Focusing on spellings and testing spelling capabilities has an impact on children. John Hicks shares some insights from parents in his latest YouTube video and shares his infographic with useful strategies for understanding what’s happening for a child with dyslexia and what strategies help.

I have been thinking a lot about education over the years and the impact that this system has on our young people with dyslexia.

The current state funded education system was initially established in the 1800’s! Did you know that? In reality, the concept of teaching, and assessing hasn’t really changed. The system seeks to quantify the ability to learn through the use of the recall of concepts, facts and figures using tests and examinations mixed with elements of coursework.

One aspect is the fixation of the education system to monitor progress in being able to spell. Please do not misunderstand me, spellings are important, but they should not have the intensity of focus that they are given now and to be fair, for dyslexic learners, spelling tests and SpaG marks bring about dread. They are an unfair and unrealistic measure of skill, given that we are currently in this technological age when most of the writing that that takes place is done on an electronic device that tells you if your spellings are off! This focus detracts away from the strengths that our children have that are far more important for living and learning in the real world.

I recorded the YouTube video below to explore the emotional impact that this fixation on spellings has on our dyslexic learners and why we need to refocus how we teach our kids.

I also explain why I have released my latest resource on spellings that help people to understand what is happening for a dyslexic child when having to deal with spellings, the difficulties experienced and strategies that help. If you want to skip the video and simply download the resource, then just click here.