The Elevator Series

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So the elevator series is going to be a series from about now until roughly Easter time. I'm aiming to get something out every week, and it's based on a concept that somebody taught to me while I was doing my PhD, which was you were stood in a lift or elevator next to somebody, and you had to sell your PhD in to them in less than two minutes. It's the key things.

It's what would you say to them? It's got to be short. It can't have all the masses of technical information that you might like to give to somebody when you're going into the whole level of detail of the project.

In my case, it was PhD, but the whole level of detail that you might, if you were given a 15, 20 minute long, proper, solid, meaty presentation, it's got to have little packages of information that a person can take away and mull over and make sense of. That will probably cause a few questions to come up in their mind. So you plan ideas.

You'd give ideas you might signpost some of the places you can go. And the idea of this series is I'm going to do some short little packages of information over the next few weeks, a couple of months about specific learning difficulties, how it is, what it affects in people in the classroom, how people might want to have support, how people might want to proceed once they've understood exactly what their difficulties are. Um, and who you might want to talk to.

In the process, I'm going to give you some online resources. I'm going to give you some tips here and now in the little sessions that I'll give you. And I'm going to give you just, just some tidbits of information.

I'm going to think about the first signs of dyslexia. What might it look like in the classroom, how a teacher might be able to support you, who you might need to talk to, and kind of working out where if you're going to get assessed, how it will happen, what it looks like in an assessment. And then once you've been assessed, what next?

Because it's a big it's a big thing to learn. And then thinking about actually you've got a skill set, you have got a mighty fine skill set. If you're dyslexic and it's looking at what you can do with it, I hope you enjoy it and I hope it's useful.

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Hey all! I hope that junior is plodding on in a relatively inoffensive, innocuous manner. So for episode two of the elevator series, we're looking at how reading looks when people find it tricky.

If you are a teacher asking young people to read in class and they're hesitant, or they kind of bury their heads when you ask for volunteers to read, it's quite likely that they're not keen on reading. They find it difficult. It might be that people use their finger to track what they're reading.

It might be that people have a ruler in front of what they're reading. It might be just that they seem to take a really long time. I am one of those people.

You will watch me mouthing the words as I read it, because sub-vocalising, it just helps me slow down and make sense of it. And for me, it's about remembering where I am in the line. My working memory is shocking, which is one of the things that can make reading quite tricky for people.

It can be that blending, blending words. So if your phonological processing is just a bit wobbly, you might not be able to make sense of how to put all the sounds together or how to shrink them down. Or you may just not be familiar with the words that you're reading because it's just a complete chore.

Things you can do about it. Don't give people huge, great big bunches a really bunched up text. Really good wide spacing.

On a pragmatic level, can be a really good way to help people with their reading. What I have put is some resources. So for young people in primary school who find reading tricky, there is a brilliant free website.

It follows the kind of government phase one, two, three of phonics program, which is the first link. The second link is for parents, and it's aimed at how they might be able to help their children. Um, various different strategies there.

And for secondary teachers, there's a little bit of ideas there, and it's under one of the research schools at Durrington. Absolutely brilliant. The work they do.

Have a look, see if it gives you any useful information. I hope it's been handy. Take care.

Have a good one.

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So episode three you're not really into writing. One of the major things affected in dyslexia is writing. It can be because of the kind of movements needed, the intricacy of fine motor skills.

It can be working out how to chunk words down, to build them up again into other words that you're familiar with. It's less formation. It can be whether you're not sure whether somebody needs to do cursive writing.

It's actually very, very demanding task writing, and it seems quite trivial, but it isn't. So I have got a few ideas around underpinning writing. So letter formation is actually kind of preceded by fine motor skills.

Pre writing skills are absolutely vital. And it's about working these fingertips getting them strong getting the stamina there. There is a link.

The second link is actually pre writing skills. So that's looking at pen skills. But also things like making pom poms making scrunchies.

Those great 90s inventions that have worked their way back into our kind of school culture. I don't know how I feel about that. I made a lot of scrunchies when I was about eight.

Um, and then letter formation, if you've got those fine motor skills, if you've got the stamina. Your letter formation hopefully will be just a little bit more straightforward. There are some handwriting schemes of work that are very good.

One I've used and one of my colleagues have used over the years is called the Handwriting Rescue. That's the final link. There's also a general overview.

The first thing which is teaching handwriting. And part of thinking about handwriting is whether to do cursive or not. The jury's out on whether it's whether it's the best way, I would say, for young children, try and get them doing cursive because muscle memory joining the letters together, those fluid shapes is really good for kind of improving pen grip, penmanship, fluency of writing.

As kids get older, pushing that skill. I don't know, I don't know what I think, but see how you go talk to your learners. Hopefully this is useful and if you have any questions, please ask.

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English is a funny beast. The phonemes which are sounds we build words up with, and the graphemes which are how we write those sounds just don't link. They don't link and they are irregular and they are a faff.

There's regularity, there's rules. But then there's an exception to every rule. And even the rules have rules and it gets bonkers.

So spelling can be really chunky for people who have literacy difficulties. It can be an absolute mission and a half. Um, there are so many different ways to do it, so many different ways to teach people spelling.

And a lot of that depends on the person. It depends on their personality, on their underlying cognitive strengths and weaknesses, and also what they enjoy, because different people like different things. One way that I always try and make people work with it first is just speak.

Say it. Say a word you're unfamiliar with. Work out how many beats or syllables there are.

Chunk it down. If you know that the words got three beats or three syllables. Hear them.

Say them, break them down. Work out. Can you spell any of the sounds in those syllables, and then use what you know from kind of the history of the word?

Use what you know from the etymology of the word, the roots. See if you can do what you know. In that sense, if you're teaching spelling, do it multi-sensory, say flashcards, because then people can see the word.

They can see a picture associated with the word writing in sand, literally using fingers. Writing in sand is a great way to kind of get people to understand the feel of letters. Plasticine.

Building letters using wooden letters to help inspire the plasticine building is really handy. Spelling can be reinforced. There are things like Nessy, IDL Dyslexia, Units of Sound.

There are so many other packages out there and if you have a look at the video there, there's a gentleman demonstrating things with memory and mnemonics. He calls, I think, a mind palace, which is absolutely brilliant. That might be Sherlock Holmes, but have a look.

It's a really informative video. Take care and I hope it's useful.

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Hi guys. Episode five of the elevator series about remembering stuff. Now I have a brain like a goldfish.

I can't remember anything. My kids at school know it. The kids I work with at home, my private assessments know it.

My poor husband has to deal with it all the time, so I have had to develop a gazillion different ways of working out how to remember stuff and not lose my brain, or leave it in a jar somewhere and then forget where the jar is. Organising stuff, equipment lists, school bags. I still pack my school bag the night before and I'm 39 years old.

I'm okay with that. It's what I need to do. I have checklists, I have picture reminders, I have my phone shouting at me, checklists and picture reminders next to the front door for young people can be really helpful just for equipment, and it can then work towards being a bit more automatic, but it's just a backup for planning work.

If you use post-it notes, it's so easy to have an idea, jot it down. Then you can move around your post-it notes while you're trying to work out what to do with them. Same with bullet points.

Just spilling your ideas out. Not focusing on spelling, just getting your ideas out. Pictures are great for those who are just that little bit more arty and creative visual.

I can't draw brilliantly, so I don't do it. Mind maps again, a really good visual way to snapshot how you might want to plan things. Your ideas.

There are some suggestions in the links here for parents and teachers. And alongside that, I've put an article in Psychology Today about working memory, because that's what underpins a lot of planning skills and a lot of working out what you need to do next skills. So it's just really useful to get an overview.

Um, I hope that's useful. And we'll see you again for the next chunk of the elevator series. Take care.

Thank you.

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Episode six of the elevator series, and we're thinking about what goes first. So. Organising tasks.

Knowing where to start. It's really, really hard. It's hard for anybody.

And then if you add in the kind of in-built wobbles that somebody with dyslexia or other specific learning difficulties has around organising their work, planning where to start, knowing how to how to kind of find that segue in to their task. So knowing where to start a task. If somebody writes a mind map, it can be such a helpful tool for them to use because they can visualise what they're doing, they can visualise how to chunk it down.

They can use that to help them with planning. And that's where kind of thinking back to what I spoke about last time with organisation and knowing how to deal with planning your work. It's such a helpful skill set to know where to then start.

And if you're working, then you've got a few ideas, but then literally what's really hard for a lot of dyslexics is that first sentence starting sentences can be a nightmare. Now, if you are able to have text to speech, it's brilliant. If you are able to be able to type it, rather than physically write stuff that can take a burden off as to what goes first or around your classroom.

If you're an educator, have some sentences. Have a paragraph prompt, have opening lines for paragraphs around your room, or as a prompt sheet for students when they're when they're working their way through a task, it can just make it so much easier. It's that segue in I feel that pain because again, I find it tricky and my colleagues have to deal with that as well.

Um, there are a couple of links. There's some info on working memory from Nessy, which is brilliant. It's aimed at kind of key stage two and three, and we'll give you some hints.

And for parents there is some stuff below as well. I hope that's been useful. Take care.

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Hey, today got my hoodie on. So, episode seven elevator series. You're amazing.

Verbally, it's a telltale sign for people. We'd just like to see it. They have such a good understanding of of concepts.

They can tell you. They can tell you anything about anything they're interested in, and probably other stuff as well. They can tell you about it really clearly and in a lot of detail, but then they try and get it on paper and it it's like pulling teeth.

It doesn't work. It's really, really difficult. It's the combination of pulling all the information from their long term memory, retrieving it, getting it into a working memory ordered space.

And then once you've got a kind of idea of what you want to write, is then turning your slightly more abstract concepts into words and sentences that you can write. And there's an awful lot of emphasis and a lot of pressure on an individual's executive function. For that, it can be really difficult, and it's where this discrepancy starts to show up that it really starts to be that people ask questions about is an individual dyslexic, and at this point is where parents and often teachers will be starting to look for a little bit more information.

And that's why you can talk to somebody like me. And also, before you get to the point necessarily off talking to a person. It's really helpful to have a little bit of information up your sleeve.

So if you're a parent. The British Dyslexia Association has got a really handy book called Empowered Parents. There's a link to it just on this slide here.

And if you're a teacher again, I love Nessy. I think it's great there. It's such useful information.

There's some essential teaching tips for individuals with dyslexia. Just to give you a little bit of a kind of understanding of what you can do really easily, really quickly in the classroom to make a student's life easier. Have a look if you have any questions, do pop me word and otherwise.

Take care and I hope it's been useful.

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Hey, guys! Episode eight of the elevator series. We're kind of moving towards really looking at if somebody dislikes a call, they might have another specific learning difficulty getting into the nitty gritty of what it means to then look at actually, how do I how do I move forward if I think I'm dyslexic, if I'm if you're a student and you're thinking at this point you might be dyslexic.

Talk to talk to your parent or you're a carer because quite often their signature and their authorisation will be needed to get anything done formally and at school as well. Talk to teachers. Talk to your SENCo.

Um, you know, teachers here, your job is really important because you work with young people on the ground. You work with them, you support them on a day to day basis. You see them in their learning setting in a way that, lockdown notwithstanding, parents probably don't.

Um, and if you as a parent during lockdown, particularly if you've noticed that your, your child or a young person living with you is finding literacies, finding accessing work. Or it might be that the finding math is tricky if they're potentially dyscalculia. Talk to them.

Talk to them about what's difficult. Why is it difficult? Where do they kind of get stuck?

What's their stumbling block and talk to their teachers? The key thing here is absolutely communication. And then once you've kind of had a word as a school, think about the things you can do as a school to identify need.

There are plenty of assessment packages you can use. If you're thinking yourself, you're that individual at home. What might you need from your mum and dad or from your carer?

What? What's important to you? Where do you wobble and what can you do?

And essentially the key thing at this point is talk to each other. Be in touch. Communicate.

It's it's hard. It's a constant dialogue. But if stuff's going well, let each of the know if stuff's hard, let each of them know.

And if you need help, talk to somebody like me. I hope that's been useful. take care.

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Episode nine of the elevator series. Who can help you understand you? A key thing, I think for a lot of people with dyslexia and specific learning difficulties, myself included, is understanding yourself.

I spent years feeling really, really thick. To be terribly blunt, I felt stupid at school. I couldn't read maths A-level questions and bawled my eyes out on my teacher.

It was. It was excruciating. Um, so it's important to understand kind of what can be done, what's next to help you understand what's going on in school assessments.

There is an awful lot of in school assessments that can be done by the SENCo or by class teachers, things like dyslexia screeners, Guelders one, Nessy does one. There is a myriad of different screeners available. There are things like paper tools like the Westford um, dyslexia screening Kit, which is very, very comprehensive.

Um, and that kind of underpins things that school might be able to do before you may decide to go for a full assessment now. Full assessment can be done in Wiltshire, where I'm based. You can contact the Wiltshire SEN team via the Right Choice website.

And they are there. Brilliant. Actually, they're a lovely bunch of people who work very, very hard to try and assess learners and to get around and do what they can.

There is a leaflet just underneath, if you're Wiltshire based, about what should be being done in schools to help people, if as a family and or as a school, depending on resources, you decide that a young person is going to have a full diagnostic assessment, it can be done privately. And there are a couple of links to links with the British Dyslexia Association and PATOSS, and they have in-house lists of formally accredited, fully qualified professional assessors. And I'm on the BDA list because that's who I qualified with.

Um, and you can find us on there and they'll be able to help you. Hopefully that's useful. If you've got any questions, do get in touch with me or contact your school.

And they and I will all be able to help you take care.

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So episode ten of the elevator series. How does assessment work? I will speak from my own practice here because other people do it differently.

Assessors do it differently based on them, based on their kids, based on the just the choices and the people that they're working with. For me, the structure is I will tend to do it over a day for an older student and maybe over two sessions for a younger student, and I will always chunk things down, and I will make sure that reading tasks are not all lumped together, because it can be really quite tricky for people if they find reading hard to then have 2 or 3 reading activities all straight away, straight after each other. It can just be too much.

Same with writing tasks. I will split them up as much as possible. I'll also talk to the person who I'm working with because it might be they go, actually, let's just get all the writing one's done out of the way.

It depends. And as part of the assessment, you will find that people will look at your reading skills, your writing skills. It might be that Comprehension of spoken text.

It might be that you're reading silently, and we'll also look at your underlying ability. So what you're really good at how your visual processing is. Can you do problem solving.

So it can be worded problem solving. It can be visual problem solving. We look at how you can manipulate language, your understanding of different definitions of words.

We look at lots of underlying skills and also how you can process sound. Because phonological processing or sound processing is the thing that makes dyslexia what it is. Um, and we look at all of these and all together these different your different skills in these areas then inform whether you have dyslexia.

The links below give a bit of a snapshot of what an assessment looks like. There's one for young people and there's one for adults. So parents, carers and teachers hopefully this is useful.

If you have any questions, pop me word. Take care.

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Episode 11 of the elevator series, and you've been assessed. And it was a hugely intense day, and you've got a lot to kind of get through to make sense of it all. You probably within a week or two, depending on the assessors timeframe.

For me, it's two weeks maximum. Um, you'll have a report. It's a really, really long document, but actually it's a really important document because this is this will set you for life.

Um, it will set you up if you need to have arrangements at university. It will set you up for arrangements that school can make for teaching. Um, but before you get to that point, you've got to make sense of it all and kind of work out what you want.

I have quite deliberately put some links underneath that talk about young people's experiences, because if you are a young person and you've got to process the fact that you have dyslexia, that it's a lot to take on. Um, and it's a lot to kind of make sense of and understand about yourself, you know, who you are. But it kind of you've got to it.

You've got to take that into your self and work with it. There's also a link for parents. So kind of what happens next in a more formal sense.

But once you as a family and as an individual have read the report, kind of processed it and talked to each other, talked to your school or your work, because they will be able to tell you the kind of things they can do and start making plans. Start making plans about how to move forward together. You're a team and that's what it needs to to be.

It's a team effort, but if you have just had a diagnosis of dyslexia, it doesn't change you. For me, it explained me. I understood why I couldn't read the maths mechanics questions that my mum and Mrs.

Maconochie read 65,000 million times to me. I understood I wasn't stupid and for me that was priceless and no one can take that away from you, so hopefully it's useful. Take care.

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Episode 12 elevator series is focusing on you as the dyslexic learner. What do you want and what do you need? You are the person central to this.

You are the person without whom the process wouldn't exist in the first place, and actually around in legislation, in teachers minds, in policy. How to support you is key, and it's thinking about what you want. You might find planning strategies, but post-it notes, bullet points, pictures, mind maps input into that support around that is what you want.

It might be that actually, physically, handwriting is just not an effective way for you to demonstrate your knowledge. There are different ways to do it. You might want somebody to be ascribed for you if you meet the criteria within kind of exam board, um, guidelines, you might like to think about typing and typing as a life skill.

So getting into that early is absolutely a valid way to do writing and demonstrate your knowledge. You might find reading really, really tricky. You don't have to read everything in your own mind.

You might decide that you want to sub vocalise, which is what I do. You kind of read aloud to yourself, but you don't actually make the noises of reading. You might find that actually having somebody read to you is really helpful.

A reading pen may be helpful using a text to speech feature within just Microsoft Word or Apple. Operating system is really handy. The key thing here is talk to your parents and carers.

If you're happy talking to a teacher, talk to a teacher you trust. There are some tips at the link underneath, um, from a young person's perspective as to how you might want to get through the day. The key thing again is keep talking.

Your people will advocate for you. They will support you. It is our job, so hopefully that's giving you some useful information.

Um, if you have any questions, do feel free. Take care.

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Cheesy question really for episode 13. Who do you want to be? But actually, this is who it's about.

It's about you. If you have been diagnosed with dyslexia, you know your strengths. You know your passions.

You know what you're good at. You know how you can get your belly on fire for whatever you want to do. And you kind of, you know, where your skill set is.

So it's thinking about who might you admire. What can you do with your amazing strengths? What can you do with your passions?

How can you channel them? How can you channel on them, channel them in a way that will be really edifying for you as a person? And there is a book called Dyslexia is a Superpower.

Um, I've put a link to an interview with the author and also just the details of the book here. It's just a really inspirational book. Um, it's so helpful to kind of help you see yourself positively and help other people to see you positively because sometimes people pull a face when you tell them you're dyslexic and that's not okay.

That's just not okay. Because we have a pretty awesome skill set. We are so creative.

We have such fire in our bellies and such tenacity to do well in life. Um, so with that in mind, there is also a link to famous people who are dyslexic. There is such an interesting range of famous people who have dyslexia and you wouldn't expect it.

So think about them. Use them as inspiration. Look at what they've done and think if they can do what I can do it.

There's absolutely no reason why not. You might have to work harder in some ways, but in other ways, because of our creativity as dyslexics, you're at a definite advantage. If you have got any questions or any thoughts.

Feel free to pop me a message. Feel free to talk to each other. Um, and I hope this has been useful.

So that's episode 13 calling out. Take care.

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So this is episode 14 of the elevator series is the last one, the last one in this series of things that I'm going to run. However, I will be back with other ideas shortly. Dyslexia though this is about you being able to do it.

You can. You've got this. Dyslexia is your superpower.

It's your strength. You know your passion. You can do it.

Um, again, we've thought about kind of your journey from thinking about might you be dyslexic to what does it mean to get your assessment, how does the assessment work practically? And then moving on forwards after the assessment and really working on who who you're working towards, what you're working towards your aims, your your end goal. Um, there is a couple of links here.

John Hicks is a gentleman who I have worked with in various various projects over the last few years. He has an excellent blog studying with dyslexia. There's a link, it's the first one, and he gives guidance for parents who gives inspiration for young people, and it's a goldmine of information on how to how to live with and be your best with dyslexia.

There is also some really amazing inspiration stories from the British Dyslexia Association ambassadors and a whole range of different people with really interesting life stories. But they are inspirational, they are amazing people have exquisite them. Look at what they've done and there is no reason why you can't be as amazing and excellent as them.

And if you've got any questions, I've put a link to how to contact me here as well. Feel free to pop me a word, but just know there will be things that are hard. But you've got this.

You're creative. You can think on your feet and you've got it. Cheesy?

Probably true. Definitely. Take care and I will be back soon with some new videos and a few different ideas.

Take care.