John Hicks explaining the future of The Studying With Dyslexia Blog We have been on a journey together and now we are at a crossroads. Let me tell you about my next chapter. At time of writing it is the 21st December 2022 and Christmas is almost here. For the past ten years I have been on a journey starting out with a painful experience in senior management that I believe, now, was down to challenges with managing undiagnosed ADHD/ADD, which resulted in leaving that role and starting my own company. Shortly afterwards, my daughter Jess was diagnosed with Dyslexia and as a family we had to le ..read more

Dr Helen Ross is back with some very important thoughts for teachers as they start the new term with dyslexic learners! Helen writes: This blog will give you a brief overview of what dyslexia is and how it can affect far more than reading or writing for the young people you work with and support. It is written from my personal experiences as someone with dyslexia but I also draw upon my 15 years as a teacher working to support young people with dyslexia. This is quite hard-hitting but it really is about making sure that professionals working with dyslexic students have an overview of what d ..read more

This article is important to you if you are a parent feeling disempowered to enact change that will help your dyslexic child to improve their attainment at school. As a therapeutic counsellor and parent coach, one of the most common discoveries that my clients find is how much time they have wasted in getting what their children need to be their best at school, due to their own lack of confidence, poor self-esteem and simply not knowing that they have the power to lead the process of change in their children’s lives. What do I mean? Within the context of Parenting Dyslexia, I am referring t ..read more

Having interacted with some two and a half thousand parents, all of whom have been looking for support for their dyslexic children, I can’t help noticing that a part of the solution in securing that crucial support could simply be the building of more positive relationships between the parents and teachers of children with dyslexia. Forgive me but I feel very strongly about this topic! When we think about dyslexia support and the discussions that need to take place in order for it to be implemented for any given child, the headlines that I hear from parents relate to a sense of ‘Them and Us ..read more

How do you explain Dysgraphia to a child. More to the point, what about us parents? In this article I review ‘Alli Can’t Write’ a wonderful book that seeks to help children understand Dysgraphia and gives resources that help parents and teachers. At Primary School there is such an emphasis (and rightly so ) on developing handwriting skills, but so often when a child struggles with their handwriting there is a temptation to dwell on the problem and not the causation. To be fair, the condition ‘Dysgraphia’ is a little known condition that affects one’s ability to write and sequence words and can ..read more

I am very excited to be introducing one of my favourite people who is making a difference to families experiencing dyslexia, as my latest guest writer. Dr Helen Ross! About Helen. Helen is a Special Educational Needs specialist and Dyslexia expert. She is passionate about supporting young people to be their best ‘self’ through holistic intervention and focusing on building positive working relationships with all stakeholders of their education. Helen is the Chair of the Wiltshire Dyslexia Association and Trustee of the British Dyslexia Association. Helen writes: So you have got the dyslexia ..read more

It is the last week of term and a well deserved rest for all concerned but what are you going to do to boost your child’s self-esteem ready for the Autumn Term? Here are my top 3 tips for boosting summers self-esteem. Why is self-esteem important? Sometimes when we speak with anyone, let alone a child, who has a low sense of self-esteem, we sense the lack of joy or their unhappiness, we perhaps don’t think more deeply about how low self-esteem actually affects an individual. Many who are unfamiliar with dyslexia will not necessarily know that low self-esteem often comes with the territory of ..read more

Always on the hunt to find software that unlocks dyslexic attainment at school or university, John Hicks reviews the latest version of MindMeister mind mapping software. If you regularly follow the Studying With Dyslexia Blog, then you will know that I absolutely love mind mapping software. Mind mapping software is a wonderfully visual way of sorting out information and preparing oneself for writing lengthy texts such as writing essays and reports. Often referred to as ‘spider diagrams’, ‘mind maps’, ‘brain storms’ and probably lots of other names, the act of mind mapping often plays to the st ..read more

ATEC conference 29th June in Reading, Berkshire. Announcing ATEC a wonderful source of training and information for assistive technology practitioners taking place on June 29th in Reading, Berkshire. As an advocate of assistive technology I am always keen to keep my knowledge up to date so that I can share useful information whenever I write blog article, present webinars or deliver AT awareness sessions within schools. Last October I attended the ATEC Conference, a leading UK conference for assistive technology practitioners who work in education and the workplace. It was great. There was an ..read more

Graphics used courtesy of https://www.michaelmorpurgo.com/about-michael-morpurgo/ Michael Morpurgo’s article in The Guardian about how teaching kids to love writing being more important than grammar is a gentle warning about the damage our Education System is causing children who struggle with spelling and grammar. When I woke up this morning, the first article I saw was on The Guardian website. Written by Amy Fleming, the article featured the acclaimed author of War Horse and more recently When Fishes Flew: The Story of Elena’s War, Michael Morpurgo talking about how children in Key Stage 2 ..read more