Dyslexia Action (DYSACT)

About

Dyslexia Institute Ltd operates under the name Dyslexia Action (DYSACT) and is the largest not-for-profit organisation in Europe providing information and services for children and adults with dyslexia, literacy difficulties and with cognitive difficulties which impact on literacy and numeracy skills. It directly supports over 10.000 learners per year in its network of National Centres and through partnership working in community settings, schools, colleges, prison and other settings. Dyslexia Action has a long history of research and innovation in educational services for people with dyslexia and has always been at the forefront of educational development in terms of evidence based practice, new services, computer-based tools and teaching materials. It has been a leader in the development of teaching materials for use in its own centres and more widely in schools, colleges and using online materials. It has also placed evaluation of its own services in a central position and has used the evidence from these evaluations to help refine its practice. Increasingly, the organisation has been involved in externally-funded projects focused on new models of practice or targeting new groups of learners. Funding comes from a range of sources including the UK government, EU, National Lottery and Corporate, Trust and Private sources. Dyslexia Action was recently awarded a contract from the UK Government for a project (Load2Learn) that includes producing digital books and to develop a website that provides curriculum resources for secondary school pupils with barriers to reading, (specifically partially sighted and blind children as well as those with dyslexia) saving teaching time and resources.

Dyslexia Action Team

John Rack

John is the Head of the Department of Research and Development of Dyslexia Action. He is currently Visiting Professor at the University of Lund, Sweden with his home office based at The University of York, UK where he is an Honorary Research Fellow. John has recently stepped down as Policy. Director of the Dyslexia-SpLD trust which advises and assists the UK government in developing and implementing policy. John is an Internationally recognised expert on dyslexia with a history of both research and clinical practice in the many fields that are relevant to dyslexia. He led Dyslexia Action’s contribution to the successful AGENT-DYSL project and has delivered many similar-sized projects including evaluation of teaching interventions, studies of normal reading processes, dyslexia and creativity and the neurological bases of dyslexia.

Glenys Heap

Glenys is acting Head of Educational Development at Dyslexia Action. She is based in the Midlands; her background is as a specialist teacher, trainer and programme manager and current work is focusing on the Content and Training modules of the Load2Learn Project.

Dominik Lukes

Dominik is an Educational Technologist with Dyslexia Action. Dominik is responsible for Dyslexia Action’s online learning courses and course development but he has wider research experience in cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis, philosophy of social science, philosophy of education and curriculum design. He has organised a series of conferences on Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines, and co-founded online journal CADAAD. Domiik has extensive experience of research projects including: lexicographic software assessment, language of personalisation, supporting personalisation through online applications, ethnography of knowledge on campus.

Justine Flower