Chantal Bryan & Sarah Giles, Episodes
The Importance of Literacy Education for ALL learners with Chantal Bryan & Sarah Giles
In today’s episode, ‘The Importance of Literacy Education for ALL Learners’, Chantal Bryan and Sarah Giles from the charity Teach Us Too join Dale for an engaging discussion.
The conversation centres around Chantal’s son, Jonathan, who faces significant challenges due to his complex physical disabilities. I was inspired by his incredible journey towards being able to communicate with his family and his progress in learning to read and write!
Chantelle shares her experience of taking Jonathan out of special school to provide him with a literacy-focused education, emphasising the importance of not making assumptions about a child’s capabilities based on their labels. With the support of educators like Sarah, Jonathan has made remarkable progress, including starting university courses in creative writing.
As Chantal puts it, “Literacy is the key to unlocking their voice.”
This inspiring episode highlights the importance of a literacy-rich environment, the need for inclusive educational practices, and the belief that all children should have the opportunity to learn to read and write. Chantal and Sarah discuss strategies for making literacy engaging and accessible, including the use of low-tech tools like E-Tran frames, which can aid communication for non-verbal learners.
Listen to hear why literacy is vital for all students and how it opens doors to communication, personal expression and transforms lives.
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About Chantal Bryan OBE
No-one’s story should ever involve a parent needing to remove a child from school in order to teach them to read and write. If we had to do this for all our children, there would be national uproar.
Through my experience as a mother who took her son out of special school to teach him to read and write I have seen first hand the need for a greater understanding of the potential to learn in students with complex needs. I have also experienced the immeasurable difference that being able to read and write makes both for a child or young person who is non-speaking, and also their family and friends around them. This has driven and motivated my determination to make a difference for those children.
About Sarah Giles
I trained as a primary school teacher and later became a SENCo within a mainstream primary school. After a few years away from the classroom while I had my own family I was introduced to Jonathan & his family who were looking for the help of a primary school teacher for his home education. I then worked with Chantal to teach Jonathan at home for several years. When Jonathan established Teach Us Too, he asked me to take a lead on his behalf and I have been working with the charity ever since.
BOOK PUBLISHED
Chantal’s son, Jonathan Bryan, has severe cerebral palsy, a condition that makes him incapable of voluntary movement or speech. He was locked inside his own mind, aware of the outside world but unable to fully communicate with it until he found a way by using his eyes to laboriously choose individual letters, and through this make his thoughts known.
In Eye can Write, we read of his intense passion for life, his mischievous sense of fun, his hopes, his fears and what it’s like to be him. This is a powerful book from an incredible young writer whose writing ability defies age or physical disability – a truly inspirational figure.
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