More teachers graduate from TDPC

Recently, twelve teachers graduated from the Caribbean Dyslexia Centre (CDC) qualifying to teach dyslexic children.

Over the past five weeks, the teachers participated in the Teaching Dyslexic Pupils Course (TDPC), which the Haggatt Hall, St. Michael-based Centre has been offering since 1999, training just over 200 in the multisensory teaching programme.

One of the teachers is from St. Vincent. The programme looked at what is dyslexia, the alphabet principle and phonemic awareness, reading, spelling and handwriting which are all three challenging areas for the dyslexic learner in the classroom, and assessment of the dyslexic learner in the classroom using psychometric testing, in addition to other areas.

Founder and Director of the Centre, Yvonne Spencer said the programme started out as a need to get more teachers trained and capable to help the increasing number of children being diagnosed with dyslexia.

“They learn what dyslexia is, they learn what goes into an assessment, then they learn the teaching theory which is the actual multisensory teaching where the resources they make respond to the teaching. Then they get seven lessons teaching a student, which is part of the main course of the programme.

“We need them to do the lessons so that they can get experience teaching a dyslexic child and for us to ensure that they do it correctly. The teaching practice is a major portion of the course,” she said.

The teachers who participated in this year’s course put together displays showcasing the teaching material they produced during the programme. (AH)