Educational Therapy

Our Educational Therapists support kindergarten children with developmental delays in basic literacy and numeracy skills acquisition. Developmental delays, such as, speech and language delay, learning delays and behaviour concerns can impact literacy development. We provide assessment and intervention to these children and monitor their progress. We support caregivers to help their child's learning at home with appropriate strategies and home activities.

What do we do?

Educational therapy caters to children with a wide range of learning needs and difficulties. Educational Therapists (ET) provide individualised plans guided by evidence-based approaches, such as Orton-Gillingham principles of teaching children with literacy delay. The sessions are equipped with multisensory learning approaches for your child to develop the necessary reading and writing skills to prepare them for future learning. The intervention sessions aim to support your child's learning in the following areas:

Book handling and response to print

Knowledge of the alphabetic principle

Phonological Awareness

Recognition of high-frequency words

Blending of letter sounds into words

Writing skills (spelling and simple sentence construction)

Reading and writing develops over time with consistent practice. The ET will provide the appropriate strategies and tips to support your child's learning at home. ETs also work collaboratively with the other allied health professionals to provide a holistic intervention/support for your child.

Caregiver Training

Caregiver training is at the heart of our service. We view caregivers as experts of their children and seek to build a collaborative relationship. We aim to provide caregivers with information and strategies to support their children’s learning and development. During our sessions, we invite each caregiver to join us and their child in structured activities to support their child’s learning of important literacy skills. We also share strategies with caregivers to continue supporting their children to develop these skills at home.

Literacy Development

Literacy development begins early in life. It is the foundation for reading, writing, communicating and socialising. Early literacy is learning about sounds, words and language. Parents can support early literacy development through conversations, reading, songs, playing with rhymes and drawing. Most children follow a similar pattern and sequence of reading behaviours as they learn to read: from awareness of print to phonological and phonemic awareness to phonics and word recognition. To support preschoolers in attaining and mastering the necessary foundational skills for reading, differentiated and effective instructions must be provided to meet their individual differing needs.

When children meet their literacy milestones during this important period of development, they may be able to

Recognise the letters of the alphabets in both upper and lower case

Know most of the basic 26 letter sounds

Recognise common words such as 'the, is, can, I'

Hear the letter sounds in words such as 'd'-'o'-'g'

Follow sequence of instructions to complete a task at one time

Early Intervention

Children at risk for reading difficulties can be identified from as early as 5 to 6 years old. Research has shown that core deficits in phonological and phonemic awareness are the underlying cause for early reading difficulties. Phonological and phonemic awareness refers to skills to distinguish, manipulate and process speech sounds in words. Preschool teachers are often the first to raise “red flags” about a children’s reading skills. Children at risk of literacy delay can benefit from a systematic, explicit and multisensory intervention.

When children do not meet their literacy milestones during this important period of development, they may find it hard to:

Read a sentence fluently

Understand what they have read earlier

Spell words from memory

If you have concerns about your child's literacy skills, please reach out to your DCD Developmental Paediatrician or speak with your family doctor for a referral to DCD.

Resources

6 Tips to Read to your Child

Literacy Milestones

Reading Development

Educational Therapy

Literacy Development

​Resources

Resources