Teaching Students with Dyslexia
There are many methods in which a teacher can help students with dyslexia feel more successful in a traditional classroom. Below are several techniques that teachers could use in order to assess more accurately what dyslexic students are learning:
Read Aloud
Audio Books
Read Aloud
- Tape record student reading aloud and play it back for accuracy in rereads. Teacher may read in unison with student to help with pronunciation.
Audio Books
- Students can listen to the proper pronunciation of words. Students will focus on the content of the text rather than struggling to decode it.
- Allow students to record lectures or give them copies of the lecture notes, so that students do not get overly stressed when trying to absorb information.
- This helps students become more comfortable with writing. Free writing has no emphasis on the technical aspects of writing so students as a whole and not just students with dyslexia are given opportunities to write solely based on what they have learned without the stress of the technical aspects.
- Students with dyslexia often learn better through colour. Teachers may wish to highlight key information in colour and present information on colourful poster paper etc
- As a whole students who participate in small group discussions develop a better understanding of the material and gain practise reporting what they know. This is helpful for dyslexic students who often struggle with putting their thoughts into words and interacting with their peers. It is important to build a supportive learning community within the classroom.
- This is crucial when teaching students with dyslexia. Essentially, over learning is teaching students a skill and then allowing them to practice it over and over so that the skill becomes second nature. Reinforce reading with videos, movies, pictures, tapes, discussions, or talks. This helps imbed the important points for later retentions and recall.
- Research has shown that a multi-sensory approach is the most effective way to teach the dyslexic student. Multi-sensory means using all of the senses to process information, particularly including touch and movement. Teachers should be trying to teach to multiple teaching styles already as all students learn in different ways not just dyslexic students.
As a teacher it is important not only to work and teach to accommodate students who may struggle with dyslexia but also use techniques and programs that help these students progress and advance their reading and writing skills. Some of these programs may include:
"Talking Computer"
"Talking Computer"
- This is an inbuilt speech support (less frustration and interruption) while providing correct feedback. This guides students through the text so they are less likely to skip or misinterpret words.
- Places more focus on reading the text then putting all the focus on reading the words.
- For this technique a child reads text on a computer and clicks on words that are difficult. This helps to eliminate the obstacle of decoding. This helps teachers assess the progression of student reading (do the number of difficult words decrease?)
- However, students must be able to work independently for this technique to be effective.
- In this technique a word is exposed briefly on a computer screen and afterwards the student has to try and spell the word immediately following. This helps students advance in their reading and writing skills so that they can begin to decode faster and with more efficiency.
- A word is briefly exposed on a computer screen, the student then tries to match that word with one of five that appear on the screen following. This helps students to improve reading and decoding words quickly and effectively.
- This helps to develop eye brain coordination.
- Students can read aloud and trace the beginning letter of each word. For example, in the sentence "the cat is red" the student would trace the t, c, i and r while they read the words out loud.
- Students can also underline the entire word while reading a sentence out loud.