent - is the school is able to provide equivalent tuition (time, room space and expertise) on the school premises, paid for by the school? Probably not! If the school refuses, then the parents should contact their LEA's SEN department and explain the situation.
A parent comments:'The parents are stuck between a rock
and a hard place. A position I experienced when my child was
going through school.
THE ROCK. You want to do the best for your child and do what
you can at home to support them. You look for private tuition,
sit with them to do homework etc. However the child is often
very difficult because they don't want to do the extra lessons
at home, they don't want to do their reading etc. The constant
battle to get homework done or even getting them to school
etc creates a very stressful environment of arguments and
tantrums and can have a negative effect on your relationship
with the child and can affect other family members.
The reason the child is being difficult
at home is because they find school a very stressful place where they're constantly
put under pressure to get work finished, struggling with reading, or are fighting
emotions where they've been told their work is just not good enough. They're very
much aware of their limitations when they compare themselves with their own peer
group. They often keep their emotions in check in school and vent their frustrations,
anger, upsets at home. The last thing they want is to come home and find it's a
continuation of school more reading, more work etc.
HARD PLACE. When the homework, reading practise etc fails
to get done at home, you are viewed, by the school, as unsupportive
parents. If you go into the school asking for help etc. you
are viewed as "pushy parents"
(quote with permission
Sheridan Sharp)
Choosing a remedial tutor:
If you plan to use an independent tutor to help your child, then check the CONTENT and the TIME FRAME of the programme
that the tutor will provide, extremely carefully. A good programme will usually take between 15 - 25, one hour, one-to-one sessions
to remediate effectively. A few children, who have been left
very confused and damaged by whole-word reading practices,
may take a little longer. Some specialist programmes for 'dyslexia'
take years to complete and leave children still unable to
read properly. They should be avoided for your child's (and
your wallet's!) sake.
Make sure that the tutor uses a evidence-based, highly structured,
intensive, synthetic / linguistic phonic programme -see main
methods 3 as the basis for their teaching. Also, avoid
any tutor who claims to 'tailor the lessons to a child's individual
learning style' or uses a home-made 'mixture of methods' See- What NOT to do
The chosen programme must work rapidly with positive advances
to the child's reading and writing skills being perceptible
to all involved - parent, child and tutor - within a very
short time. Furthermore, the tutor should, 'Involve the
parent... directly in homework so that she has a positive
role and can maintain gains between sessions and after sessions
have ended.' (D McGuinness WCCR
p320)
http://www.rrf.org.uk/newsletter.php?n_ID=91
'Must read' article by an independent tutor.
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