How students present with a specific learning disability
- 1. How students present with a Specific Learning Disability or Dyslexia Children with these difficulties present as being quite bright in tasks and subjects that do not require reading or writing. When asked to read or write they often possess skills that are many years behind their peers, avoid it by using work avoidance strategies which can include bad behaviour or produce a minimal amount of work. Many of these students regards themselves as ‘dumb’ and have low self esteem.
- 2. What is happening for the child? When asked to read and write many children become overwhelmed. Reading for them is an arduous task. Some have difficulty distinguishing visually between letters, words and sentences. They see them as back the front, upside down, blurred or running all together into one big blob. This has nothing to do with their sight but rather how the brain is processing written information. This is visual dyslexia. Some have Auditory dyslexia which is characterized by problems with integrating and processing what is heard. Auditory dyslexics also have problems with recalling sounds and being able to put a sound with the letter it. They therefore have phonological difficulties. Some have both.
- 3. What can be done? Do not forsake trying to teach sound/letter links. Do this in a way that caters for all learning styles eg visual, auditory and tactile. Use structured, sequential material such as THRASS, Spalding, Sound Waves. Allow the children to have individual charts of sounds and letters to refer to and copy from. When writing or spelling the child should have an individual chart nearby to refer to. Support tactile learning by providing lego tiles, grapheme magnets, sandpaper letters, drawing letters and sounds in sand trays etc (depending on the age of the child.) Use computer programs such as Phonics Alive 1 and 2 and Word Shark to practice phonic skills.
- 4. Visual Dyslexia Try visual discrimination exercises such as find and circle all the b’s on a page of b and d’s. Try rhymes and visual cues to help a child remember the difference between letters e.g m looks like a mountain, w looks like a waterslide, b is bat and ball, d is drum and drumstick. Try a behavioural optometrist who works with children who have visual discrimination, perception and memory difficulties. See if the child benefits from having the print size increased - full page magnifers may be helpful as may increasing page size on a photocopier – A4 – A3 See if increasing the spaces between words helps or taking one word at a time and blocking all other print on the page. Certain fonts are better than others for dyslexic children to read – New times Roman, Papyrus and Comic Sans. Some children benefit from coloured overlays in varying colours – red, blue or yellow. These can be made from transparent plastic folders. Children can then put them over their readers or worksheets before they read them. If coloured overlays help a child tinted glasses may also help. The Irlen Foundation and Dyslexia Australia have information about this. Declutter worksheets to prevent visual overload. Use minimal text. Use space between questions and lines of text. Enclose sections in distinct boxes Make use of graphic organisers. Fold the worksheet into thirds or halves so it is not overwhelming. Block sections of the sheet with another sheet of paper.
- 5. Auditory Dyslexia Auditory dyslexia Teach or reteach phonological awareness skills – these are the building blocks of literacy. It is important the child knows how to rhyme and how rhyming can help with spelling, how to hear sounds in words and represent these sounds by using combinations of letters and how sounds in words can be manipulated to make other words. Love and Reilly produce excellent material to teach these skills such as A Sound Way. Computer programs such as Earobics 1 and 2 can train children with phonological difficulties. There is even an Earobics for adolescents and adults available which will train older students. Allow these students extra processing time when you ask a question or when they are required to add to a discussion or process a new fact or concept. Sit the student next to a learning buddy who they can check instructions and answers with. Use pictures to help with learning- visual checklists, diagrams, step by step instructions incorporating some text. These children often have auditory memory difficulties so limiting the amount of talk in a lesson , only giving them one or two instructions at a time, getting them to repeat information or instructions back and getting a peer to sum up learning for the lesson is desirable.
- 6. Assistive Software • Dragon Naturally Speaking – converts words into text. The student has to train the program in order for it to recognise his voice. With practice a voice profile is developed so that the program will recognise individual speech patterns. Advanced digital voice recorders can be used with the latest version of Dragon Naturally Speaking where they can record voice files and then import the file and convert their voice into text. • Dragon Naturally Speaking has a free IPAD application which may be useful and performs a similar function. It is not as sophisticated as the commercial program. It is available on the web • There are also text readers and writers such as Text help Read and Write Gold and Penfriend which will read text for the student which has been scanned into the computer or available from web pages. It will also help the student write by predicting the word he is trying to spell and showing a dictionary of possible choices. It will read the choices to the student if needed. It will also read his own work back to him. Audio files can be stored on Ipods and MP3 players. The programs are available through Spectronics. • Ginger – a grammar and spell checker might also be worth using. Ginger was devised for students with dyslexia and is very good at interpreting and correcting jumbled writing.
- 7. Assistive software and some freebies. • Free software includes a free spell checker called Word Talk – www,wordtalk,org.uk/Home/ A free program for text to speech software is Balabokla Text to Speech software. Website is www.cross-plus-a.com/balabolka.htm • A light scribe pen may also be of use. This pen can record the teacher’s voice and has a special booklet the child writes in. When the student clicks a specific word the pen then plays the corresponding message by the teacher. More information can be found on the web. Just google Light Scribe Pen. • More software resources can be found at http://speldvic.org.au/Software-Resources.html • The Education Department has a teacher resource on the web. The teacher resource is accessible from www.education.vic.gov.au/dyslexia . Advice for parents has also been developed and includes strategies that parents can use to support their child’s learning and development at school. See www.ecucation.vic.gov.au/aboutschool/learning/dyslexia.htm
- 8. What can be done – Classroom techniques 1. Encourage students to repeat and focus on the components of words, especially for the longer words e.g Can you say? How many syllables does it have in it? Lets count them on your fingers. What sound does it start and finish with? How many sounds in the word. What letters or letter combinations make this sound? All of these prompts will help imbed the word into the student’s memory. 2. Allow for frequent practice of new learning and revision of that learning. 3. Link new information with something that is already known or something that is of interest to the child. 4. The dyslexic student will need additional time to read, write and spell. Decoding is tiring for them. They are working harder than the average student to complete their work. They should not be penalised (e.g kept in, called lazy, given the task for homework )if they do not finish it. Limit the amount of written homework a dyslexic child is required to do too as they will be more exhausted from the school day than other students. 5. Use graphic organisers for dyslexic students to cut down and organise the amount of writing they need to do. 6. Software such as kidspiration and Inspiration can help students to produce mind maps of learning. 7. Think about alternative ways to assess students – can they write an essay in pairs ? Can they draw or make something to show learning. Can they be assessed orally? 8. A teacher should be willing to read test questions to a child with dyslexia and even act as scribe. 9. Incorporate group work into your program where the dyslexic child can take an active role but someone else can do the reading and writing. 10. Discuss ideas for writing with the student and make a word bank together of words the child may need for his writing. Alternatively a word bank could be made on the board for all children to use. 11. Talk through writing ideas and scaffold where necessary. Eg child writes introduction today, arguments for the idea next day, arguments against the idea next day etc
- 9. Dyslexia, self esteem and depression Many students after several years of struggling to learn how to read and write, or reading and writing at a standard lower than their peers are disheartened. Some can become depressed or develop low self esteem. Teachers should be aware of this and not put the dyslexic student into situations that they find particularly stressful e.g reading in front of the whole class. Concentrate on the positives that the students display and allow time within your classroom to celebrate all student’s talents and expertise in a range of fields. Celebrate the successes of famous people with dyslexia. Remember Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences and cater for and assess all intelligences. Use rubrix to provide opportunities for students to display knowledge in styles that suit them. There is a text called Success and Dyslexia – Sessions for coping in the upper primary years by Nola Firth and Erica Frydenberg which is a series of lessons teaching resilience and coping skills for the dyslexic child. It is aimed at the upper primary years but strategies included in it would be just as valuable for high school years.