Literacy for All – A Whole School Approach (Primary)

As we come to the last term of the academic year, it is time to plan for our yearly assessment and tracking of the children who are working out with the continuum of “normal” in literacy. We would expect around 10% of the school community to be in this category.

In term four, it is beneficial for every class teacher to reflect on which children are experiencing significant difficulties in literacy, based on their working knowledge of the child, and to fill out the relevant component parts assessments. These do not take long to do. They not only help to track progress over time but show the specific areas where targeted learning and teaching are required.

When we track children yearly from the end of Primary One, we build up evidence of where difficulties have appeared and disappeared, and what has worked and hasn’t worked for them. Sometimes we will see where notable difficulties have been observed in Primary One, lessen significantly during Primary Two and Primary Three as natural maturation takes place. For other children, we may observe that despite the differentiated support and interventions, these difficulties persist. This last group of children would be the ones that we need to continuously track towards a possible identification of dyslexia.

If we track from the end of Primary One, then we can build up an accurate picture of their day-to-day functionality in aspects of literacy: reading, writing and/or spelling. Only one area is required to be impacted for an identification of dyslexia.

As soon as you are aware that a child is experiencing difficulties, it is useful to start a chronology of where difficulties lie and what differentiated support and interventions have been carried out and their impact.