VIEWS & OPINION Making time for the


dyslexic child Comment by PHILIPPA VINCE, Toucan Education


Screen time: let’s focus on the screen,


not the time! Comment by MARK BENTLEY, Online Safety and Safeguarding Manager, LGfL


Now that Easter doesn’t seem so far away, can you even remember those optimistic New Year’s resolutions you made? Some of us made long-since forgotten promises to spend less time mindlessly scrolling through snaps of other people’s holidays, food or ‘perfect family moments’. Even when the grown-ups have given up, though, they often still worry about children’s screen time.


Many column inches and easy headlines are dedicated to the


In this current economic climate, schools are struggling, particularly to meet the requirements of children with additional needs. A child with dyslexia can get left behind, especially in a busy, high-paced classroom. Since expectations in education were changed in 2016 I have seen a rise in children needing a private assessment. In my opinion they simply cannot keep up. In the past, a high-functioning, dyslexic child may have been


able to manage, albeit with a huge amount of effort. It can take so much time to have a child assessed and find out what they need to help them make progress. At Toucan Education we aim to support schools in providing high quality teaching, with interventions that can be put in place easily and without the need for extra staffing. In my experience, dyslexic children make more progress when support is ‘little and often’ rather than a weekly one-hour block. Daily work is consistent and constant reinforcement. In addition to this an understanding of where a child is struggling is very important. Understanding the underlying issues of dyslexia is beneficial for a teacher as they will then know which measures to put in place. Dyslexia is not only about letter reversals - sometimes dyslexia


isn’t obvious to a teacher as many children try to hide it. Speak to any recently diagnosed adult and they will tell you they tried to hide it at school. A developed awareness of dyslexia and how it can impact on a child’s progress is essential for every teacher – not just the English teacher or the SENDCO. A multi-sensory style of teaching is key to helping these children


make progress. This high quality teaching style will also benefit every other child in the classroom. This practice is based on the Orton Gillingham approach and remains a successful way to teach. A dyslexia-friendly approach would involve constant


reinforcement throughout the lesson, using more than one style of delivery such as including a kinesthetic approach and a balance between solely oral delivery and visual. An even more simple approach is to understand how difficult it can be for a child to copy down the date and learning objective - this can exhaust a child before they have even started. We believe at Toucan Education these simple changes will make a huge difference for many children. Knowledge is power and creating training for schools is becoming more and more essential. Teachers are on the frontline. How they respond to a child with dyslexia is key to what happens next. It is my vision that if we were to change how we teach, by


providing high quality dyslexia training for teachers, from the start, at university, there would be less need for parents to pay for a private dyslexia assessment because children would be getting the support they need.


February 2019


issue each week – normally on the scary side of the debate. But after years of references to outdated US screen-time rules, which were actually written for television viewing, two UK bodies have now published advice to help frame the debate. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has


published The health impacts of screen time: a guide for clinicians and parents; and from the UK’s Chief Medical Officers (CMOs), we have the snappily titled Screen-based activities and children and young people’s mental health and psychosocial wellbeing: a systematic map of reviews. CMO tells us “scientific research is currently insufficiently


conclusive…”, “[no] evidence of a causal relationship between screen-based activities and mental health problems”. And from RCPCH: “time spent on screens – from social media to computers and television – is a major part of modern life and a necessary part of modern education.” The popular view that “screen time is directly ‘toxic’ to health […] has essentially no evidence to support it”. The two bodies don’t dismiss popular worries, recommending


further research whilst warning against the classic correlation- causation trap (as illustrated by these classic Tyler Viglen graphs). As the CMOs point out, “it could be, for example, that CYP [children and young people] who already have mental health problems are more likely to spend more time on social media.” CMOP and RCPCH do offer warnings, and advise caution –


always balanced against the potential benefits of screen-based activities. Where a young person is missing out on physical activity, time with friends or family, schoolwork, or of course sleep, screen- time limits are needed. RCPCH points out that it is easy to lose track of what you eat,


so snacking can be a big problem, and we must never forget how important it is for young people to get enough sleep every night. As with all issues around online safety and digital resilience, a conversation is needed between schools, parents and young people. We haven’t even mentioned all the content that causes concern


online – how can we protect against that? Screen-time limits won’t help here, as it only takes a second to click on a bad link to a self- harm image, beheading or pornography; and a bullying message doesn’t take long either. In school, we can help with made-for- schools filtering and many other protections, but at home it’s different. So how can we support parents? There are practical steps and


questions to ask on page 11 of the CMO document and page 7 of the RCPCH guidance. And www.screentime.lgfl.net has a series of other flyers, posters and guidance on the issue to help parents take control, support and learn with their children.


www.education-today.co.uk 25


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