It highlights the successes and achievements of students with dyslexia not only in terms of academic performance but also their strength and resilience to improve and overcome their learning difference.

173 students graduated from the Main Literacy Programme (MLP) having attained a competency in literacy that will facilitate their success in school and their overall learning journey. And a majority of these students have been funded by the Ministry of Education.

For the first time this year, we presented achievement awards to 152 students from the Main Literacy Programme who while not ready to graduate, have nevertheless made worthy progress from Emergent Literacy Skills to Functional Literacy Skills and Functional to Advanced Literacy Skills. The progress made by these students reflects DAS emphasis on addressing the underlying learning issues of children as opposed to providing a tuition service. It is also due to our children learning in a positive and emotionally sound environment in line with our published teaching principles. In fact, a MOE 2015 audit reported that:

“Services offered under MLP are appropriate, and remain highly relevant in providing additional literacy support for students with dyslexia”.

Once again, we presented awards to students who have made outstanding progress while on programmes delivered by the DAS Specialised Educational Services (SES). We presented awards for the Maths Good Progress, Speech and Drama Arts Shining Star, Speech and Language Therapy Good Progress, Specialist Tutoring Good Progress, Chinese Word Recognition Champs, English Exam Skills Best Progress and Preschool Prolific Reader Awards. 

DAS has put into place numerous programmes to support the challenges children with dyslexia face across age groups, languages and school subjects and we recognise the importance of providing a wide range of programmes for them.

Each year, we present a DAS Special Achievement Award to students who have demonstrated exceptionally high levels of commitment and determination in their pursuit of success in Sport, Arts or simply All-Round Excellence. This year, the Award goes to Meldon Chua Yi Xun. In 2013, Meldon received the Edusave Character award, in 2014 he received Edusave Good Progress award, in 2016 he received 2 awards and they were the Edusave Certificate of Academic Achievement as well as the Edusave Good progress Award and in 2017 he received the Sportsmanship award for National Primary Schools Wushu championship.

We also celebrate the success and achievements of our alumni, past students who have continued to excel. We were very pleased to present the DAS Young Achievers Award to Emily Yap Yong An. We look forward to these outstanding young people being an inspiration and role model to our current students. I am sure the parents present at the ceremony were inspired by Emily’s speech and will also take heart from her fine example.  Emily’s speech is on the DAS Youtube Channel along with other videos shown and taken at the graduation. 

While we applaud the achievements of our students, we must not forget the DAS Educational Therapists (EdT) who work tirelessly in support of their students. This year we presented the DAS MLP EdT of the Year Award to Harsheeni Hanna Rajoo and Steven Sim to acknowledge their incredible work in our classrooms.

The MLP reached a historical high enrolment of 3,110 primary and secondary school students in mid-October this year and complements the Ministry of Education’s School Dyslexia Remediation Programme which is now available in all primary schools for Primary Three and Four students. These developments reflect the significant number of school-age children whom we still have to reach out to identify and help. The corresponding need for more dedicated and well-trained EdTs is also paramount.

Congratulations to all our graduates and award winners and wish them every success in their future endeavours!

This article was published in FACETS Vol 3 2018

To read this article in PDF click here

For photos of the 2018 Student Graduation and Achievement Awards Ceremony visit DAS Facebook