What is PD? Part 2.

New manual points to a fresh approach to dyslexia

Elisabeth Tarica

October 17, 2011

Nola Firth and Erica Frydenberg with Wedge Park Pupils

PRIMARY school teachers will be trained to support and empower students with dyslexia by building their resilience and coping skills while helping them become their own advocates.

The "Success and Dyslexia" program, said to be the first school-based dyslexia resilience program of its type, could change the way the learning disability is treated in Victorian schools.

Developed by Nola Firth and University of Melbourne educational psychologist Erica Frydenberg, it highlights the importance of coping strategies, assertiveness and positive thinking in dealing with the learning disability.

Based on research showing resilience as a more powerful predictor of success than the extent of dyslexia, the program is the result of 14 years of work for Dr Firth, a senior researcher at the Royal Children's Hospital's Centre for Adolescent Health and Murdoch Children's Research Institute.

Dr Firth, who has spent three years in trials of the program at Wedge Park and Darley Primary schools, says successful adults with dyslexia have a positive approach and display persistence and determination.

"It's so well documented that these kids suffer from learned helplessness because they've failed so often . . . we know that it is not the extent of dyslexia, it is how they handle it that is the predictor of success in life and that's powerful because we can change how people deal with it," she says.

Dyslexia is an inherited condition that causes people to have significant difficulty with reading, spelling and mathematics. It is estimated two to three children in every classroom have dyslexia, including some of the brightest, yet many go undiagnosed and struggle through school.

Experts say teachers have limited training to identify dyslexia and are generally unaware that it is genetic and lifelong. Despite dedicated literacy intervention, such as reading recovery, it can be resistant to improvement — a reason some students reach high school still struggling to read or write.

Dr Firth has heard countless accounts from undiagnosed adults about the intense shame and stress they felt at school. "They didn't understand what was happening to them and some of them are really quite angry because they really felt they should have had more support," she says.

Research shows that without intervention such students risk developing behavioural problems at school — they are likely to give up, withdraw socially, misbehave and eventually drop out.

"That can snowball into negative outcomes in school and life," she says.
The program is written as a manual and is designed to be incorporated into the curriculum to help schools address the emotional needs of struggling students.
Wedge Park Primary School principal Ron Shadbolt says students who took part in the program had a greater understanding of their condition.

"They displayed a greater degree of confidence and also persistence in the work they achieved in the classroom," he says. "The most important thing is that the students became very resilient regarding their condition."

Dr Firth is also buoyed by the change in students who were initially confused, afraid or even angry about having dyslexia. "By the end of it, most of them carry themselves with more assurance, more self-regard, firmer voices . . . they appear happier and that's quite wonderful to see."

The original article on theage.com.au

Did this make you reflect on your role as a teacher?  Did it change your attitudes towards teaching?  Did it reaffirm your core beliefs about teaching?  Can you put these thoughts in writing and show how it is going to make you a better teacher?

Then this is PD.

You don't have to be sitting in a room in front of a speaker, with other teachers, for it to be PD.  PD can come from many unlikely sources.  Keep an eye out for them!

Teachers have been using Newspaper articles as PD submissions for as long as I can remember.  It is a simple sideways step to use online editions of newspapers as a valid source of PD.  Unlike a physical newspaper, online it is often easier to target the articles that are relevant to you.

It can be as simple as going to this page;

http://education.theage.com.au/

and bookmarking it.  No searching through the paper for articles on Education, there they all are, segregated for you!  Many reputable newspapers do the same for their online versions and this gives you access to international newspapers daily!

Regards,

Mel.