Supporting Students with Dyslexia (SSD)

This two hour course will be appropriate for teachers and learning support tutors or others who wish to find out about what it is like to be dyslexic and who are looking for practical ideas to support learners of all ages. Being dyslexic is not just having reading and spelling difficulties! This course will consider the wide range of difficulties that can be associated with dyslexia and the support strategies that should be in place in a mainstream classroom.

The course will cover:

• Definitions of dyslexia
• Strategies for supporting dyslexic learners of all ages
• Dyslexia as a ‘specific learning difficulty’
• Making the learning environment ‘dyslexia friendly’
• Identifying learners who may be dyslexic
• How dyslexia friendly is your school?

The course tutor is Lia Castiglione.

Lia Castiglione

Lia has been teaching and supporting learners of all ages for over 30 years and in varying educational settings. She is a specialist teacher assessor who is highly experienced in all aspects of access arrangements, has held a current Assessment Practising Certificate since 2008 and regularly assesses in schools and colleges. An accomplished educational trainer, Lia is the co-creator of a postgraduate access arrangements assessor course and is the author of the Patoss/JCQ book, ‘Assessing the Need for Access Arrangements’. She works as an independent educational consultant through her company ‘Castiglione Consulting Ltd’.

Courses can be viewed in either of the following ways:

1. Each member of staff has an individual login and accesses the training on their own device. This has the advantage of flexibility, as the course can be accessed at a time/place to suit the individual (in school/college or at home). OR
2. A group of staff accessing the course together at the same time. For this we recommend that you use a digital projector and large screen with speakers to amplify the presentation. This has advantage of group interaction and monitoring of involvement.

Each login will give access to the chosen course for 10 consecutive days and the course (or parts of the course) can be accessed as many times as required within this 10-day period.

Our course tutors can come to your school or college to run the training face to face. Please email for more information (admin at communicate-ed dot org dot uk).

There is an optional multiple choice assessment to participate in after accessing the training.

There are 15 questions randomly chosen from a bank of 30 and you will have 15 minutes to complete the assessment. There is no pass mark, this is simply an activity to help consolidate the information you have learned on the course. If you choose an incorrect answer you will be able to see the correct answer when you have completed the assessment.