Parents, educators undergo training to support dyslexia learners
A four-day training programme designed to equip educators, parents and stakeholders with the latest evidence-based strategies to support dyslexic learners has opened in Accra.
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The training, organised by the Africa Dyslexia Organisation, is part of its efforts to provide comprehensive support and resources to individuals with dyslexia across Africa.
Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed.
Awareness
Speaking at the ceremony, a Deputy Minister of Education, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, said the ministry was partnering with the organisation to create awareness of dyslexia, a learning-related condition that affects reading and writing.
He indicated that it had become necessary because parents and teachers got frustrated, thinking that a child was dumb when he or she could not read at the level that the child was supposed to read.
“There is not much awareness and that’s what we seek to bring to the fore,” he emphasised and that once the awareness was there, interventions could be put in place to support learners with dyslexia.
Rev. Fordjour noted that the inclusive education policy was currently being revamped to accommodate all children irrespective of their situation.
Significant
The Founder of the Africa Dyslexia Organisation, Rosalin Abigail Kyere-Nartey, said the workshop marked a significant step in “Our ongoing efforts to provide comprehensive support and resources to individuals with dyslexia across Africa”.
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She said it was to help educators gain a deeper understanding of the neurological basis of dyslexia and its impact on learning, learn and apply evidence-based teaching techniques that catered to the unique needs of dyslexic students.
Ms Kyere-Nartey said it was also to discover how to create a supportive and inclusive classroom environment that fosters the success of all learners to earn professional development credits and enhances their credentials as educators skilled in special education.
She said the organisation decided to bring the parents and educators together to learn about the ways and means to support children with dyslexia, a related learning condition that affects reading and writing.
Ms Kyere-Nartey said because the condition was not known, students who struggled in class were always sidelined and described as blockheaded, lazy and ineducable.
Personalities
However, she said, such persons ended up to be great and cited personalities with dyslexia including famous physicist, Albert Einstein; boxer, Mohammed Ali; musician, Okyeame Kwame and General Overseer of Action Chapel International, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan Williams.
She said dyslexic students were often sidelined because of a lack of awareness as teachers did not have the requisite skills to support learners with the condition.
"Because the person is not aware, he/she does not know how to support the child with the condition. "So those of us in the Africa Dyslexia Organisation decided to bring the private and public school parents together and train them,” she said, adding.
"We give them the history about dyslexia, how it manifests in students, the signs and symptoms to look out for in the classroom and at home.”
Collaborators
"We need collaborators, we need partners, sponsors and individuals to rally behind us. The work is so big, if you say one in five is dyslexic, and you are over 33 million, then 20 per cent of 33 million is likely to be dyslexic,” she said and added that dyslexics across the world were doing amazing things.
She said once teachers were trained, they would go and help students who were muted in the classroom to express themselves and perform academically.