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The Write Words Club
A significant number of children with learning difficulties and disabilities have an underlying speech and language disorder requiring therapy. Unfortunately there are lengthy waiting lists at community health centres for therapy and many children are unable to access the specific service they need.
The cost of private therapy services makes this option impossible for children from financially disadvantaged families, forcing parents to continue to watch their children struggling at school while they wait for help.
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Writing problems have a major impact on a child at school. 60% of a school day involves writing and the majority of examinations depend upon the ability to reproduce thoughts on paper. A child without the skills to put their thoughts on paper will struggle in almost all subjects at school and ultimately find further education and employment difficult. The impact on their self-esteem is immeasurable.
The "Write Words" Program aims to help literacy skills by addressing the speech and occupational therapy needs of children who find it difficult to get their thoughts on paper.
Speech therapy helps a child process language and reproduce their thoughts so they can communicate effectively through oral and written work. It increases vocabulary development and improves sentence structure, sequencing and organisation of ideas.
Occupational therapy assists students with messy, untidy or slow writing by improving the motor skills needed for handwriting. It also helps fine motor coordination and the skills needed to hold a pen and physically move it to form letters.
The combination of these two therapies helps children tackle a written task more effectively and with less effort. Once speech and language difficulties are overcome, children have a better chance of keeping up with their peers at school and going on to further education and brighter employment prospects.
It is difficult to understand how devastating it can be to be unable to write clearly. Many of us find writing easy and do not remember any major problems at school. It is hard to imagine being unable to write a sentence because you can't coordinate the movement of your fingers to hold a pen and form a letter or being unable to get words in your head onto paper because your thoughts are jumbled and your vocabulary is limited.
These are the difficulties that some children face and these are the difficulties that we help them overcome through the Write Words Program.
The Write Words Program is an initiative of children's learning specialists Learning Links, a registered Australian charity assisting children who have difficulty learning. Learning Links helps children and families who are disadvantaged and suffer distress and misfortune by providing specialist help and counselling regardless of economic status, nationality or religious background.
Learning Links receives no recurrent Government assistance for its services for school children with learning disabilities and difficulties and has to charge fees to cover the specialist help it gives children and their families. The charity must raise funds each year to continue their current level of services.
$264 covers the fees for one child to undertake the program, while $2,640 gives ten children the chance to improve their writing and have a brighter future. Donations to Learning Links are tax deductible and receipted. You can give directly to this project.
How do I give?
Please send a cheque or your credit card details to:
Learning Links
12-14 Pindari Road
Peakhurst NSW 2210
(specifying that your donation is for "TheWrite Words Club")
Or simply fill out the online donations form.
Is there an allowance for administrative fees? No, all money goes directly to fund The Write Words Club.
Contact details for further information:
Robyn Collins, General Manager, Marketing & Fundraising
Telephone: (02) 8525 8249
Fax: (02) 9584 2054
Email: rcollins@learninglinks.org.au
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