If you’ve ever considered helping your own child with reading and spelling at home you’ll know there are a multitude of programmes out there and knowing which to chose is difficult. Recently a parent bought CodeBreakers, here’s her view of how CodeBreakers has helped her child to read and spell.
The parent asked a dyslexia tutor to deliver CodeBreakers at home but the programme is written to enable parents use the programme themselves with an easy to follow handbook.
I am an adult education tutor with a specialism in dyslexia and was asked if I would privately tutor a boy of nine, with a low working memory and strong indicators of dyslexia. I agreed to help the parents to help build up his phonic knowledge and his self- confidence, and decided to try CodeBreakers.
I have been working with him now for just over three months and have been really impressed with how much the programme is working for him. It is very easy to follow, has just the right amount of repetition and definitely helps to improve self-confidence, as the students can see for themselves how they are improving.
His mum tells me every week how pleased she is and made a special mention last week of the fact that:
‘He has started to read things when we are out and about; something he had never done before and I feel sure that’s because of CodeBreakers.’
She also told me that she had struggled for months to try to get him to understand the concept of the ‘Magic e’ but in a few short weeks, he has mastered it and the pure joy on his face last week when he didn’t make a single mistake was great to see.
I tested him recently on spellings from the past few weeks and he got 15 out of 15!! He told me
‘I’ve never got my spellings right before!’ and off he went to show mum and granny his achievements. Lovely to see!!
I would have no hesitation in highly recommending the CodeBreakers programme for anyone who is struggling with their reading and writing.
with thanks to, Vanessa Goddard, Managing Dyslexia
As the author of CodeBreakers, one of the the greatest things I observe, from the people using using CodeBreakers, is confidence. The simplest of comments can be so heartwarming and touching. Recently, we’ve been trialing CodeBreakers in schools. I spoke to the SENCO last week and she reported,
One of our students had experienced lots of other intervention programmes and was developing some ‘behavioural’ difficulties in school, I’m certain this was linked to his low self esteem around learning. After just a few months of 1:1, for 1 hour a week, I’ve seen in increase in his confidence and a decrease ‘behavioral’ difficulties. For the first time he’s realised he can learn to read and spell.
It’s the small changes that can’t be measured but which have such a great impact on an individual’s life, the SENCO told me,
Only last week one of my students came in with such excitement, telling me that’d they’d had a take-away over the weekend. I was a little confused as this wasn’t anything unusual. He then told me “But Miss, I tried something different for the first time ‘cos I could read the menu!”
Those confident moments can transfer to the classroom too and can have an impact wider on learning as a whole.
For the first time, one of my students using CodeBreakers put her hand up in class and was able to answer a question about spelling and tell the teacher and the whole class why the spelling was wrong.
The fabulous thing about this moment is, the student was able to clearly quote the rule behind the spelling errors, as she’d learned and retained it from CodeBreakers sessions. Not only that, she was able to transfer the learning from 1:1 into the classroom and apply it.
Just like the little boy learning at home, spelling tests can be adapted to use the key words from the word lists in CodeBreakers, which follows year 1-2 of the National Curriculum, with years 3-4 to be released soon. By adapting spelling tests children are able to gain 10/10 and with this gain a great sense of achievement.
I will be chatting about the success of the pilot study in schools and how to deliver an effective synthetic phonics programme, to support struggling readers and spellers and those diagnosed with dyslexia, at SEN Jigsaw Conference, on June 8th 2019 in Stoke on Trent. There will be a great line up of professional speakers, workshop hosts and SEN exhibitors. The event is for professionals and parents. The event is ticket only and booking is essential by May 30th.
The pilot study in schools has been so successful we’ve now devised a second year project for September 2019. If you’d like your school to be considered contact me directly and I will be happy to chat to you further.
If you are a parent and would like a sample please contact us.
