Tag: advice

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International Left-handers’ Day

Monday 13th August is International Left-handers’ Day.

Only 10% of people are left-handed. This means that in general the world is geared up for right-handed people, and it means that sometimes left-handed people can feel inadequate through no fault of their own. For years my mum thought she couldn’t slice bread properly. It was always obvious when she’d been the last one to cut a slice off because the remaining loaf would look like it’d been attacked by a wild animal. Then one day we found a shop that sold left-handed knives… It turned out she could slice bread properly after all when she had the right tools for the job. After that we bought her a left-handed cake fork and she carried it everywhere with her because the one she was given in tea rooms always had the cutting bit on the wrong side.

Life isn’t just about bread and cake though. Our writing system is also more favourable to right-handers, and left-handed people often feel clumsy and awkward when they drag their hands through what they’ve just written, smudging it. To avoid this they often adopt a hook position when writing ie they place their hand above the line they are writing on and curve it round. Not only does this make it more difficult to control the pen resulting in writing just as messy as if they’ve smudged it, but it’s also uncomfortable and difficult to maintain for a long period. What’s the solution? First of all make sure they have plenty of space. Never put a left-handed person on the right hand side of the table or they’ll keep bumping into their neighbour. Then get them to adopt a ‘twist the paper not yourself” position. Get them to sit square onto the table. Then twist the book or paper clockwise to about a 45° angle. This way they can keep their wrists straight, as a right-handed person, would and they can see what they have written.

Other equipment that can be difficult for a lefty are scissors and rulers. Most people know that you can get left-handed scissors, but not many know that you can also get left-handed rulers where the numbers start at the other end for all those people who will automatically try to measure lines from the left.

There’s a brilliant online shop I found called www.anythinglefthanded.co.uk . Why not celebrate International Left-handers Day by buying a left-handed gift for the leftie in your life?

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Report writing

Each year I buy several ring leaf record cards (one for each school and year group) like these from Wilkinsons. At the beginning of the year I label each card with the name, photo and class/year group of each pupil, and throughout the year I jot little notes down about their progress: participation, pronunciation, accuracy of written work etc. It doesn’t take much time to write a quick line on the card while marking work, or to add a sentence at the end of a lesson.  I obviously don’t write on every card every day – just when there is something particular I want to add, such as the fact that they’ve shown particular interest in a topic, started answering more questions etc.

I find this useful at parents’ evenings when I can refer to the card to make sure I don’t forget anything important. When you watch the children grow and progress week by week, it’s sometimes hard to remember that the confident child who is always first to volunteer for role plays was too shy to say their own name at the beginning of the year – especially when you are teaching more than one class in more than one school. I don’t have to spend time writing notes especially for the occasion because I’ve been doing it bit by bit during the year and I’ve had a really positive reaction from parents, who love the personalisation.

It’s also a blessing at this time of year when it’s time to write reports because everything I want to say is right there at my fingertips – a whole year’s worth of progress all on one card.  There’s no need to choose from banks of statements, or copy and paste sentences from reports of children who are similar, with the risk of forgetting to change the name. It’s quicker to just write individual, completely personalised reports from the notes in my hand.

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How to Learn Children’s Names in September

It’s that time of year again, when teachers are thinking about their new classes, hoping they won’t have too many with the same name, and wondering how they will ever learn all the names if they aren’t all the same.

Seasoned teachers know that there’s nothing really to worry about and that they will learn everyone’s name this year – just as they do every year. NQTs and those about to embark on teacher training courses might be feeling a little more daunted. This is how I do it:

I tell a story along the lines of The Enormous Turnip but about a person who got their hat stuck on their head because it was too small – and I take a flamboyant hat along to use as a prop. I’m a languages teacher, so I do this in French, but it will work in English too.

I call out the children one by one, and each time I retell the story I repeat the names of all the children in the line as well as those who are still watching. Eg: Jack B, Chloe, Izzy, Jade S and Jack C pulled and pulled and pulled, but the hat was still stuck. Dale, Hassan, Jack H, Jade  W, Millie, Ahmina etc were all laughing at them, so they called Hassan up to help.

Everyone joins in with the story, so even those sitting down waiting their turn to join in are repeating the words to the story and calling out the names (useful if you have a blank as there are 29 other children saying each other’s names!).

It’s quite time-consuming – you need to set aside a good 15-20 minutes – but by the time you have called the last person up , the hat has come off and everyone has pretended to fall over, you’ve repeated everyone’s name so many times that you know you’ll never ever forget them!

For me, it’s worth investing the time because I usually teach several classes in several schools so by the end of the first week I need to have learnt well over 300 names!  If you want to give it a go, bear in mind that it needs a lot of space so you will either need to clear all the tables away or better still book the hall! It’s a good opportunity to reinforce behaviour too, with plenty of praise for the children sensibly waiting their turn.

If you don’t have the time or the space to spare, or you don’t like the sound of this, I’ve also found a couple of other blog posts with some different ideas for you to try: https://jamesstubbs.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/learning-names/  and  http://teacherpop.org/2016/07/6-surefire-ways-remember-students-names/

If you have any other ideas for how to remember names, please do share them in the comments.

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Dyslexia Awareness Week

Dyslexia Awareness weekThis week is Dyslexia Awareness Week, so it seemed a good time for a reminder of some of the posts I have written about the subject, and for some suggestions of other interesting pieces to read.

Something simple that everybody can do to help those with dyslexia is to make their documents dyslexia-friendly, and my post of a few months ago gave several hints and tips to make documents easier for people with dyslexia to read.

Reading and spelling are two things that those with dyslexia find difficult, and I have given some suggestions for helping children with these in my blog posts a multisensory approach to reading” and a multisensory approach to spelling.

I have come across some useful articles on other sites too, and I recommend that you check these out:

What it’s like to be dyslexic
How to teach your dyslexic child to read
Teaching dyslexic children: signs, observations and advice
Supporting students with dyslexia

My final recommendation is for a dictionary – but not just an ordinary dictionary though. When you use the ACE Spelling Dictionary, you look up the words by how they sound as if they are spelt, and the dictionary gives you the word as it is really spelt. Brilliant!

If you think you have dyslexia, or you are worried that your child does, then help is available.  For advice about where to turn next you can visit  the British Dyslexia Association or Dyslexia Action.

If you live in north Birmingham and would like to talk about private tuition for you or your child, then get in touch.

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Tips on how to teach your dyslexic child to read.

There are really some useful ideas in this post over at The Brain Gym Dublin for helping all readers, not just those with dyslexia.

“Dyslexics have difficulty recalling words.

As soon as your child has learned enough common sight words if they continue reading very easy books every day they will usually be able to recall the words they have learned and gradually build up a reading vocabulary.

If your child reads only now and then, they will forget the words, begin substituting others, become discouraged and make little progress.”  To read the rest of this useful post, visit The Brain Gym Dublin.