Helene Cohen (Special Educational Needs expert): Dyslexia and inclusive teaching

EPISODE NOTES In this episode, Claire talks with Helene Cohen: an experienced teacher and special educational needs expert. Helene talks about how her own first-hand experience of special educational needs – growing up with dyslexia without realising it – has given her unique perspectives on ways to make education and teaching as inclusive as possible. For a significant period of her life Helene labelled herself as ‘stupid’ seeing her classmates and others around her seemingly reading and understanding things much more quickly. While her dyslexia  created (and continues to create) additional challenges, Helene qualified as a teacher, became a Special Educational Needs coordinator, and eventually undertook a doctorate. Helene discusses how, as a part of her own journey becoming a teacher and gaining her doctorate, she discovered her own dyslexia and moved into working as a tutor, consultant and INSET speaker for special educational needs. Throughout the podcast, Helene shares a wide range of ideas for including those with additional needs: involving children in activities or discussions where they cannot verbalise their thoughts, how to include children with dyslexia in English lessons where there can be anxieties around being involved, and ideas for how to make resources more accessible.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Keep as many people as possible in a school up-to-date with SEN.Ensuring that everyone in school is involved with developments in special educational needs issues can be crucial. Depending on the children and individual cases, it can be incredibly beneficial to make sure that all who might come into contact with certain children are aware of the specific children, their needs, and how to interact with them. For example, with situational mutism, it is not just the class teacher that needs to know about the condition and who is affected; all teachers, dinner-staff and office workers who might need to interact with the child could also need to be aware. While there could well be cases where widespread knowledge is not appropriate, whole-school awareness could apply to a range of other SEN issues as well. Look for ways to make sure that those with SEN are as included as possible.Children who have special educational needs will, likely, be aware that they find things more challenging than others and can feel very anxious about how they are perceived. Taking this worry out of lessons by thinking about how children might participate can mean that children are more engaged with what’s happening. For example, allowing children to take different roles in group or class discussions rather than expecting everyone to contribute to writing or reading could mean that a dyslexic child, who can verbalise their thoughts very eloquently, would not be worried about having to write anything. Equally, a child with situational mutism could be solely responsible for scribing their thoughts and what others say rather than feeling on-the-spot about having to verbalise their opinion. Making resources as accessible as possible.Try to make sure that resources in class are not ‘overloaded’ in terms of how much there is to read or take in. For reading resources, using images that tell a story alongside the text can be really beneficial. Colour coding (such as alternating colours on lists of bullet pointed items) can help to segment the points and make them easier to distinguish. Taking care with the layout can also make resources more accessible such as being consistent with the placement of things that appear on multiple ‘slides’. In particular, not varying these for autistic children who might struggle to focus if elements move.The language we use can also be something to be mindful of. An example would be that asking a child to ‘think’ about something is not the same as asking them for an answer.   BEST MOMENTS “That's something I'm getting really fed up with at the moment: the pressure to catch up because children have missed a few months of schooling. As though that's the only thing that matters. I would say their mental health matters an awful lot more.” “They're learning that, actually, we learn from our mistakes. That is such an important part of resilience and a part of life. It doesn't matter if you get it wrong. What matters is what you do about that.” “Another piece of advice for working with anybody with any special needs: if you can make something multi-sensory, you're more likely to remember it. When I do work on adjectives, I bring in something lovely to eat and something awful to eat and let them taste it and describe it. They never forget that lesson because they tasted it.” “We need to give people a chance to succeed. Some people succeed academically. Some people succeed in other ways.” “We need to listen. Listening is such an important part of our jobs as teachers.” “We need time. My biggest problem with school at the moment is they're trying to cram so much in and they're forgetting that they're actually people we're trying to teach. If we don't know those people, we won't teach them properly.” “We need our creative thinkers. We need our problem solvers. We need our people who are resilient, who can work out how to make something better because they got it wrong.” “We need creative thinkers and logical thinkers. A spoon-fed curriculum that focuses on data is not going to give us that. [That is] going to give us people who can regurgitate facts.” “Let [children with special educational needs] have a laptop in class or a notebook or, you know, something. Use our technology. That is so important. I can't stress that enough.” “Every child I've ever taught knows that I care more about their vocabulary than their spelling. The spelling we can work on afterwards.”   VALUABLE RESOURCES Helene Cohen online: https://www.pleasemissplease.co.uk/ Helene Cohen’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/edpleasemiss Helene Cohen’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helene.edpleasemiss.9 Helene Cohen’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-helene-cohen-39870848/ Real group: https://www.realgroup.co.uk/ Selective mutism: In our own words: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Selective-Mutism-Our-Own-Words/dp/1849056366 The Teachers' Podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/Claire_Riley_TP The Teachers' Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theteacherspodcast/ The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom Secrets Kids: https://kids.classroomsecrets.co.uk Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/ Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/   ABOUT THE HOST 'My mother is a teacher. I will never be a teacher.' - Claire Riley Claire arrived at the end of her performing arts degree with no firm plans to move into the entertainment industry. A fully funded secondary teaching course seemed like the perfect way to stall for a year on deciding what to do with her life. Turns out, teaching was her thing.  Three years in a challenging secondary school - check. Two years in primary schools with over 90% EAL children - check. Eight years doing day-to-day supply across 4-18 - check. If there's one thing she learnt, it was how to identity the best ideas from every school in terms of resources and use that knowledge to create something that would work for teachers far and wide. In 2013, Classroom Secrets was born. Claire had seen other resource sites and wanted to add something to the market that she felt was missing. More choice + More quality = Balance. Claire is a self-proclaimed personal development junkie and is always looking for ways to learn and improve. It's usually centred around business, her new-found passion. In 2019, Claire launched The Teachers' Podcast that hit that charts on launch and is listed in the top 200 educational podcasts most weeks. The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.