This is the second time I’m writing for Heartworks. But don’t worry, my content will be entirely different.

After I came back from my secondment at Naval Base Primary School, I was entrusted to be a Literacy Coach for students with dyslexia. It was really an eye-opening and mind-blowing journey with me.

In my line of work, I have always encountered students with dyslexia, but I remained uncertain as to how I could help them. I relied on rote memorisation; I was very diligent in getting them to practise writing an informal email or review important grammar rules. In my heart, I knew that it was not the most ideal way, but I was a clueless frog stuck in a well. I didn’t know better.

NorthLight gave me the opportunity to not just undergo the widely acclaimed Orton Gillingham online course, but also learn from an experienced colleague named Wei Teng. Since Wei Teng previously worked as a senior educational therapist with the Dyslexia Association of Singapore, she has gained extensive experience improving the literacy of these students who suffer from poor phonological awareness. She made me understand better the challenges they face as well as the strategies we can empower them with so that they hone their coping mechanism.

As an avid lover of English, I relished how she made me view this fascinating language with a fresh pair of eyes. She alerted me to the fact that every syllable MUST have at least a vowel. She also enlightened me about a quintessential spelling rule - “Q and U stick like glue”. I used to think that English was highly idiosyncratic, but she helped me understand how it is largely a logical language governed by predictable patterns!

After being armed with such knowledge, I was given the chance to teach English to pull-out groups comprised of our weakest-progress students. I was bombarded with challenges that compounded one another: sporadic attendance, low attention span, poor working memory, among others. I gradually realised that I had to be extra strategic when it came to teaching them.

Mindful of their poor working memory, I was cognisant of the need not to overwhelm them with information. I learnt that I had to employ spaced repetition consistently so that the things they acquired for their short-term memory could be transferred into their long-term memory. I became more systematic in teaching them. Every Thursday was a writing lesson; every Friday was an Assistive Technology lesson. I quite liked this way of intentional teaching.

I was able to think creatively too. From using stickers to get students to use as full-stops and coloured letters for spelling to making posters and doing matching exercises, I had fun using unconventional methods to help them improve their English. I felt that being the Literacy Support I/C expanded my repertoire as a teacher . I was genuinely happy with their smallest success. I never expected that someone spelling “how” accurately would make me over the moon. But this seemingly trivial achievement was the culmination of many lessons’ worth of hard work. I never gave up; neither did these students.

In all, I enjoy being a Literacy Coach at NorthLight School.