"I wish I had done this course five years ago when I first started teaching. As a young teacher, I often go home at the end of the day feeling I have failed the children who need help most. This will no longer be the case," said Ainsley Ameerali, Standard Three teacher at Diego Martin Boys RC School.While their students were enjoying the long school vacation, 62 teachers from primary and secondary schools, both public and private sector, were students themselves in classrooms being trained by the Dyslexia Association. The association facilitated two programmes in special teaching skills to enhance the quality and standard of teaching and reading in the coming school year.In July, 23 teachers from San Fernando, Blanchisseuse, the East-West corridor and Port-of-Spain attended a three-week training course, Teaching People with Dyslexia. This intensive programme equips teachers with the skills to identify students whose difficulty with reading is caused by dyslexia, and, through a special programme, help the student to overcome that learning disability and become proficient readers.
Participants also had the benefit of a session with Allyson Hamel-Smith, educational psychologist, who led them through the Emotional and Behavioural Results of Failure.As course tutor, Cathryn Kelshall said: "Even mildly dyslexic students experience school as stressful and unfulfilling from the day they enter school at five. With their learning needs unmet, most dyslexic students never go on to achieve their potential."Globally, the size of the dyslexic population is estimated at about one in ten people. Statistics for Trinidad and Tobago have not been gathered, but there is much evidence that our situation is not different.
Since the inception of this teacher-training programme in 1991, the Dyslexia Association has trained more than four hundred teachers.Dr Tim Conway, a USA-based neuro-psychologist, led 39 teachers through the second hands-on workshop style course-the LiPS (Lindamood Phonemic Sequencing). The LiPS programme uses the feel and shape of the mouth to help these students develop phonemic awareness. These procedures are effective for all ages and furthermore also increase language acquisition and performance in reading and spelling. Dr Conway visits Trinidad twice a year at the request of the Dyslexia Association, to facilitate two teacher-training programmes, the LiPS programme in August, and the Visualising and Verbalising course at Easter. This latter course trains in comprehension and expressive language skills.
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The Dyslexia Association is an NGO with charitable status. Through fund-raising and generous corporate support, all courses are offered to participants at a highly subsidised rate to the benefit of the larger community. Cathryn Kelshall, chair of the Dyslexia Association, expressed her appreciation for the
support the organisation receives. The association has a wider role in supporting people with dyslexia. It also sponsors a bursary fund to help dyslexic students by paying fees for private individual tuition in reading by trained teachers. Other support services from the volunteerstaffed office include testing and referral and a
well-stocked taped-book and CD-book library for young people and adults. For further information, call 625-5689 or visit the voicesupported Web site of the Dyslexia Association www.dyslexiatt.org.