Gwyn Singleton | |
---|---|
Born | Gwynifer Begbie 1933 |
Died | 21 September 2021 |
Education | Jordanhill College Open University |
Known for | spelling dictionary and pioneering support for children with dyslexia |
Gwyn Singletonnee Gwynifer Begbie,(1933–2021) was a Scottish pioneer of educational support for dyslexia. She published a spelling dictionary and associated teaching aids for children with dyslexia, based on an aural coding system, [1] with David Moseley and founded Dyslexia ScotWest support group for families with children with dyslexia. [2]
Born Gwynifer Begbie in Edinburgh 1933, to mother Ena Davis-Jones, a teacher and her father J. Mouland Begbie, the leader of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, she also had a sister Margot. [2]
The family moved to Glasgow where she attended Laurel Bank Schoo l and Jordanhill Teacher Training College. Her first job was in Haggs Hill School, Glasgow. In 1959, she married Ronald Singleton and later divorced. She had four children Julia, Hilary, Gregor and Clare. [2]
In the 1980s, she helped to found a group to support families affected by dyslexia in the west of Scotland (Dyslexia ScotWest) and completed a degree in education, at the Open University. [2] She moved to Newcastle, teaching at Nunnykirk specialist school with her new partner David Moseley, [3] and together they published a spelling dictionary, designed for dyslexic children and created associated freely available worksheets, [4] which were commended by the Dyslexia Association. This became a recommended resource for use in Scottish education authorities, with Stirling Council including it in its "advice and good practice in supporting dyslexia". [5]
Singleton retired, and later died aged 87, in Aylesbury, on 21 September 2021. [6]
Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, reading quickly, writing words, "sounding out" words in the head, pronouncing words when reading aloud and understanding what one reads. Often these difficulties are first noticed at school. The difficulties are involuntary, and people with this disorder have a normal desire to learn. People with dyslexia have higher rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), developmental language disorders, and difficulties with numbers.
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Scots is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland. Most commonly spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, Northern Isles and northern Ulster, it is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Goidelic Celtic language that was historically restricted to most of the Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides and Galloway after the sixteenth century, or Broad Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Standard English. Modern Scots is a sister language of Modern English, as the two diverged independently from the same source: Early Middle English (1150–1300).
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