Specific Learning Difficulties - Case Studies

The school's monitoring identified a group of 7 children in Year 1 who were working at a level below that of their peers.

School implemented a daily, 20 minute group based support programme. This was based on Letters and Sounds work and was delivered by a Teaching Assistant who had undergone training additional literacy needs. The children's parents were invited to an informal meeting in order to discuss ways of helping with reading and spelling at home and the class teacher provided short, individualised spelling lists for them to practise. The group ran for one term and had targets set as part of a group I.E.P.

At the end of the term, three pupils had made good progress and were able to join In the whole class literacy lesson with differentiation only. The remaining four children continued to work with the TA, focusing more explicitly on oral phonological skills and incorporating more multi-sensory over learning into the sessions.

At the end of a further term, two children were still working below age related expectations and the Senco completed detailed diagnostic literacy assessment work to inform their I.E.P.s. Discussions were held between the Senco, Class teacher and families to plan individual targets and provision. One child received Cumbria Reading Intervention as he was thought to be ready to cope with the length and structure of the programme. The Senco contacted the Specialist Advisory Teacher for advice about resources and strategies for the second child and he then received individual support three times each week.

All of the children made progress although school anticipate that ongoing input and review will be needed for some of the group.

A Year 5 pupil had received group based and individual programmes throughout primary school. He had made progress as a result of this but the rate of progress was slowing.

School consulted with their Educational Psychologist and Specialist Advisory Teacher regarding possible additional support and strategies.

The Educational Psychologist suggested broader work on language and listening skills to develop the pupil's vocabulary, expressive language and attention.

Specialist teacher encouraged school to consider alternative ways of recording for some curriculum areas.  Over the next two terms pupil and teachers experimented  with, for example: mind mapping; use of picture sequences; cloze procedure writing frames and writing support software.  School continued  with individual teaching of literacy skills and also used a range of audio books, ebooks and screen readers to provide access to written materials.

Some of the strategies were more successful than others for the child.  At the end of the two terms he was continuing to make very gradual progress with reading, spelling and writing. However, he was more confident about accessing learning in the classroom.

The secondary school had good links with feeder primary schools and, towards the end of Year 6, a transition meeting was held with secondary staff in order to establish the student's needs and his current provision. The secondary Senco organised a laptop for the student's use with familiar Clicker 6 software loaded on it.

At the start of the new term, the Senco alerted teaching staff to the pupil's individual needs and circulated a short (single sided) handout on classroom strategies for working with him.

After a four week settling in period, the pupil's I.E.P. was reviewed and revised and twice weekly individual provision was organised for him in the Learning Support department to work on spelling and handwriting. 
School began work on touch typing lessons to make it easier and quicker for him to record his work using his laptop. He also practised touch typing at home.

The Senco provided a range of age appropriate reading materials at the correct level for the student's ability. He was able to make his own selection from these when choosing reading books.

At the end of the first term, the student's parents were contacted by phone to discuss his progress and the possible targets for the following term's I.E.P.