ABOUT
S&S
Heya! I'm Teacher Shaun!
Heya! I'm Teacher Shaun!
I set up Swords & Stationery to help young people with dyslexia overcome their learning challenges. Having worked in the Dyslexia Association of Singapore from 2013 to 2017 as an Educational Therapist, I had come to realise even the Orton-Gillingham methodology was insufficient to spur many dyslexic students to achieve their fullest potential. There was a missing ingredient.
In 2014, I trialed incorporating tabletop games into my lessons. Surprisingly, students started to become more motivated to do better, not just academically, but behaviourally too!
To date, I have taught over 80 dyslexic students, many of whom still keep in touch with me to reminisce about the “good old days”. Want to find out more about the S&S approach? Drop me a text and let’s chat! 🙂
Teacher Shaun
Principal Educational Therapist / Chief Happiness Officer
What others are saying about us
What others are saying about us
Our core beliefs
Our core beliefs
Mission
To help learners with dyslexia perform to the best of their abilities in English Language-based subjects. We empower dyslexics!
Vision
To establish Swords & Stationery as a regional institution, known for its avant-garde but highly effective practices.
Values
Grit
Inquisitiveness
Tenacity
Graciousness
Understanding
Determination
Our pedagogy is:
> Language-based
> Cognitive, direct, and explicit
> Simultaneously multisensory
> Diagnostic and prescriptive
> Structured, sequential, and cumulative
> Emotionally sound
Modules
Modules
Our Literacy module is split into three tiers: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced.
The Beginner tier covers the most common phonograms, syllable types, spelling rules, and affixes. Near the end of this stage, most students should be able to read and spell 3- or even 4-syllable words.
The Intermediate tier covers more difficult phonograms, like vowel teams, and more difficult rules, like the “y-to-i” rule. By the end of this stage, most of our students can read and spell with great fluency and accuracy.
The Advanced tier introduces students to difficult morphemes, such as derivational suffixes. This allows them to make good educated guesses as to the meanings of long, complex words which they have never seen before. Students at this stage are usually able to mask their dyslexia.
Our Academic Skills module covers writing, reading comprehension, oral communication, grammar, and all other major academic areas that are tested within the local syllabus, from primary to secondary school.
Yes, you could say we cover everything English-related.
Our techniques, concepts, and materials are developed in-house, and vetted by a consultant who has more than 10 years of experience in training MOE teachers.
Furthermore, we do not throw practice papers at our learners until we feel they are ready to handle such work. Every step of the student’s learning process is scaffolded and built upon prior knowledge.
Our Soft Skills module works on non-academic areas, including social communication, problem solving, and behavioural management. This helps our students to build metacognition, introspection, inquisitiveness, and self-motivation—four qualities that are needed for success in life, and which help smoothen their academic learning journey.
We accomplish this through meaningful class discussions, thematic games, and storytelling sessions. There’s a reason why students stay on in our programme until they finish secondary school.
Our Executive Functioning (EF) Skills module covers emotional regulation, time management, organisation skills, and the ability to stay focused. Like the Vocab module, this module is not standalone, but rather synergises and ties in with other modules. For instance, to work on a student’s ability to stay focused, the therapist may add a “Time Trial” element to certain activities to make them more exciting. Or, during class discussions, the therapist may ask specific questions to help a student better understand when his emotions are not regulated.
The Vocabulary module covers the learning of new words. Like the EF Skills module, this is not standalone; it will invariably tie in with the Academic Skills and Literacy modules.
Our Vocabulary module is split into three tiers: Incidental, Thematic, and Advanced.
Incidental vocabulary is taught through other activities, e.g. reading comprehension. It provides students with good, initial exposure.
Thematic vocabulary is directly and explicitly taught through games, stories, and practice exercises.
Advanced vocabulary is directly and explicitly taught through practice exercises only. It features more technical words and phrases, and is only taught to secondary school students.
The Mentoring module covers portfolio creation, post-secondary-school pathways, emotional support, and relationship matters. As such, it ties in with every module here. It is also the main module of our Adult Mentoring Programme.
The two main goals of the Mentoring module are to build rapport between the therapist and learners, and to help learners (and their families) discover themselves—their identities, passions, inclinations, strengths, and weaknesses—so that they may find a tertiary education or career pathway that best suits them. We want our dyslexic students and clients to get the most mileage out of their unique skill sets.
Our pedagogy is:
> Language-based
> Cognitive, direct, and explicit
> Simultaneously multisensory
> Diagnostic and prescriptive
> Structured, sequential, and cumulative
> Emotionally sound
“It is you who will give form and content to all the universe. You will breathe life into the stillness, giving meaning and purpose to all the actions which are to follow.”
– Gary Gygax, Keep on the Borderlands (1979)
Our 65" interactive Smart Board from SMART Technologies allows us to write over videos, documents, and scanned assignments. It even functions as an HD TV! Technology ho!
Each student has a file to store his/her work. These files grow in size faster than one can say "Forzare!"
A secondary display for those special occasions, like when we're conducting serious role-playing game sessions. Fancy!
We provide fancy stationery and fidget toys for the kids to use. Why should learning be a drab affair when it can be a colourful blast?
When technology fails, we always have a whiteboard to fall back on. Nothing beats tradition!
Our digital game board for role-playing game sessions, painstakingly handcrafted by by our friends from CraftyKobolds. Within it is a 43" UHD TV. We want nothing but the best for the S&S kids.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Swords & Stationery (S&S) is a Singapore-based specialist tutoring / educational therapy programme for children, youths, and adults with dyslexia. We use a gamified, modular curriculum that helps our clients improve in English Language as an academic subject, as well as in areas like communication, emotional regulation, and executive functioning.
The most suitable age range of students for the Swords & Stationery programme is 9 to 99 years. That’s right, we’re the only place besides the DAS that also works with post-secondary school clients, including working adults!
S&S is not a tuition centre, nor is it an enrichment centre. It is an educational therapy programme based on the Orton-Gillingham (OG) method that helps students bridge learning gaps caused by dyslexia and other potential co-morbidities such as ADHD. The closest comparison would be the Dyslexia Association of Singapore (which has been doing great work for students with dyslexia too).
That said, our curriculum is also closely aligned with that of the Ministry of Education’s. Using over 120 frameworks, concepts, and techniques, we cover nearly every aspect of the mainstream English Language syllabus, including essay writing and reading comprehension. 99% of our teaching materials are created in-house and vetted by NIE/OG-trained educators. We don’t believe in assessment books, for good reason.
Finally, we are the first educational therapy programme to integrate games into its curriculum. When games are conducted at S&S, you can expect them to be tied in with a reading comprehension or writing activity, and vice versa.
For more information, read our article: “Swords & Stationery: Is It a Tuition Service?“
Educational therapy is a remediation process to help students with specific learning difficulties improve academically, socially and emotionally. A therapy session is typically planned out and executed based on the strengths and weaknesses of the learner, taking into consideration his or her needs. There is at least one learning objective behind every therapy session; oftentimes this includes helping the learner to make progress towards overcoming a particular learning challenge.
For more information on educational therapy as a practice versus traditional tutoring, take a look at this article by the Association of Educational Therapists.
A therapy session is prepped days, even weeks, in advance. Students may learn new concepts, review previously taught ones, or both. Lessons may cover any of the following areas: literacy, academics, social skills, and emotional and behavioural management. Lessons are always tailored to our students’ needs and profiles.
Thus, a regular 2-hour lesson may include the following activities:
- Learn to cut words with ‘Bossy R’ syllables (20 minutes)
- Review past concepts through reading and spelling activities (40 minutes)
- Watch a short film (30 minutes)
- Critically analyse the previous week’s role-playing game session and discuss how the short film we just watched ties in with the game’s theme (30 minutes)
Most of our students have benefitted from the programme in some way. It may be academically, social-behaviourally, or even in their ability to regulate their emotions. Nevertheless, there have been fringe cases where we felt the programme was not right for the child. We will inform you as soon as possible if we determine this to be the case, so that you may seek another professional or programme that’s more suited to your child’s needs.
There’s no “cure” to dyslexia in that traditional sense. It’s not a disease, and no two dyslexics are built the same way. Nevertheless, there are ways to overcome its challenges. This usually involves a good therapist who can “read” the student to know where his or her difficulties stem from. Then, it’s just a matter of identifying a possible solution and incorporating it into the lesson.