The Chairman of the British Dyslexia Association, Lord Addington has recently submitted a bill to the House of Lords to increase the amount of training on common learning difficulties such as dyslexia, for teachers.

Across the UK, it is evident from my conversations with pupils, parents and teachers that the knowledge of learning difficulties is not consistent.  With 10% of the population supposedly having dyslexia with 4% being severely so, in a class of 30 pupils, there are likely to be three pupils needing further support and supporting materials.
We already know that teachers are currently over-worked and under pressure to get better results from their pupils and so without the necessary training for learning difficulties, understandably the needs of the few may not be efficiently taken care of.

Read about tools that can help with reading.

The Bill that is being submitted by Lord Addington can be seen here.

So what has been your experience of the knowledge of teachers on learning difficulties?

On a personal level, being a parent of a dyslexic daughter brought some challenges when highlighting her difficulties with some teachers at her school.  Whilst all the staff were aware that she had learning
difficulties it was clear that some didn't understand my daughter's challenges with education.  I felt that we had quite a positive experience on the whole in supporting my daughter but for many that is not the case.

I would like to share some stories on this blog to highlight some of the difficulties that have been experienced.  Please email me your experiences by clicking here or simply tweet some using the hash tag #SWDBlog.

I am hoping to be able to ask Lord Addington to write a piece about why he has commenced the process of introducing this bill. Watch this space.