English and Children with Special Educational Needs in Key Stages 1 and 2

Different kinds of literacy difficulties

Teachers need the knowledge and skills to employ different teaching approaches to meet the range of special needs and literacy difficulties within a primary classroom. The teacher’s skill lies in identifying what a child can do, what he or she finds difficult and in providing teaching and support to enable a child to move forward in their learning.

Activity

Ask students to discuss with a partner a child they have met, in a classroom or in their family, who has difficulties with literacy.

Were the child’s difficulties in reading or writing or both?
Were literacy difficulties linked to other areas of concern?
How confident and independent was the child as a reader or writer, for example could he/she read a text with/without support?

Ask students to list what they know about what the child could do as a reader, writer, and language user, and what they know of the child’s difficulties. Discussion might include a wide range of observations about children with different SENs.

What the child can do – comments might include some of the following:	Difficulties – comments might include some of the following
enjoys listening to books read aloud can tell stories orally can read familiar, known texts can write some letters and/or known words with support seems to understand but does not speak speaks but does not seem to understand what is said or read can use a keyboard, with support	being unable to read or write being reluctant to read or write not understanding what is read thinking they can’t read or write difficulties with spelling and reading difficulties mainly in spelling difficulties with handwriting and presentation difficulties holding a pencil

After discussion, record some of the descriptions on a flip chart.

Special needs and literacy difficulties are broad terms. Included in these categories are children who:

are slow to begin reading and writing (children begin to read at different points in their lives, dependent on experiences at home, their individual cognitive development, the nature of their pre-school experience etc). Children who are slow to begin reading are also slow to write and spell – reading and writing go hand in hand but reading generally precedes writing, apart from the earliest stages where for example children’s early use of ‘invented’ spelling may precede reading.
have literacy difficulties linked to broader developmental difficulties such as mild, moderate or severe learning difficulties, children with specific language and communications difficulties, children on the autistic spectrum, or children who experience hearing or vision difficulties. These difficulties are usually identified by the time children begin formal schooling, and children are often statemented.

have difficulties mainly with reading and spelling – usually called dyslexia and sometimes specific learning difficulties. These difficulties may differ in degree and include:

good readers/poor spellers
poor readers/poor spellers

are inexperienced readers and writers – the largest group of children with literacy difficulties – who form ‘the long tail of underachievement’ identified in numerous surveys. The PIRLS survey in 2001 found that in European countries, the gap in England between those children doing well and those underachieving was third highest out of 16 countries. These children are often in Key Stage 2 and have begun to read but simply do not seem to make progress.

The categories are not discrete and, particularly at the earlier stages, it may be difficult to assess whether a child who is slow to begin reading may eventually experience more persistent difficulties. The importance of early support and intervention is that it may prevent many children from becoming developing more persistent problems or from underachieving.

References

Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (2001) National Center for Education Statistics,
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pirls/

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