I have not penned my struggles with Vera's academics on the blog. She is in P3 this year and I am feeling the pressure, not that I expect her to score well enough to be eligible for the Edusave Awards. I have lowered my bar for her to an extent that as long as she does not give up learning and not hate. I am more than happy to allow her to take her pace to learn and internalize what works for her and whatnot.
She has not been diagnosed thus far but going for a Literacy Assessment in March after being on the waitlist for the past 4 months. I feel that P3 is a good age to let her go through an assessment, hopefully, it can narrow down what her learning challenges are so that I can focus on the type of materials to create and help her with learning more effectively.
I have ever ruled out the possibility of her having Dyslexia when she could not read at all and was struggling. But with the LSP (Learning Support Programme) support given by her school and her tutor, she was discharged from the reading programme 9 months later. I saw a significant improvement in her ability to read but for other areas like comprehension, listening and writing, we are doing our best to help her.
Recently, I had an invitation to Swords and Stationery which specializes in Education for Dyslexic Students, through an interactive approach where the entirety of the curriculum is in a gamified format.
Dyslexia is basically a learning disorder that involves one have having difficulties in reading due to inability to identify speech sounds and to decode. Vera did showed have these symptoms during her preschool years and till date, it is still a challenge to get her to pick up a book to read. This reading disability more often than not, affects part of the brain that processes language.
They have launched the very first educational therapy programme in Asia and globally that directly integrates Tabletop Games, Role-Playing Games (RPGs) and War Games into the curriculum.
Through a simulation, I got to experience the struggles of being Dyslexic. The words seemed to be moving as I read, it was disruptive, upside down fonts and distorted paragragh was what I experienced and it indeed can be frustrating and challenging to complete that short paragragh.
We moved on and participated in a short game-based curriculum. Nothing like what the mainstream schools are teaching, the game based curriculum first allowed Teacher Shaun to understand the student better, through our moves and decision-making when playing the game.
Would you be able to write the story better if you are made part of the story? Definitely.
And was asked to decide what kind of character I would like my role to be. I chose to be a half-elf ranger, named Ice. A story-based game that allowed me to choose my strengths, know my weaknesses and how to power up to be stronger. I felt like I was literally immersed in the story!
Tossing of dice, ample of opportunities to think and make decisions. I determined my writing through the choice of actions I made as I played along. The highlights of the session included:
- Rescuing a little girl from a burning building
- Blasting enemy soldiers while fleeing from a besieged city
- Seeing the love of a mother transcend boundaries.
Besides reading challenges, I also hear of many stories on Special Need Kids being bullied in Mainstream Schools, weak social circle as many may not be on the same frequency to communicate with one another and as such, these SN kids were being outcast. Right at Swords and Stationery, I am heartened to know that the kids do not discriminate but accept and 'protect' one another. It is also a space to help students self-regulate their behaviour and emotions which is of utmost importance.
Overall, it was a really fun session! Filled with laughter and role-playing through out, we immersed ourselves in the given roles and am sure the kids and youths will enjoy the programme and find writing less challenging.
I do hope this post is useful for you if you know of anyone who is Dyslexic. It is always good to have early intervention if the child already have a Dyslexia diagnosis, this will make writing and learning more fun and less fearful.
Swords and Stationery is founded by Shaun in 2017 to help young people with dyslexia to overcome their learning challenges. Having to have worked in the Dyslexia Association of Singapore from 2013-2017 as an Educational Therapist, Shaun realised that even with the Orton-Gillingham methodology, that was insufficient to spur the dyslexia students to achieve their fullest potential.
Enrolment will only take place based on the following that the child is 9 years old and above and yes, a diagnosis is definitely needed.
Swords & Stationery is located at:
1 Pemimpin Drive
One Pemimpin
#12-03
Singapore 576151
