Literacy Support

Resources we like:

• British Dyslexia Association
• Dyslexia Scotland
• patoss
• Dyslexia Friendly Schools Good Practice Guide
• A History of Dyslexia
• Made By Dyslexia

The Driver Youth Trust has created a Drive for Literacy (DfL) toolkit which is built on the Graduated Approach and starts with Quality First Teaching. It aims to build teacher capability and school capacity to identify and support learners who struggle with reading, writing, speaking and listening,

It is built around the three principles:

• Equal access, where all children are able to learn despite their difficulties.
• Understanding what literacy difficulties are and seeing merit in addressing their impact on educational outcomes for children and young people.
• Good teaching practice that benefits those with literacy difficulties.

What Works for Children and Young People with Literacy Difficulties Greg Brooks University of Sheffield

This book addresses the following questions:

What intervention schemes are there which have been used in the UK in an attempt to boost the reading, spelling or overall writing attainment of lower-achieving pupils between the ages of 5 and 18, and have been quantitatively evaluated here?

What are those schemes like, and how effective are they?

• Read Oxford: A reading research group based at the University of Oxford.
• SQ4R Method: SQ4R stands for survey, question, read, recite, relate, and review. These six steps can help you learn and remember what you read more effectively.
• ECHO Reading: Echo reading is a rereading strategy designed to help students develop expressive, fluent reading as well as used for print knowledge. In echo reading, the teacher reads a short segment of text, sometimes a sentence or short paragraph, and the student echo it back. "Echo reading works best for short segments of text as particularly well-suited for beginning readers" (Jennings, Caldwell, and Lerner, 2014). Since the strategy can be used to develop both print knowledge as well as fluency there are different techniques within the strategy to be used to differentiate between the two literacy development areas.  It is important that in this strategy that teacher make sure to use pointing when reading so students can gain the letter to print concept.
• Effect of Prior Knowledge on Good and Poor Readers' Memory of Text
• For Reading, Knowledge Matters More Than Strategies, Some Experts Say
• Closing the Word Gap - Activities for the Classroom
• The Ultimate Guide to Phonological Awareness
• Barrington Stoke Little Gems
• Barrington Stoke Fiction Pack
• Piper Books - The straightforward programme to transform every child into a reader
• Goal! Phonic based books - high interest reading books

• National Curriculum Spellings
• Cued Spelling
• Using Mnemonics and Quirky Rhymes

Advice for Specialist Assessors from SASC

YES@ Areté Learning Trust offer a screening service for Visual Stress difficulties. The diagnostic assessment which costs £10 will be carried out by Inese Yeardley who qualified as an Orthoptist in 1970 from the Manchester School of Orthoptics and became a clinical tutor in 1996. To book an appointment please email yes@aretelearningtrust.org

In the classroom a range of resources can be used to support students with visual stress.

• Reading Rulers
• Tinted Exercise Books 9 x 7
• Coloured Page Overlays

For a comprehensive review of assistive technology, we recommend the BDA Technologies website.

Yes@ Areté Learning Trust can provide training and support with the following assistive technology

Text to Speech

Yes@ Areté Learning Trust have worked closely with Text Help to start to develop the effective use of the Read and Write software throughout the trust schools.

The RNIB Bookshare UK education collection enables learners with print disabilities, including those with dyslexia and who are blind or partially sighted, to read the same collection, at the same time as their peers, giving them the same educational opportunities. All books are “accessible,” which means you can read our books many different ways:

• Listen to books with high quality text-to-speech voices
• Hear and see highlighted words on screen
• Read with digital braille or enlarged fonts
• Create physical braille or large print
• Read directly from your Internet browser

• Scaffolded Writing
• Paired Writing
• Alternatives to Written Recording
• Colourful Semantics