morganfamily

Hi, our lovely daughter is 9 years old and dyslexic. She currently has specialist help at school in literacy twice a week and is doing well. Hoping to move to Wollongong later this year, anyone out there had any experience of support given in Australian schools for children with specific learning difficulties. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

jad n rich

If you search top right, the subject has been discussed quite a bit, to be quite honest theres not a lot of funding for children with dyslexia (called a learning disability in QLD here.) Son 2 has it, sent for eye tests to see if he needed coloured lenses, sent to specialist ($300) built blocks and wrote 5 words and was then offered Ritalin . Help in the school was a parent volunteer for reading support, I ended up doing courses myslef and did get him reading, spelling is still a big problem, but he did get lucky in the end in primary and get funding for a very limited 27 hours in a group with a professional support teacher, lucky but such a silly amount not enough to help . Funding is very tight please be aware of this, search the other threads for more info. But school is far more casual, you may like us find school even for a kid with dyslexia is a happy doddle, his first year of high school and hes getting B's and the odd A Our concern would be if we move overseas which we probably will. There was a NSW poster, Ian12 ( I think ) posted quite in depth about gettin help for his children.

jodi666

Hi There,

My son is 12 and is dyslexic in both literacy and numeracy. he used to have extra help in the UK although was not given a place in the dyslexic support group in the High School he was enrolled in due to his dyslexia not being bad enough which seems ridiculous but there you go.

We actually left the UK just before he started high school and when we arrived o the GC 8 months ago realised he still had another year in primary school here due to the different school years, I was really concerned about how he would cope here but he has been very fortunate to have a very good teacher who has got him into a learning difficulties programme it only runs all day on Mondays though and his teacher helps him the rest of the week, she said it was very important to get his needs recognized before he went to High School as otherwise he would slip through the net.

As you are probably aware funding is not great for learning difficulties here just a case of talking to the schools and seeing what support they have in place and if possible talk to the teacher your child will have as there attitude to dyslexia will make a huge difference to the kind of help yo get as it is mostly based on there opinion of what your child needs. This is just my personal opinion others may feel differently.

Hope all goes well,

Jodie.

Susan Godsland

Hi, I'm new to the forum but hope I can help - I'm a remedial reading tutor in the UK and maintain an extensive website on dyslexia and teaching reading which is, of course, accessible worldwide.

There are 2 reading programmes available in Oz which will help with dyslexia (and help prevent it!):

Jolly Phonics www.jollydiscoveries.com/

Sounds~Write http://sounds-write.co.uk/australia.asp

There is also a completely free, web-based remedial programme (Canadian) that can achieve excellent results:

Stairway to Reading programme (Canadian) www.societyforqualityeducation.org/stairway.html
A one-on-one remedial reading program for students of any age who have already received some reading instruction but who are struggling with reading. Caution UK users: there are some N.American accent/sound differences.

morganfamily

Thank you so much for your useful information.

Ian12

Hi Morgan Family

Here is a link. We found their assistance invaluable. A word of warning, the will not advocate for you but they will tell you what you are entitled to and how to go about getting it. Good luck. be perpared to jump up and down - don't be put off by the teeth suckers.