Dyslexia
That word that makes everyone cringe. The teacher cringes because we fear, do I really know what this is and how to help students who are dyslexic? The parent cringes thinking, Is there something wrong with my child? The student has been cringing because they’ve known for a long time that reading is just SO hard for them and thinking, Am I ever going to be able to read like my classmates?
How can we learn to spot students who may potentially be dyslexic?
The article, Common Signs of Dyslexia, on Orton-Gillingham’s website provides some very insightful checklists that teachers can use to help guide them in the quest of finding help for struggling readers. If we can move towards identifying students with dyslexia, we can know more specifically how to help them. The article points out common indicators of different aged children: preschool, elementary, high school, and even adults. I, for one, will keep this list of indicators for elementary ages nearby for years to come:
- Slow laborious writing that is difficult to read (dysgraphia)
- Hard time sounding out words
- Slow, robotic reading (dysfluent)
- Behavioral problems
- Misreads small function words (to, so, of, for, saw)
- Difficult time sounding out words and will guess words or just leave them out
- Trouble remembering dates
- Difficulty with telling time, math facts, times tables
- Difficulty with spelling
- Has a hard time retrieving words, will often say "thingy" for many words
- Can be disorganized (messy backpack/desk/bedroom, loses things, forgets to complete homework)
- Hard time with sight words (when, they, were)
- Dreads going to school
- Letter or number reversals extended past 2nd grade
- Will replace words kitty for cat, "puppy" for dog and refer to reading pictures rather than the words
- Inconsistently consistent (one day they know the word "then" and the next day they say "when"
- Does not understand that words can be broken apart
- Low reading stamina (gets tired after reading for a long time)
- Does not read for pleasure and does not like to read aloud
- Homework is stressful
- Has a hard time with comprehension
- Does not understand that letters are made up of sounds (c says /k/)
- Avoids reading aloud
- Confuses words (tornado for volcano) (death, for deaf)
- Mispronounces long unfamiliar words
- Needs extra time to respond/struggles with timing on tests
That is quite an extensive list! If you are an elementary education teacher like me, a picture of a student probably just popped into your head. Maybe even more than one student.
What can I do to help students who may be dyslexic?
So now the question is, What can I do to help these students? Just like any strategy, some work better than others for different individuals. The article, Classroom Accommodations for Dyslexia, can provide some great tools for you to implement. Amanda Morin goes into great detail dividing various components of the classroom and strategies to help in each area. Strategies can be found for classroom materials and routines, introducing new concepts, giving instructions, and completing tests and assignments.
It would be much easier if there was a one-size-fits-all solution, but there isn't. The brain's interaction during the learning to read process is so intense and complicated that students with dyslexia will most likely need different strategies or a different combination of strategies in order to make progress. I encourage you to dive in and find something that works. Hopefully having these resources in one plast will help expedite the process for you, and most importantly, for your student.
What are some ideas for helping students in a virtual classroom?
Maybe you are like me and you need to figure out how to help a possibly dyslexic student in a virtual setting. This can indeed be challenging. When I taught face-to-face, it was helpful to sit next to the student and point to words and then help them do the same. Teaching third grade, I mostly work back to troubleshoot fluency. Here are some of the ideas I've used:
Flip. I love using flip.com to have students record themselves reading. They can play it back and listen to themselves and even re-record if they need to. I have my students get the shareable link for their recordings and add it to their digital portfolios.
MyOn. If your school has a MyOn subscription, students can record themselves reading a book they have selected and then turn it in to me.
Fluency focus. Usually at the beginning of the year, I have my students grouped into fluency groups. They have fluency tasks to complete each day on a passage. Each week they get a new passage that increases just slightly in difficulty. When I work with the groups, they take turns reading the passage to me. Another activity that the students LOVE is when I tell them, "Now, let's read the passage again in your best Big Bad Wolf voice!" Even while all the students remain muted, you can see them throwing their whole bodies into reading the passage. It's fun to try other voices, too! This repeated reading activity alone usually makes tremendous progress!
Goal setting. Students love getting to chart their own progress each day. Well, ok . . . nat at first! BUT once they see the progress, they get SO excited about practicing their fluency! I keep a topic in my Google Classroom called "Fluency practice & goals." Each week, along with their fluency passage, students have a goal setting slide where they chart their progress each day. Is it exact? No. Is it helpful? ABSOLUTELY!
Rethink grading strategies. I've always thought that spelling tests were often very unfair. First of all in today's technology infused society, most of the time when we are spelling words, we are on some type of device that will autocorrect, as long as I'm close to the correct spelling. It is not fair if a student spelling the word "typewriter" misses the correct spelling by one letter and gets the whole item counted incorrect, and the person who spells it "tiprtr" also gets discounted the same amount of points. Years ago I adjusted my spelling test to grade per letter. "Typewriter" has 10 letters so the person missing it by just one letter would get 90% whereas the person spelling it "tiprtr" might just get 20% as they correctly identified the initial and final letters. This can greatly help students who are dyslexic.
Another grading strategy that can be helpful is grading content based solely on the content being assessed. If you have a science standard you are assessing, grade that science concept only instead of counting off for spelling or grammatical errors. The goal of that science task is to see if the student has mastered that science standard, not ELA standards, too. This will give them a truly accurate science grade.
If you have other strategies that have worked for you, comment below. Also let me know if you try something new from this blog post. I would love to hear how it worked out for you and your students!
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