Effective Writing Skills for People with Dyslexia – Training Course Outline

Dyslexia affects at least four to five percent of the British population, meaning that nearly three million of us are affected by it to varying degrees. Many are in full or part time work and need to read and write effectively to carry out their responsibilities. Things like taking phone messages, jotting down notes for colleagues or reading them, can take up inordinate amounts of time.

We are experts in helping people to communicate effectively with their colleagues and clients. Although there isn’t a cure for dyslexia, there are things you can do to improve your ability to write effectively. This workshop offers a range of suggestions and experiences, giving you the chance to see what works for you and hints and tips to take away and apply to your own circumstances.

What you will cover during this workshop

By the end of the day, you will have:

• Rules that can help you work out the spelling of over 80% of English words
• A selection of techniques to make your handwriting easier to read
• Discovered ways to make computers more user-friendly
• Discussed strategies to make it easier to read long or complex documents
• Considered some techniques for time management and personal organisation
• Shared ideas and experiences with people in similar situations

What our customers say

“Giulia was brilliant, very calm and happy to help each time she was asked a question.”

JM, St Mungo’s

Course Duration

This course is a one-day, interactive workshop for a maximum of eight delegates.

We will discuss a variety of techniques that you can sample in a supportive environment to see what works best for you. Don’t worry – you won’t feel like you’re back at school!

Follow up session

Get the most from a staff training day and make sure valuable ideas aren’t forgotten by booking a follow-up session. Our trainer will visit you again a month to six weeks after your course to give delegates the chance to:

• discuss how they implemented what they learnt
• go over points from the course
• practise their skills by working on their own writing with the trainer’s help

Course Contents

1. Is English spelling really so irregular?

• Five principles to help you understand why words are spelt the way they are

Knowing these helps you see patterns in letter usage and to predict how words are likely to be spelt.

• The history of words and the languages they came from
• The meanings of words and their parts
• Single letters, letter combinations and the sounds they make
• How the position of a sound in a word affects its spelling
• A few established conventions and patterns

• The truly irregular words that seem to come up all the time

Unfortunately, some of the words we use regularly are those that don’t follow obvious spelling rules. We’ll discuss ways to learn them, such as mnemonics, visual imagery and plain old rote memorisation.

2. Making useful notes that everyone can read

• What’s your handwriting like?

Unless you were very well taught at school and continue to practise often, it’s probably rather illegible or painfully slow. Changing your posture or the way you hold a pen can make a real difference. Cursive writing and lined paper help too – find out why!

• Two ways to organise notes

We’ll look at two techniques for taking notes: spidergrams, also called Mind Maps® or spray diagrams, can appeal to people with good visual memory. These are also great ways to plan a document you have to write. A two-column format also produces very clear notes that are easy to refer back to.

• Do you need to write down every word?

If you’re writing for your own information, use shortcuts: abbreviations, acronyms, key words, symbols and contractions.

3. Aren’t computers meant to make our lives easier?

• Getting the best out of Microsoft Word®

For times when you do your writing on a computer, we’ll look at ways to make this easier.

• Can you trust the spell checker?
• What on earth is the grammar checker trying to tell you?
• Making custom dictionaries, exclude dictionaries and the thesaurus work for you

• Shortcut control keys

We’ll give you a list of standard hot keys to let you perform common functions quickly, including:

• Save
• New document
• Undo and redo
• Convert upper case to lower case for those times you don't notice the caps lock key was on
• Cut, copy and paste
• Making selected text bold, italic or underlined
• Moving the cursor quickly and accurately

• Making reading on-screen easier

Which fonts do you find most legible? How can a different background colour help and how can you change it easily? Zooming in, enlarging the font or changing the page view can help too.

And on a more general note:

• Change how the cursor looks so it's easier to see
• Accessing menus by keyboard shortcuts

4. Reading paper documents

Not all your reading will be on-screen. If your job involves reading printed documents, we’ll discuss some of the specific problems associated with them, and look at a range of coping strategies:

• Using coloured overlays
• Scanning the document quickly before you get into it - things to look for
• Reading aloud
• Getting your computer to read it to you

5. Staying on top of things

Personal organisation and good time management are valuable skills for everyone, dyslexic or not. We’ll discuss things that work or don’t work for you with people facing similar challenges. We’ll throw some suggestions into the pot for you to try once you’re back at work:

• Personal organisers
• To do lists
• Prioritising tasks
• Setting goals that are realistic and achievable

6. Checking your work

Even very small pieces of writing – a note written for a colleague just before your shift ends, for example – will benefit from a quick read-through to make sure you’ve been clear. More substantial pieces of work – a short report, perhaps – may need some changes from your initial rough draft.

• A top-down approach to improving text – edit like a reader
• Making your text flow – effective transitions from one idea to another
• Improving the layout – highlighting key points
• Proofreading your work – tips to help you see what’s really there
• Is what you’ve written clear and understandable? How to recognise when it isn’t and what to do about it

You’ve said something needs to be done – but are you going to do it, or are you expecting someone else to do it? When is “tomorrow” – the day after you wrote the words or the day after I’m reading them?

Book Now!

You can book a private course or call us on +44 (0)844 445 7743.