TEACHING ENGLISH TO
CHILDREN WITH DYSLEXIA
PAOLO IOTTI
ITALY
2010
DEFINITION

Dyslexia is a learning disorder that
manifests itself primarily as a difficulty
with reading and spelling. Although
dyslexia is thought to be the result of a
neurological difference, it is not an
intellectual disability.

Dyslexia is diagnosed in people of all
levels of intelligence: below average,
average, above average, and highly gifted.
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS

Pre – school age children
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Early elementary school – age children
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Older elementary school – age children
PRE – SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN
◦ Learns new words slowly
◦ Has difficulty rhyming words, as in nursery
rhymes
◦ Late in establishing a dominant hand
EARLY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL –
AGE CHILDREN
◦ Difficulty learning the alphabet
◦ Difficulty with associating sounds with the letters
that represent them (sound – symbol
correspondence)
◦ Difficulty identifying or generating rhyming words,
or counting syllables in words (phonological
awareness)
◦ Difficulty segmenting words into individual
sounds, or blending sounds to make words
(phonemic awareness)
◦ Difficulty with word retrieval or naming
problems
◦ Difficulty learning to decode words
◦ Confusion with before / after, right / left, over
/ under,…
◦ Difficulty distinguishing between similar
sounds in words, mixing up sounds in
multisyllable words (“aminal” for animal,
“bisghette” for spaghetti)
OLDER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL –
AGE CHILDREN
◦ Slow or inaccurate reading
◦ Difficulty associating individual words with their correct
meanings
◦ Difficulty with time keeping and concept of time
◦ Difficulty with organization skills
◦ Due to fear of speaking incorrectly, some children become
withdrawn and shy or become bullies out of their inability
to understand the social cues in their environment
◦ Difficulty comprehending rapid instructions,
following more than one command at a time or
remembering the sequence of things
◦ Reversals of letters (b for d) and a reversal of
words (saw for was) are typical among children
who have dyslexia. Reversals are also common
for children age 6 and younger who don`t have
dyslexia. But with dyslexia, the reversals persist.
◦ Children with dyslexia may fail to see similarities
and differences in letters and words, may not
recognize the spacing that organizes letters into
separate words, any may be unable to sound out
the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word
CONDITIONS THAT OFTEN
CO-OCCUR WITH DYSLEXIA

Dysgraphia

Dyspraxia

Dyscalculia

Specific Language Impairment

Cluttering
TEACHING TIPS
Start the foreign language course with an
extended oral phase
 Reduce course objectives
 Motivation
 Chose a course-book with a very clear
and transparent layout

READING
Select shorter passages for reading
comprehension
 Read with a purpose
 Discuss vocabulary before reading
 Cloze exercises
 Enlarge the print
 Teach the child to use his finger when
reading
 Teach the child to skim for information
 Don't Force Oral Reading

WRITING



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

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Difference between the letter-sound
correspondence of their first language and English
Teach irregular words on a whole word basis.
Teach the words in context as well
Teach them different planning techniques (mind
mapping...)
Tell your students to write in pencil in class
Use the blackboard
Let dyslexic students use a laptop in class (if
available)
LISTENING
Explain important things in the child’s first
language
 Use a small tape recorder
 Use visuals and pictures
 Do not expect dyslexic students to be
able to listen and write at the same time
 Speak in simple, short sentences

SPEAKING
Never force a dyslexic child to speak
 Encourage them with lots of positive
feedback

THE ORTON-GILLINGHAM
METHOD
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Developed in the early-20th century
Language-based
Multisensory
Structured
Sequential
Cumulative
Cognitive
Flexible
Features of the Approach
 Language


based
based on a technique of studying and
teaching language
understanding the nature of human
language
the mechanisms involved in learning, and
the language-learning processes in
individuals
Multisensory:


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teaching sessions are action-oriented
interaction between the teacher and the
student
simultaneous use of multiple sensory input
channels
using auditory, visual, and kinesthetic
elements
Structured, Sequential, and
Cumulative:



teacher introduces the elements of the
language systematically
sound-symbol associations along with
linguistic rules
generalizations are introduced in a
linguistically logical, understandable order
Cognitive:


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students learn about the history of the
English language
study the many generalizations and rules
that govern its structure
They also learn how best they can learn
and apply the language knowledge for
achieving reading and writing
competencies
Flexible:


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teaching is diagnostic and prescriptive in
nature
teachers try to ensure the learner is not
simply recognising a pattern and applying it
without understanding
when confusion of a previously taught rule
is discovered, it is re-taught from the
beginning
THE ORTON-GILLINGHAM
APPROACH
teaching the sounds that letter makes
letters make sounds
sounds make words and syllables
words make sentences
sentences make paragraphs
paragraphs make stories and reports
MULTISENSORY TEACHING

Visual-Auditory-Kinetic-Tactile teaching
method (VAKT)
Visual memory: from seeing the letter
 Auditory memory: hearing the sound
 Tactile memory: the sense of touch
 Kinetic memory: body movement

Visual memory

Sound/Symbol association
- look at mouth of teacher
- look at the letters
- discriminate the letters
- look at the card with the letter and key
word or picture

Syllables
- look at mouth of teacher
- look at word to identify a number of syll.
- look at word to identify vowel sounds
Visual Reminders
Pictures
 Flash cards


„b“ and „d“ confusion
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Left and right hand
Auditory memory

Sound/Symbol association
- listen (hear) the sound and identify its
name with symbol
- listen/hear the sound and identify it with
its symbol
- say key word & sound
- discriminate sounds
Auditory memory

Syllables
- listen (hear) syllables in spoken words
- discriminate number of syllables in
spoken words
- segment words into syllables
- blend syllables into a word
Tactile memory
Tracing the letter with fingers
 Tracing the letter with pen
 Airwriting / Skywriting
 Backwriting
 Making the letter out of plasticine, playdough, clay or sandpaper
 Rice Box

Kinetic memory
Feel articulatory (lips/facial) muscles move
 Drawing the letter LARGE on the carpet
 Body language: pantomime, gestures
 Body alphabet
 Sand / crayon writing
 Pantomime, gestures
 pat or tap out syllables
 Songs with movements

VAKT Procedure
say the word, trace the word with two
fingers while saying each part of the word,
say the word again;
 write the word without looking at the
word card and then compare what was
written to the word card;
 repeat the first step until the word is
written correctly three consecutive times
without looking at the prompt card.

Confidence-building

The difficulty with dyslexia is that it is not
visible. If the child had a broken arm,
everyone would be rushing around giving
extra consideration. 'Of course he can't write
- his arm is broken! There's nothing wrong
with his intelligence.' But no-one ever says 'Of
course he can't spell - he has inherited a
different pattern of brain circuits! There's
nothing wrong with his intelligence.'
Confidence-buidling excercises

Positive statements
„I do a good job when I work hard."
"I feel good about myself when I try hard.„

Positive self-esteem
Things that I am good at
Things that I am no so good at
Child´s interests
Characterisitcs
Spelling
Reading
Writing
Math/s
Treatment – hints and tips
The Goldfish Room
 Pupils highlight their own spelling errors
 Reading using a pencil
 Making a window (reading)
 Using scotch tape
 Say each word child hesitates on or can
not read yet
 Sitting not at the back of the class

Treatment – hints and tips
Prefer handouts to the board (minimum)
- Arial size 14
- sheets: shades of yellow, green, orange
- different colour of each line
- keywords printed on bold
- images used frequently
 Special folder
- all the materials: independent learner

Activities
Sorting: cards showing pictures of objects
with the problem sounds, and two boxes
1) T names the object, S picks the correct
card
2) S repeats the word, and places in the
right box that is labeled for the sound
 Odd One Out: four pictures are named
and odd one is pointed out (hat-pen-cat-map)

Picture dictation
 Numbers: rolling two dices and counting
 Scrabble
 Looing for antonyms, a specific word or
new words
 Matching pictures with words/sentences
 Cloze excercises: filling the words,
finishing the sentences
 Contextual guessing

Notebook / cards with difficult words
(homonyms – filling in gaps)
 Listening for a specific word: children clap
when hear the word
 Reading for a specific word: underlining or
highlighting the word
 Using realia: toys, equipment of the class
 Finding differences and similiarities:
pictures
 IT: computer softwares
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