Ministry to review training of Sarawak’s dyslexia trainers – Borneo Post Online

(From front second left) Dr Toh, organising chairman Sean Hii, and Fatimah are seen during a photo call for the event. – Photo by Peter Boon

SIBU (Oct 3): The Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development Ministry will review the training of trainers for dyslexia in a bid to further strengthen the programme, said minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.

She said the programme was introduced before the Covid-19 pandemic to equip teachers in Sarawak with the know-how to recognise or diagnose children who are dyslexic, besides training on rehabilitation.

“(The programme was done for schools) across the state. I think this was done before Covid-19.

“And now that many years have lapsed – I think we need to relook again, review, and look at how successful it has been … it was successful before.

“I say it is successful because more teachers are aware now, if a child cannot read, cannot spell – don’t straight away punish the child – observe closely first – see how he writes. There are tools that they can use to diagnose whether the child is dyslexic or not,” she said.

Fatimah told reporters this after officiating at Agape Centre’s fundraiser for its dyslexia programme, held in conjunction with the inaugural Rajang River Festival here yesterday.

She also echoed Association for Children with Special Needs Sibu secretary Dr Toh Teck Hock’s view that providing teachers with the skills is more effective for dyslexic students.

“When you train the teachers, teachers can actually work with their students at their own area, rather than we directly do the rehabilitation with the child, which is a slow process.

“But if you train the teachers, more people will be able to carry out the interventions in their schools in their own districts. And that was what we have managed to achieve with the grant that we provide to the Dyslexia Association (Sarawak).

“At Sibu level … they, on their part, also did theirs – that is the right move, training the teachers – creating awareness among the teachers. And teachers themselves will do the intervention.

“Because this is not a normal intervention … that is the skills we provide to teachers. And we work together – the ministry, the Dyslexia Association (Sarawak), plus the PPD (District Education Office),” she explained.

Additionally, Fatimah said on April 22 this year, the state government presented RM3.9 million to the Dyslexia Association Sarawak for the construction of the dyslexia centre on a 1.5-acre site in Desa Wira, Batu Kawa, Kuching.

“In the very beginning, when we started this Dyslexia Association Sarawak, our concern was of course, to do intervention on the children but that is quite a slow process.

“So, children are brought to the centre and intervention being done. And at that time, we also had people from rural areas … so, we had to provide them with a place to stay during holidays so that intervention can be done,” she said.

Fatimah said another service is skills training – so that dyslexic children will have skills that can generate income and stand on their own feet.

She pointed out that unlike down syndrome or autism, dyslexia cannot be diagnosed from physical appearance until seeing how the child writes.

“Your inability to read even though you have tried very hard. Other people can read at the age of seven or eight, and you can’t,” she explained.

According to her, dyslexic children are sometimes mislabelled and misunderstood.

“And because they are mislabelled and misunderstood in their classroom, they get punished for something that they can’t help,” she noted.

Dr Toh said the dyslexia programme at Agape Centre started in 2007 and initially trained volunteer teachers before engaging their own teachers.

“So far, for the last 15 years, we have been training at least 300 children – young schooling age children in Primary 1 to 3, and, sometimes, kindergarten.

“Since 2016, we also train our teachers from primary schools from the Education Department,” he said.

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