Stopping kids falling through the cracks
A Manawatu¯ tutoring service is working to stop children with learning difficulties falling through the cracks.
Palmerston North organisation Speladd is a registered charity that trains tutors to work with people with specific learning capabilities and the organisation has been running training seminars for tutors this week.
While its services are also available for adults, Speladd deals with children with dyslexia, ADHD and other learning difficults. The New Zealand Dyslexia Foundation estimates one in 10 New Zealanders, including 70,000 schoolchildren, are dyslexic.
Manawatu¯ ’s Speladd president Elizabeth Manson said the organisation worked with people who had more than 100,000 combinations of learning difficulties.
‘‘We are a specialist service because we’ve had the training and we know how to recognise these people [with learning difficulties] and how to work with them. Because they don’t work the same ways that are often taught in the school system, they learn differently.’’
Assessor Jess Lightbody said the organisation used a one-to-one teaching system and the system was matched to each child.
‘‘We looking not just at learning, but whatever else may be interfering with the learning. Whether that’s food, mood or parenting.’’
Lightbody said looking at everything that could affect learning made Speladd different and it always tried to keep up with education research. Training is available for teachers, teacher aides, parents and special needs coordinators and this week they were shown how simple interventions could have an immediate effect on children’s learning and quality of life. Some of the work Speladd does includes sounding out words smoothly or knowing how to recognise signs of visual disturbance. ‘‘By fine tuning perceptual and motor skills, while removing barriers to learning such as physical discomfort, we help optimise the chance for success in learning,’’ Lightbody said.
Children can be referred to Speladd by parents, schools or doctors.