Spelling is not a list-learning task, it is a system whose job is literally to make sense. From the very start, children must develop skills as well as knowledge and attend to units of meaning as well as sound. When spelling breaks down, the solution is rarely “more words”. Progress comes when educators focus on skills and meaning as well as knowledge. Find out how in this blog.
Literacy underpins every aspect of our education system—but for dyslexic learners, this can feel like a relentless and discouraging truth. Imagine if students could demonstrate their strengths across the curriculum without being limited by pencil and paper. With the rise of technology and AI, I’m hopeful that the metacognitive (thinking) process behind writing will be given its rightful place—and dyslexic learners better supported to flourish. But hope alone isn’t enough. We must get the teaching right. That’s why I welcome the new Writing Framework: too many dyslexic students reach secondary school without secure foundations, and the opportunity to close the gap has already been lost.
This is not good enough. Most children don’t learn to write through creativity alone—and many are left feeling broken by the well-meaning but misguided message that they must read and write for pleasure. What they really need is to read and write for purpose.
I’ve been in this field long enough to witness a tragic decline in services for students with persistent specific learning difficulties. Honestly, I don’t desperately care whether we call it dyslexia or something else. What I care about—deeply—is whether we meet the need. And this is a real, persistent need that affects how and whether a child learns to read and write. This is not a luxurious extra.
If I produced a stick of rock to represent my work (now there’s an idea!), the words inside would be “supporting schools”. I love collaboration, I love enabling, empowering and equipping in all things literacy and dyslexia, and I love schools. In this blog you’ll read about one amazing school I have worked with over almost two years, and you’ll see a video of Morph Mastery in action. Westcourt Primary School in Gravesend have not only talked the Morph Mastery talk, but they walk the walk, through thick and thin.
Let’s face it, writing is many children’s (and adults’) nemesis! Learners and teachers alike find it really challenging – unless they are in the small minority of people who just write, naturally. But writing doesn’t have to be a long, hard slog. Nor need it be purely an exercise in spelling and punctuation skills (or lack of). Finding out what the barriers are is important, seeking to understand them is crucial, and implementing ways to remove them transformative. This blog explores barriers to writing and offers some strategies to remove them.
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