West Cumbria Literacy Centre

What the Centre achieves, and the threat of closure

The Centres were set up in the early 1990s when the practice of sending specialist peripatetic teachers into primary schools to help children who were failing with reading/spelling/writing was curtailed.  Remaining specialist teachers in the county set up four literacy centres: Carlisle, Barrow, Kendal and West Cumbria.

Teachers did their own fundraising and arranged premises in order to set up the centres.  WCLC opened in rooms attached to Moorclose Library and was later moved to Lillyhall and is now at Melbreak House at Hensingham.  WCLC covers Allerdale and Copeland with specialist teachers travelling as far as Barrow as outreach support.

The Literacy Centres take in children who need specialist tuition for placements.  The school funds the places partly by the LEA and partly from their own funds.   Children who meet the criteria and who are given a place, attend the centre for two sessions a week for one or two terms.  They are taken to the centre by taxi.  The centre has 6 children/session and there are 8 sessions/week at the WCLC. On Friday’s the teachers do outreach work at schools, which are too far away to transport the children. They also use this day to do assessments and monitoring of Reading Intervention.

Reading Intervention is a specialist teaching programme developed by Dr. Peter Hatcher when Cumbria Education Authority employed him as an Educational Psychologist.  Dr. Hatcher researched the best ways to help children with reading difficulties to make progress then put these together in a scheme, which was piloted at schools in the Carlisle area.  The pilot was successful and the teachers at the literacy centres are trained to deliver the scheme.

The Literacy Centre teachers then began a programme of training other teachers to deliver Reading Intervention.  A trained member of staff delivers RI at the child’s school.  The child is withdrawn from class for four - 35 minutes sessions a week of specialist 1:1 teaching over a period of 12 weeks (36 teaching hours in all). The child is assessed before and after the programme.  RI shows excellent rates of progress for children.  Training teaching assistants to administer the scheme has also reduced the cost.  Indeed, this often works better than with the trained classroom teacher who is liable not to withdraw the child and try to keep an eye on the class at the same time.  The scheme has a proven success rate but needs imput from the specialist teachers to assess the children and monitor delivery, as well as providing staff with regular updates. Although the delivery of RI is usually paid from the Special Needs budget, each school contributes either £300 or £600 towards each child’s programme (the amount depending on the cost of delivery by a teacher or a support Assistant).

Assessment for RI should take place in year 1 and the programme should be delivered in Year 2.  4% of children are severely dyslexic and up to another 6% are less severely affected.  20% of children go to secondary school with an inadequate reading age yet only 1% of children in Cumbria receive RI despite its proven success rate and the fact that other LEA’s are interested and are in the process in buying the scheme.

Those children who have had RI but still need further specialist teaching in order to make progress require a place at the Literacy Centre.

Schools are only able to provide some small group work or in-class support for children who are failing at reading out of their non-statuatory special needs budget.  This works out at a few hundred pounds /child who has special needs.  1:1 specialist teaching where the child is withdrawn from class is only possible at the moment with Reading Intervention, a place at the literacy centre or with a statement.

Whilst at the Centre, the children have some 1:1 specialist teaching time, some time working on the computers using specialist software, small group work and paired reading.  Every activity is designed to help the child make progress with reading and literacy skills.

The Literacy Centre has an excellent record in helping children who have been failing to make progress.  Children who have Specific Learning Difficulties (Dyslexia) have often made accelerated progress at the Literacy Centre (more than 12 months in Reading Age in 12 months).

The literacy centres are oversubscribed. Only about one in nine of the children who meet the LEA’s own criteria to attend the literacy centre are offered a place.

Literacy centres also act as a resource and training centre for other teachers.

With Literacy Centre places abolished and Reading Intervention also disrupted, there will be nothing left but to proceed as soon as possible to statuatory assessment and Statementing.  Since LEA policy is to reduce the number of statements, indeed, not to issue them at all for dyslexics, this would seem to be a step in the wrong direction.  The sensible thing would be to expand the provision of both Reading Intervention and Literacy Centre places, thus enabling children to achieve, instead of going on to secondary education as disaffected youngsters who cannot access the curriculum. This often leads to truancy, exclusions and a host of social problems.

In Reading Intervention, the Literacy Centres and the Specialist Teacher Training Course in Dyslexia Cumbria has both the programmes and the dedicated and trained teachers to tackle and drastically reduce the illiteracy rate before children go to secondary school.  There is both National and International interest in these schemes yet instead of building upon these successes Cumbria seems to be determined to throw away the baby with the bath water.

The LEA will not comment on the proposal to abolish literacy centres nor will they give any alternative proposals for provision for children who are failing at literacy.
The LEA and Social Services have recently been joined together to form The Children’s Services.  Does this mean that resources are to be siphoned off to Social Services from education?

It is not only an aim for children that they should achieve, they have a statuatory right to an education and the LEA, despite being given a different title, has a statuatory duty to provide that education.  Cutting services, which give literacy provision and therefore access to all other education can only be to the greatest detriment of young people and will put further strain on the Social (Children’s) Services.

This article provided by Beth Dell, WCDA March 2006

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West Cumbria Dyslexia Association: Contact Doris Pearce 07863 329747

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