Literacy skills are one of the most important areas of ability children develop in their first few years at school. That's why it's crucial to provide fluency strategies for struggling readers as soon as a learning difficulty is picked up.

Most children begin by sounding out words and learning to recognize common vocabulary from books and classroom materials. With sight reading and more spelling practice comes greater fluency. Reading then speeds up and comprehension of more complex texts becomes possible as vocabulary knowledge grows exponentially. However, not all students find learning to read such an easy process. Struggling readers can quickly fall behind their peers and may develop low self-esteem and a lack of confidence as a result.

Because reading ability affects performance across all areas of the curriculum, including writing skills, it’s important to provide adequate strategy training as early as possible. Ideally remediation is tailored to the individual student’s needs, particularly when a learning difficulty is involved.

Dyspraxia is a fine and/or gross motor skills difficulty that may also affect learning. Symptoms range in severity and can make it difficult for a child to dress him or herself, hold a pen or pencil and perform other daily activities. Estimates in the UK suggest that 1 child in every 10 struggles with some form of dyspraxia.

While apraxia is a related neurological condition, it represents a complete loss of motor skills impairing a person in a particular capacity. There are different kinds of apraxia but in the case of apraxia of speech, the muscles of the mouth including the tongue, jaw, cheeks, palate and lips cannot be coordinated to produce intelligible spoken language.

If you’re interested in improving your typing speed, you’re not alone. Many people would like to type faster so they can work more efficiently, whether it be for essay writing at school, typing up reports at the office or responding to personal emails.

If a keyboard is involved, touch-typing is the best solution.

Spelling skills are not something people are born with – we learn to spell at the same time as we learn to read and write. For individuals who struggle with learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, spelling can pose a particular challenge as it requires the ability to split words into sounds and then match those sounds to letters and letter combinations.

This is easier said than done because in English there are many ways to spell the same sound. There are also plenty of silent letters, words that break the rules, and foreign words with unintuitive spellings.

For the majority of stroke patients, the road to recovery is a long one that includes many hours of therapy aimed at restoring both physical strength and language capacity. People who suffer a serious stroke may lose the ability to coordinate muscles and execute complex movements.

They can have trouble performing routine tasks including bathing, dressing and feeding themselves. Some will experience numbness or lose feeling in their limbs. Many will have difficulty understanding and producing language. While it is not always possible to recover completely from a stroke, with the right treatment plan quality of life can be improved.