Signs in Secondary School
Written work:
- Has a poor standard of written work compared with oral ability
- Has poor handwriting with badly formed letters
- Has neat handwriting, but writes very slowly indeed
- Produces badly set out or messily written work, with spellings crossed out several times
- Spells the same word differently in one piece of work
- Has difficulty with punctuation and/or grammar
- Confuses upper and lower case letters
- Writes a great deal but ‘loses the thread’
- Writes very little, but to the point
- Has difficulty taking notes in lectures
- Organisation of homework and tasks difficult to complete on time
- Appears to know more than can be committed to paper
Reading:
- Is hesitant and laboured, especially when reading aloud
- Omits, repeats or adds extra words
- Reads at a reasonable rate, but has a low level of comprehension
- Fails to recognise familiar words
- Misses a line or repeats the same line twice
- Loses his place – or uses a finger or marker to keep the place
- Has difficulty in pin-pointing the main idea in a passage
- Finds difficulty with dictionaries, directories, encyclopaedias
Numeracy:
- Finds difficulty remembering tables and / or basic number sets
- Finds sequencing problematic
- Confuses signs such as x for +
- Can think at a high level in mathematics, but needs a calculator for basic facts
- Misreads questions that include words
- Confuses direction – left/right
- Finds mental arithmetic at speed very difficult
Other areas:
- Has difficulty in learning foreign languages
- Has indeterminate hand preference
- Has difficulty in finding the name for an object
- Has clear processing problems at speed
- Misunderstands complicated questions
- Finds holding a list of instructions in memory difficult, although can perform all tasks when told individually
- Confuses left and right regularly
- Cannot find their way round complex timetables or buildings
Behaviour:
- Is disorganised or forgetful e.g. over sports equipment, lessons, homework, appointments
- Is immature and/or clumsy
- Has difficulty relating to others: is unable to ‘read’ body language
- Is often in the wrong place at the wrong time
- Is excessively tired, due to the amount of concentration and effort required