Multisensory Structured Literacy and Learning Differences - Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and Dysgraphia
Primary and Intermediate School English
Literacy lessons for Primary (Years 1-6) and Intermediate (Years 7-8) students are closely aligned to the New Zealand Curriculum, and all lesson planning is based on assessment information. Lessons include spelling, writing and reading components.
Is your child struggling to read and spell? Are they showing signs of learning differences such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or dysgraphia?
Spelling
All students are assessed to see which spelling patterns and rules they are familiar with. From here, students begin lessons focusing on an area of spelling or grammar that they are developing. This is to allow for consolidation of learning, to see whether learning is being transferred into their written work and to introduce new patterns.
Writing
Students write across a range of text types including personal recounts, character and place descriptions, narratives, speeches, instructions, reports, explanations and arguments. This is done to ensure that students have a good grounding across curriculum in preparation for high school studies. Ideally, these text types are taught at the same time they are being studied at school. Time is spent developing students’ understanding of structure, grammar, punctuation and writing features which apply to each text type.
Models of writing are used to allow students to understand what they are aiming for when it comes to meeting the expectations of their goals. Once a piece of writing has been completed, feedback and goals for the next piece of writing are shared with the student and their family.
Where necessary, letter formation is taught. This is picked up as the student works by their teacher and corrected with practise, pen grip and modelling.
Reading
Often students want to work on their reading comprehension, this is done using short texts, looking for key words, clues in the text and vocabulary development. Students who are just learning to read follow a different lesson format and this can be found under 'Multisensory Structured Literacy and Learning Differences'.
