Julia had worked in education since 1986. She did a degree in psychology and sociology and then she trained in teaching in social and
political studies. At the time of the interview Julia taught leisure, tourism and geography in the mainstream school, where she herself had been
educated when she was a student.
When I originally made contact with the school SENCO to arrange the research interviews, I was directed toward Julia as the teacher who was most knowledgeable about dyslexia and therefore appropriate to
interview. It was clear that the SENCO had considered my letter, which set out my research questions. She told me that Julia had an expertise
in the area of dyslexia and mentioned that Julia’s own daughter was dyslexic. When I first met Julia, I was therefore surprised that she
immediately claimed that she had very little knowledge about dyslexia and she was worried about what she could offer to the research. In fact,
Julia said that the first time that she heard about dyslexia was in her current school. She reported that since then she had read some articles and she had attended a useful seminar that her school had organised.
She mentioned that she wanted to know more about dyslexia as she had a daughter who was dyslexic.
Julia considered that the special educational needs team of the school
was doing an excellent job and offered support to the teachers and students. She maintained that the special needs provision in her school
was of a high quality:
I find in this school that we are given a lot of support by the special needs team, a lot of support, they are very good.
Later in the interview, however, Julia explained that the support that
the Senco team offered took the form of a booklet containing the names of the students with learning difficulties.
Yes you get support. We get this booklet and this is full of information about dyslexic students, and then we get specific information about teaching a dyslexic child or a child with behaviour difficulties and we renew it every year, so to know which children need our support…..
Extra support in class was offered by teaching assistants with no
We call teaching assistants, who will come to the classroom and sit with them but they are not for children with learning difficulties, but…but not in terms of dyslexia. Behaviour difficulties and things like that. Most of my teaching assistants’ support is behaviour as well as the reading skills.
Julia’s definition of dyslexia focused on “decoding the information on the
page”, on reading and writing difficulties.
They are looking a word, but they don’t see the letters in the same order we do or the same way round. So when they copy that word letters can be reversed or put in a wrong order. I think the classic letter reversal or things like copying from the board….
When asked to describe a dyslexic student in her classroom, Julia used
entirely positive images. She was keen to minimise any potential differences between dyslexic and other students to the extent that she
did not mention any learning difficulties at all.
Challenging ….interesting and one that I worked with very orally, very capable, very articulate with what they say, which for me as a teacher is often hidden by the dyslexia, because they can be so confident, so sharp.
Julia explained the methods that she followed when she had a dyslexic
student in her class. She used some techniques that the special educational needs coordinator advised her to try and some others that
she had created and thought would be helpful for the dyslexic students. Her main teaching strategy was to bring the student to sit next to her:
Apart from bringing them in my desk…..
A further strategy was related to the use of different colours: I use the trick writing each line in
a different colour.
For students engaged in examination work. Julia acted as an
amanuensis at the computers.
with my year eleven students at the moment one boy in particular he sits next to me, we do research and I ask him a question and he answers me and he speaks and I am writing down what he is saying, he then goes to the computer and types that up, then I have to go and spell check, because he can’t even always transfer my notes on to the computer.
It is notable that the strategy of using the spell check is one that
remains in Julia’s control. Julia believed in these teaching methods, but she was uncertain about why they were working.
I don’t know if this is a proper method, but it’s helping him to achieve his grade.
I write each line a different colour on the board, it seems it helps them, I don’t know why, but it seems it helps them and we record that information….
I am not sure if this is an appropriate method, but I am not expert, I couldn’t diagnose…
In general she rejected the role of expert on dyslexia, as she had made clear at the beginning of the interview. Nevertheless she referred often
to the amount of experience she had and the relative success in teaching dyslexic students.
I have been teaching twenty years and even now I don’t really think
that I know enough about dyslexia or any other learning difficulty
Julia’s idea of what worked relied upon small group teaching. She saw this as the educational solution to teaching dyslexic students.
I think the idea should be smaller classes, because I find, if I have got 30 students and I teach them for one hour per week…. if some children need my support, they are taking most of my time and I must be neglecting other people in the group… particularly the higher ability students, so smaller classes would hopefully allow me to give more support to the full ability range if you like. There are those that are finding reading and writing very easy and there are those who have challenges. So I think smaller groups.
She also believed that some students needed individual support outside the classroom.
I can’t give the one to one attention that they need, so for some children bring them out of the classroom to get one to one support or small groups, I think it would be very good.
She supported the inclusion of more able dyslexic pupils in her classes
and expressed concerns about setting, which implied support for mixed ability teaching.
children that are more able to cope in a mainstream classroom, I think it’s better to keep them, because, because they get access to all this information, so yes, may they aren’t able to write it down really quickly, but they hear that information and they get that knowledge and understanding, which they may not get it, if they put in sets, you know.
Julia suggested that oral methods of teaching helped to support dyslexic students and that writing was of secondary importance and could be
differentiated by task.
I don’t know the word to make it simpler, … in my class I just work all the way up to the higher ability range and my discussion to the higher level thinking skills. So everybody gets access to that whether they can write it down or not and my written tasks are differentiated. So, you know, I have three different levels of written work.
This led Julia to re+emphasise her own lack of expertise in the area and
her sense of powerless.
They think that I am an expert, but I am not, I can only work with the parents.
She felt that she was able to talk about the issues but not propose any
real interventions as solutions.
In parents evening, if dyslexia is an issue we will talk about it, but usually this is with parents that they want to talk about it and who are interested and they want to help the child as much as they can and understand, I suppose…
Julia also described her own relationship with the parents of dyslexic
students. She thought that the parents accepted that their children had learning difficulties.
I don’t think that I have ever come across with anybody who is in denial…
They don’t have the information either how to help the child, you know like me.
In her view to have a dyslexic student or child was very hard and needed more time and more support and more help. Julia believed that
the teacher should sit next to the student and be there for him/her. She repeated many times how difficult it was.
It’s hard. It takes a lot of extra support and extra help. Yes, it does…take a lot of teaching time.
After I had finished taping the interview, Julia spoke at some length about her daughter’s dyslexia and the issues she had faced in relation to
her schooling.