Members of NCI's Dyslexia Working Group attending a virtual meeting recently
National College of Ireland marks Dyslexia Awareness Week 2022 with the launch of a Dyslexia Working Group in partnership with NCISU.
The group aims to raise, review and lead on initiatives in the area of dyslexia, with individual members becoming champions for dyslexia awareness and the promotion of good practice and training across the College.
Currently consisting of members of the Students’ Union, Student Support, Early Learning Initiative, Marketing and International teams, along with a number of academic staff, membership of the group is open to anyone who wishes to join, who believes they can contribute to activities related to dyslexia awareness, including NCI staff, students, and alumni.
Lecturer in Business and Programme Director, Dave Cormack, who has spoken about his journey with dyslexia during a webinar with the Dyslexia Association of Ireland this summer, said: “As a dyslexic member of staff at NCI, I am incredibly proud to join this working group to share my experiences, with the aim of promoting accessibility within our learning community. I truly believe that what is good for those with dyslexia is good for all.”
Dyslexia Awareness Week 2022 takes place between Monday 3rd and Sunday 9th October. Throughout the week, National College of Ireland will be sharing useful and informative updates across social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) to promote the acceptance and inclusion of people with dyslexia in third-level education. The campaign is also designed to encourage NCI students to reach out to register with our Learning and Disability Service which can provide them with one-to-one learning support to assist with the management and planning of academic work. You can help support the campaign by sharing these updates on social media with your followers.
NCI has already implemented changes to improve the accessibility of our communications such as using dyslexia-friendly fonts and increasing the default font size to 12 for all documents and emails. The College website is currently undergoing an accessibility audit to assess compliance with WCAG 2.1, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, with the support of NCBI. A training session, facilitated by the Dyslexia Association of Ireland, was provided to NCI staff to provide an understanding of dyslexia, and to share advice on identifying students who need further learning support.
The group aims to continue championing dyslexia awareness throughout the academic term and to prioritise the importance of improving accessibility across the College for all members of the NCI community.