WHO ARE WE

Created in 2014, Dyslexia Victoria Support (DVS) is a state and international award-winning community group, supporting the Science of Reading (SOR) and evidence-based education for literacy difficulties.

It is a place to seek advice and support for Specific Learning Difficulties.

We promote programs such as direct instruction (DI), systematic synthetic phonics (SSP), explicit teaching, decodable texts and audiobooks.

We support information about programs that have been independently, scientifically peer-reviewed and published in reputable scientific journals.

DVS is run by a team of volunteer parents supported by; Teachers, Allied Health Professionals such as Psychologists, Occupational Therapists and Speech Pathologists, Academics, Parents, Grandparents, Specialist Tutors, Schools and people who have literacy difficulties or dyslexia.

In 2018 Dyslexia Victoria Support was awarded the Victorian Premier’s Volunteer Champions Award for Teamwork.

Carolyn Merritt, Heidi Gregory, Sarah Asome

Described as the ‘heart and soul’ of Victoria’s Dyslexia Community, the DVS Administration Team work around the clock to give online support and advice to thousands of people on screening, assessments, assistive technologies, and targeted interventions. The team displays initiative, courage and open mindedness, and have developed essential resources, fostered local support groups, convened events and advocated for people with dyslexia.

DVS PARENT SURVEY – LITERACY IN VICTORIAN SCHOOLS REPORT

NOVEMBER 2020

Click here to view the Report:    PDF

Victoria’s education system has long failed children with literacy difficulties. Rather than being equitable, it’s discriminatory. Rather than being inclusive, it’s marginalising. All children deserve policy makers, educators and parents who are willing to step up to the collective responsibility of teaching all children to read and write in their early years of school.

“The ability of a population to read and write at standards considered competent, and not merely functional, confers widespread opportunities to succeed academically and gain post-school training and education, even in the context of inter-generational academic under-attainment. This in turn affords opportunities for larger numbers to be part of the social and economic mainstream, and sits at the core of reading ability as a pressing public health issue and as a modifiable form of social inequity and disadvantage.” (Snow, P. (2020). SOLAR: The Science of Language and Reading. Child Language Teaching and Therapy. Published early online August 4 https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0265659020947817)”

DVS parents contend with the academic, social, emotional and financial costs that follow when their child’s reading difficulties are not addressed at school. This parent survey gave Victorian parents of children with literacy difficulties the opportunity to share their experiences. Thank you to those who shared their personal experiences. You are not alone.

Click here to view the Report:    PDF