Charlotte

How I teach children and young people with special learning difficulties

I understand that every child is different and children with SLD require support in all areas of the curriculum, social skills as well as every day skills. I support this by developing their vocabulary using a mixture of Makaton and PECS. I support children to begin to gain some recognition of numbers and letters and early phonics such as environmental sounds. I will develop these skills at the pace of the child to make sure their confidence continues to grow and they do not feel overwhelmed.

How I teach children with specific learning difficulties

I teach children with SpLD by looking at their strengths and weaknesses to plan the learning that they need. If a child’s area of weakness is with short term memory, I play a variety of learning based memory games to support this as well as precision teaching for both reading, writing and number skills. Precision teaching can be adapted to other areas of the curriculum based on the child’s individual needs.

How I teach children and young people who have dyslexia and how I impart English skills

I like to teach children how to read and write from a specialist dyslexic perspective. Having been on the Essex Literacy Difficulties course I can use the Essex Accuracy and Fluency Assessment of Literally Skills (AFALS) to identify areas of need and support the child to make progress at a pace that supports the child’s confidence to grow.

How I teach children and young people with concentration difficulties

I have been teaching with students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) for 11 years now. Many children I have worked with over this time have focus and concentration difficulties. In order to support this, I start by using short exciting activities which follow the same format. Often a now and next board is used to support and the next activity is a reward that the child enjoys, such as drawing. A timer is used for these activities to help create structure.

How I teach children who have sensory needs

Sensory Circuits are an excellent tools to help children regulated. By having alerting, organising and calming activities for children to do at the start of a session. Pictures are used to help children follow the circuit and the activities can be linked to being educational, such as a a number jigsaw, or alphabet writing.