Name it ‘Dyslexia’

I agree with the creators of The Big Picture, Rethinking Dyslexia, when they say, that knowledge about Dyslexia isn’t enough any more. We need action. I have recently been approached by my friend Martin to put forward at petition to the Liberal NSW State Government about Dyslexia and their inability to address the issue in our schools.

Anyone who read the weekend papers couldn’t help notice major articles about our failure to teach literacy and numeracy to a big population of primary students and the push ‘back to basics’: ‘We need a more rigorous phonics-based approach!’ – REALLY? Hasn’t that been the only approach so far? Obviously it hasn’t addressed the issue in the past 10 years of pushing phonics. Do they believe that phonics wasn’t properly taught by our teachers? The article did question the teachers’ knowledge of grammar. I don’t believe we can blame teachers any longer. In my opinion they are putting in an amazing amount of work, dealing with an increasing number of children who are unable to sit through a system, that doesn’t serve them at all – at the same time dealing with more time-poor and frustrated parents, who are equally at a loss on how to help their children.

In my article to the NSW Education Board, I have suggested to have a school for visual learners, which doesn’t mean that we are bunching together all the ‘struggling kids’ and teach them in the same way as before – a system that hasn’t worked at all in the past, as they often distract and copy each other in non-supportive behaviour – but instead supporting alternative visions and approaches (of different people), designed to bring out their huge talents, their creativity and inspire them to contribute to society as only they can – in another word: COOL SCHOOLS.

I guess I won’t hold my breath to hear back from them.

Read a good article:
Taking action on Dyslexia