What colleges do to support students: What to do if you have dyslexia

Sylvia Marshall is the Inclusive Learning Team Leader at the Kilwinning Campus and she spoke to us about the help that is available to students with dyslexia at Ayrshire College.

Dyslexia is a continuum of difficulties in learning to read, write or spell. It does not mean that a person with dyslexia cannot read or spell at all, often it means the individual may require some additional time to complete reading or written tasks. Also, every individual with dyslexia will have their own dyslexic profile of strengths and challenges.

These difficulties often do not impact on a student’s overall learning ability and intelligence and are unlikely to impact in all learning situations e.g. may perform stronger with practical work thus no support would be required.

At college, we can carry out dyslexia screening that can inform us of the likelihood of an individual having dyslexia. The screening is not a formal diagnosis but we can use it to view strengths and challenges in order to plan effective support for students.

If a student is on an HN level course, we can refer them to meet with an educational psychologist for a formal dyslexia assessment. This would only be done if the student plans on applying for DSA as it is not necessary to receive college support.

We have a number of students with dyslexia at the college. Some of them were aware they had dyslexia and have been supported throughout school. Others have only discovered that they have dyslexia whilst at college. We have completed screenings and referred students to meet with Educational Psychologists for students of all ages including mature students.

We can support students in a number of ways. This can include the introduction to assistive technologies such as the C-Pen which is a reader pen that can support reading; Texthelp Read & Write software that is available on every computer within the college that can help with reading; proofreading; spelling and more. We can also work with the student to identify their preferred learning style in order to introduce study techniques that can help them organise, structure and revise coursework and assignments.

Additionally, we can implement any assessment arrangements that may be required including use of ICT, additional time, readers or scribes.