Learning Whisperers: Neuroreadies

Learning Whisperers®

More than dyslexia
 

Families often arrive at Dyslexia Whisperers® looking for early dyslexia screening, before their child is taught to read and spell, and also for children already struggling in Key Stage 1. We also see children in Key Stage 2 and 3 who are facing extreme challenges after being failed for years. It is heart breaking, and avoidable. Please encourage anyone you know to get their three-year-old screened. After Key Stage 1 it becomes much harder for children to ever find reading and spelling effortless, for a range of reasons.
 

Our work is broader than screening. It is a movement to embrace learning differences before children are taught to read and spell. In England every child is taught in the same way through synthetic phonics. The Science of Reading shows that connecting letters and sounds is essential, and that some children need more explicit instruction than others. However, the how of teaching this is not settled science. Synthetic phonics programmes are presented as research-based, but they do not reflect the full diversity of learners.

Dyslexia in UK policy is defined around difficulties with accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. It is not a birth identity like ADHD or autism. Our goal is prevention. If we understand how a child learns and adapt early, no label should be necessary. Once a child becomes an instructional casualty it is far harder to undo the difficulties. Reading before the end of Key Stage 1 should be a right for all.

What NeuroReadies means

NeuroReadies refers to learners, especially ADHD and autistic children, whose brains are ready to learn to read, often as toddlers, but who need a different route into word mapping (the foundation of reading and spelling) because of how they think and learn. Attention patterns, working memory, processing style, sensory load, interests, and language-pragmatic differences all matter. A single route will not fit.

Science of Reading, used well and used badly

The Science of Reading summarises what reading requires. Used well, it informs teaching. Used badly, with research cherry picked to justify products, it is invoked to sell one-size-fits-all programmes.

Two problems follow:

1. Who is in the research. Many trials exclude autistic learners and other neurodivergent groups, so “evidence based” results do not tell us how these approaches work for all children. Reviews of literacy work with autistic learners show a small and selective evidence base.

2. What the averages hide. Reported averages can look positive while a significant group of children do not thrive. Decades of work on “inadequate responders” shows that some children make limited gains even under well-run interventions, which means we must plan for these learners from the start.

In England, around one in five pupils do not meet the expected standard on the Year 1 phonics screening check. By the end of Key Stage 2, around one in four pupils still do not reach the minimum standard in reading. This tells us the current pathway does not work for everyone and confirms the need for alternatives that fit different learners.

What we do

• Offer dyslexia screening before a child has to experience difficulties, and when families need clarity as they see those struggles, then go further.

• Build a NeuroReadies profile that explains how your child learns and what will make reading click. We also make the code visible to avoid difficulties, guessing, or memorisation. Children do not need to mask.

• Provide practical next steps and access to tools such as MyWordz® with MySpeekie® so progress is possible in everyday classrooms and at home.

As Learning Whisperers® our role, as advocates for learning differences, is to make clear that ADHD and autism are lifelong neurotypes. Dyslexia is a description of reading and spelling difficulty that emerges during instruction. We work to prevent those difficulties by understanding the learner first and shaping instruction to fit. No child should need a dyslexia diagnosis

For professionals

Comprehensive reviews emphasise that evidence for reading must be interpreted with care and applied flexibly. The research base supports key components for reading, yet implementation must account for learner variability and the known existence of inadequate responders.

Ask us about CPD.
 

Reception teachers: your role is arguably the most important of all. You determine which children are most at risk of being failed by existing government policies and their promotion of “validated” programmes. The Department for Education states publicly, incorrectly, that these programmes “offer sufficient support for children to become fluent readers.” This ignores the data and fails to acknowledge both linguistic and neurodiversity.
 

Even if you simply implement the 10 Day Speech Sound Play Plan before starting synthetic phonics, you will identify the children most at risk of becoming instructional casualties. You will also be able to prevent difficulties by extending word mapping throughout the day and by making the whole code visible.
 

Are you a SENDCo or tutor? Attend Speech Sound Play training as a starting point with struggling readers. The approach - grounded in Speech Sound Mapping Theory - can be adapted for children who are already forming letters and numbers, and for those who are reading but find it slow and laborious at a single-word decoding level. The introduction is about connecting speech and print for all words, using Code Mapping® to show the graphemes and Phonemies® to show plausible speech sounds that connect.

Interested in whole class screening? Let's ensure that every child leaves primary school a reader!
Book Screen with the Team