SUPPORTING CHILDREN WITH
DIFFICULTIES IN READING AND
WRITING
Φανουράκη Βασιλική
17ο Γυμνάσιο Περιστερίου
Μάρτιος 2015
DYSLEXIA: Definition and Causes
According to World Health Organization, it is
“A disorder manifested by difficulty in learning
to read, despite conventional instruction,
adequate intelligence and sociocultural
opportunity. It is dependent upon fundamental
cognitive disabilities which are frequently of
constitutional origin.”
DYS-CONSTELLATION (Habib, 2003)
The different stars in the dys-constellation are as follows:
• Dyslexia is a condition that affects the ability to acquire reading
skills.
• Dyscalculia is a condition that affects the ability to acquire
arithmetic skills.
• Dysgraphia is a condition that affects the ability to acquire
handwriting skills.
• Dysorthographia is a condition that affects the ability to acquire
spelling skills.
• Dyspraxia is a condition that affects motor learning and balance.
• Dysphasia is a condition that affects oral language development.
• ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a condition that
affects attention.
2 Key ingredients for reading: the word recognition part
and the lg comprehension part.
Lg comprehension processes
word recognition processes
word recognition processes
lg comprehension processes
Children with good recognition processes and strong lg comprehension
processes are good readers.
- Children with poor word recognition processes (decoding) but strong or
average lg comprehension are dyslexic
- Children with strong/average decoding but poor lg comprehension are not
defined as dyslexic but poor comprehenders or with specific
comprehension deficits.
- Children with poor word recognition and poor lg comprehension struggle.
IDENTIFICATION (Pre-Primary)
Risk factors:
• Cases of dyslexia in the family
• Ambidextrousness or difficulty to establish manual preference
• Persistent confusion between left and right on the child him/herself or on
the environment
• Inability to appreciate rhymes in nursery rhymes or in songs
• Difficulty to follow a rhythm and reproduce it
•
»
to learn songs, poems by rote
•
» in naming familiar objects (‘the word on the tip of the tongue’
phenomenon)
•
» in following a sequence of instructions given simultaneously
•
» in naming words (confusion of the sounds) e.g. dinosaur – disonaur
•
» with time and space (aspects like before/after, yesterday/tomorrow,
last/next week, even morning/afternoon
•
» estimating time passing esp. during tests
• Important lack of organization and frequent loss of personal items
• Can be easily disorientated when asked to follow an itinerary
IDENTIFICATION (PRIMARY)
• Auditory confusion between similar phonemes: /b/, /d/ or /p/
• Visual confusion between letters (graphemes) which are similar (the
confusion can be from left to right e.g. b, d / p, q or from top to bottom
e.g. n, u / m, w / f, t)
• Inversion between letters or syllables
• Addition of letters, syllables or affixes
• Omissions of elements of the words
• substitution of words, guessing of words
• Contraction or decontraction (misuse of the word boundaries e.g.
I’mgoingtothesea)
• Lose the thread while reading
• Read a text written in the past in the present tense
• Inconsistent orthography
• Ignoring punctuation in reading (flat reading and no use in spelling)
• Very slow writing
• fatigueability
LANGUAGE MODULES
ASSESSMENT (CHILD OBSERVATION) CHART
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bodily Awareness (can st name parts of the body on himself/on sb else?)
Orientation in time (does st know part of the day/days of
week/months/year/season? Is he aware of passage of time/order/succession
of events?)
Orientation in space (does st find row/seat in class, does he find different
classrooms/his way in school, can he use a simple map and direct sb else? Can
he show with respect to himself the right/left, the high/the low, on/under/
above/below? Can he do the same on a worksheet? Does he know the
direction of writing/which way round letters are?)
Rhythm (can he reproduce a given rhythm?)
Motor skills (does st have good balance, does he coordinate his movement
precisely in the every day so-called automatic movements? What happens
when creative activity is involved (e.g. cutting and pasting paper)? When
writing, is the st holding the pen or colouring crayon correctly? Does he form
the letters the correct way round with correct movements of the wrist? Does
he write carefully, with few crossing outs and mistakes?
Language (does st have problem with articulation/lisping (we note which
particular sounds are concerned)/is the st intelligible?/does he make
phonological mistakes such as ‘disonaur’ for ‘dinosaur’/does he recognise a
picture and say what it represents/can he speak some phrases/understand
verbal directions? Does he have good phonological awareness/does he like
telling stories?
• Memory (can st remember easily a nursery rhyme?/ can he memorize
shapes/repeat easily phrases/retell simple stories having heard them? /can
he carry out one after the other several orders given at the same time?)
• Behaviour (is the st agitated/nervous? Does he seem tired?/does he get
discouraged? Does he complain of aches/does he have low self-esteem?/is
he aggressive/not interested in activities or listening?
• Reading and Spelling ability (does s/he have an appetite for reading?/s/he
like taking up a book?/does s/he like being read to?/ does he have a good
phonemic awareness reads regular words slowly, reads through the
pseudo words slowly/ leaves out letters and sounds when reading/inverts
letters/ substitutes parts of words, transforms words/makes up word
endings/leaves out a word or line ) *common mistakes
s/he cannot follow the reading of another child or adult/
repeats a word without realising it/does not observe punctuation.
Makes visual confusion between b & d, p-q, a-e, m-n-u, t-f, o-c etc.
Makes auditory confusion between /p-b/, /t-d/, /k-g/, /f-v/, /m-n/, /sh-zh//z/.
Cannot master any of the complex sounds like /ay/, /o/, /ee/, /ie/ or all
vowels consisting of 2 sounds.
Cannot use the magic “e” (e.g. ‘can/cane’, ‘hop / hope’), keeps pronouncing
/k/ in ‘knight’,
Cannot master sounds like /gn/, /ight/, /ought/ and consonant doubling
remains difficult (e.g. Hopping – hoping )
INFORMAL ASSESSMENT 1
We can explore several domains with a child in order to confirm dyslexia:
A. Examine Phonological Awareness in a child
Run 8 tasks in order of increasing complexity.
1. GENERATION
2. DETECTION (The child is given 3 words which s/he has to retain in memory and
find the odd- one out)
3. BLENDING (the child is asked to put linguistic units together)
4. SEGMENTATION (the child is provided with a full word and is asked to divide it
into syllables, onset rime or phonemes)
5. DELETION (the child is asked to delete linguistic units and say what remains in
word.)
6. SUBSTITUTION (the child is required to substitute a linguistic unit for another)
7. PHONEME FUSION (the learner is asked to put together the 2 first phonemes of
2 successive words)
8. PHONEME INVERSION (it involves inverting consonants within a word, vowels
within a word or inverting the 1st phoneme of 2 successive words)
Another domain we may assess to determine if a child is dyslexic or not is EXAMINING
TEXT COMPREHENSION. Steps:
a)
Find a suitable text (one eliciting about 25 errors – Dr Bevé Hornsby) and assess
the child’s background knowledge in relation to its topic with 2 tasks:
a conceptual task
a predictive task
b) The child reads the text aloud and we note down the mistakes. If possible ,we
record the child to check hesitation, errors etc.
Then, we assess the comprehension of the text with 2 tasks:
i)
A recall task (ask the child to say what was in the text as if explaining it to sb
else. Check particular mistakes )
ii)
Questions – We ask 2 types of questions: explicit (the answer is in the text) and
implicit (the st has to infer info which is not in the text).
We assess the strategy used for completing the information. As for the wrong
questions, we present the text to the st again and ask him to find the information.
Then, we analyse the mistakes made while reading. 2 types of errors:
POSITIVE errors
NEGATIVE errors
INFORMAL ASSESSMENT 2
PSEUDOWORDS and IRREGULAR WORDS offer invaluable
information on how the decoding route and the direct access
route are working.
IRREGULAR WORDS (those in which at least one correspondence
between grapheme and phoneme is not regular, not
straightforward) e.g. ‘said’, ‘yacht’, ‘knife’
In this case, we cannot use the phonological decoding route but
only the lexical stored knowledge (direct access path).
PSEUDOWORDS (invented words like ‘labbit’, ‘porrit’, ‘trank’
which can only be read by the phonological decoding route, as
they have never been seen before so there are no
representations in the visual and auditory area of the brain).
2 kinds of errors with pseudo words: a) lexicalization instead of
‘labbit’ ‘rabbit’ because of overuse of direct access path.
b) addition/omission/inversion etc.
IDENTIFICATION IN LATER YEARS
• Some of the previous signs are common in older
children. However, sometimes we don’t have
these overt signs.
DECODING PROBLEM DETECTED 1st/2nd Grade
Yes
No
Intensive help
received with phonics
70% Accurate
decoders
Intensive help
not received
Poor decoders
Accurate Decoders
Tests assessing auditory and visual short-term memory and sequencing
abilities:
SEQUENCING ABILITY: RAPID AUTOMATISED NAMING TEST (st is asked
to name as quickly as possible and without mistakes all the items on the
page. Time the child. Dyslexic children are much slower (2,5 times) compared
to non-dyslexic)
AUDITORY: the Digit Span Test (it consists of providing sequences of digits of
increasing length)
VISUAL SHORT-TERM MEMORY tests:
a) Copying test We check the mistakes (omission/inversion etc.)
b) The ‘Bell’ test We check 2 things: 1. how many bells he crosses out 2.
what strategy he is using (e.g. left to right, top to bottom etc. Dyslexic sts
use a more ‘erratic’ strategy.
c) Sequence comparison which checks visual attentional abilities, as well.
(give sts 2 series of 2-3-4 letters and ask them to compare them and say if
they’re the same or not. Although the non-dyslexic do not make any errors,
the dyslexic will probably do when they face tricky sequences e.g. c and o. )
Digit span test
Place a cross in the right box when the student succeeds
Forwards
2-9
1-5-3
7-2-4
2-6-7-1
3-9-4-6
4-7-2-9-5
8-3-6-2-4
6-3-2-1-4-8
5-7-9-3-6-4
3-5-1-8-7-9-2
2-8-9-4-6-1-7-3
Laboratoire des Sciences de l’Education UPMF
Backwards
What we can do with results of the tests?
Use the child –learning strengths to improve areas in which sts have
weaknesses.
e.g. if st has difficulties with phonemic awareness and is weak at
reading pseudo words ( the phonological decoding route is
weak), we make a programme to enhance phonemic awareness .
If st has difficulty in reading irregular words and seems to have
better short-term memory for visual than auditory materials, we
try to develop direct access system and build orthographic
representation by teaching irregular words with flashcards.
The wider constellation of dyslexia
A.VISION (an incredibly complex process. MAIN APPROACHES TOWARDS VISION:
a. the role of visual stress in relation to dyslexia. For some dyslexic, there’s
specific problem in seeing highly contrastive symbols. REMEDIATION
TECHNIQUE:
– coloured lenses on their glasses or
– coloured overlays that can go over a highly contrastive text to reduce the
amount of visual stress.
b. the idea of visual attention. The brain is really deciding “What do I attend to?” (at
a very subconscious level). So, for those with a reduced visual span ,
 the use of a smartphone as opposed to a tablet or common paper provided better
comprehension and greater reading fluency.
However, for students of slightly higher ability, reading on the smartphone was
unhelpful.
B. ATTENTION
Having an attention problem and a reading problem actually share the same symptoms and
behaviours. Attentional issues can be both of the hyper active type and of the inattentive
type.
If the child is behind in reading for whatever reasons, they need support to catch
themselves up. So, we get the child back up to speed as much as we can. If the attention
issues reduce, it might be clear that this was a reading issue all along. Whereas, if the
reading progress doesn’t diminish the attentional issues, then it may be that the attentional
issues are still quite primary.
How can we check reading comprehension?
Now, what happens if a child is on medication for his attention issue?
C. DYSPRAXIA
Syndrome which includes difficulties with motor coordination. There is a delay in the
development of motor skills
Dyspraxia goes hand in hand with dysgraphia. Dyspraxic children are unable to hold the
pen and trace letters correctly. A lot of difficulties with geometry, too as sts can explain how
to trace an angle, how to draw a line in a circle but they can’t do it themselves.
SOLUTION:
 Ask dyspraxic learners to explain how to do the geometrical problem and the T does it
or use a nice free software like GEOBRA (on Google).
 Important to allow the use of computer as early as possible with dyslexic sts to preserve
their self-esteem.
Let’s not forget that their verbal intelligence is completely intact, normal and sometimes
superior. Conversely, their visual spatial ability is usually more problematic.
REPORTS ON READING FROM FOUR COUNTRIES
United States, Belgium, France, UK. They all converge to the same conclusion:
1) Systematic teaching of the grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC) is
better than any other kind of teaching (whole language, whole word etc.)
2) This is especially true for dyslexic children
3) It has a stronger effect when it starts early to first graders or even before
then.
4) Phonemic awareness trainings have an impact not only on word
identification but also on comprehension.
Another factor which intervenes in the development of reading and writing is
the opacity of the writing system which in turn influences the rate of reading
acquisition (Seymour et al.,2003).
The incidence of dyslexia is bigger in more opaque lgs compared to
transparent lgs.
In English a rate up to 10-15% and some studies say more than 15% are
dyslexic. In France 7-10%, in Italian 2-3% of the children are dyslexic.
GENERAL TEACHING PRINCIPLES
When teaching literacy esp. to dyslexic children, we should bear in mind 4 principles:
Our teaching must be,
•
structured and sequential
• phonics-based
•
metacognitive
• multisensory
A.




STRUCTURED: Structure is paramount for dyslexic children
we can associate school subjects with colours (maths can be green etc.)
plan well
establish learning objectives
revisit the same topic several times in different ways (make sure sts have established a
topic before you move to the next) e.g.
say 3 times the same thing in a different way
The structure of literacy programmes:
- Follows the frequency of letters in the language
- Logical progression in teaching the grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC)
- From high-frequency simple concepts to low-frequency concepts of more complexity (e.g.
single letters before complex digraphs )
- simple digraphs (e.g. sh-) before more complex patterns (e.g. –tion ) / suffixes added to the
bare word e.g. –ness, before suffixes which alter the bare words to other words e.g. –less )
- Words derived from old English, then letter combinations from Latin and French ,finally rarer
Greek-based groups.
- Check Phonics Progression chart by DUNCAN Milne “Teaching the Brain”
B. Phonics-based method vs Global method
C. Multisensory teaching
Multisensory teaching combines a maximum of entries to the brain
simultaneously:
• auditive modality
• visual modality
• oral-kinesthetic modality
• manual-kinesthetic modality
D. METACOGNITIVE
It involves constant self-questioning: ‘How do I learn this? How will I
remember? What approach is required for this task or problem?
How did I succeed earlier in a similar situation?’
CHARACTERISTICS OF MULTI-SENSORY METHODS
Must be
• structured and sequential (introduce simpler concepts before the more
complex ones)
• cumulative (each new teaching point builds up on the previous one)
• based on phonological analysis (the child needs to have a thorough
understanding and be able to manipulate consciously the sounds, rimes
etc. of words)
• thorough (each step must be thoroughly mastered before going to the
next step)
• memory-training (use little activities which we’re going to demonstrate
that are training memory like warm-up)
• metacognitive (think about your own thinking “How do I do this?”, reflect
on your learning)
• diagnostic (teachers see the progression of their learners and adapt their
teaching strategy on their reaction to the activities they propose).
Tasks a person with dyslexia has to carry out to understand a text:
• Read without too many approximations
• Keep enough elements in memory (because the dyslexic have a weak memory)
• Identify the knowledge targeted by each question
• Remember the steps of a process
• Overcome difficulties reading the answer sheet
• Search for the correct spelling of each word
• Cope with time (try a ’time-timer’ from the Internet)
In evaluations, dyslexics know they have a weaker memory so they don’t fell selfconfident. We know that stress is the enemy of memory. What can we do?
The golden rule is to remember that dyslexics will take more time than non-dyslexic to
automatise processes due to a weak memory, both for storing things in long-term
memory and for retrieving the things e.g. in a test.
So, every now and then we propose a reflexive pause and let the dyslexic have little
cards with the steps to follow close-by.
We ask the sts how they reached the correct answer and we make them aware that
there may be different paths to come to the right answer and solution.
TEACHING MULTISENSORY TECHNIQUES FOR
READING
We follow 2 basic principles:
a) Grouping words into families: Dyslexic sts will often not realise that
‘ight’ has the same spelling and the same corresponding phonemes
in ‘right’, ‘bright’, ‘fight’ etc.
So, we group words into families in coloured code.
We should have a progression in the teaching of grouping words into
families.
First, we should introduce each family in different pages.
• The children need to circle or colour the common sequence
• Then, they read them aloud so that I can induce more than one
modality for the teaching.
Second, we add words from the various families and ask the children to
what family they belong and so we have more words in each family.
Finally, we can introduce other words which have not been worked on
before. In this case, we don’t ask the st to read the words but just to circle
or colour the sequence of letters we work in the families.
b) Helping the children segment longer words into
smaller chunks:
We do that with syllables, onset, rimes. Several techniques to do that:
• First, we let the child read the text a first time and mark the difficult, the
longer words.
e.g. the decoding of a word like ‘know/ledge/able’ is read much easier when
it is marked.
• The marking is not suitable for irregular words so we make a reading pack
of irregular words, flashcards which the child can study at leisure at home.
Dyslexic children who often display a better visual memory compared to
auditory memory will benefit from seeing the words on the cards.
SPELLING
• We teach cursive writing.
• With printed script children usually do not leave spaces between words
and give the impression that a line is a single word whereas with cursive
writing each word is going to be neatly separated from the next one and
the previous one.
There are a lot of cursive scripts available. One type is the American D’
Nealian cursive script (http://www.dnealian.com)
 Important that across the year the same cursive script is being used
otherwise children get confused.
 Another important thing when teaching cursive script is to prepare
appropriate support to write, to spell. So use 4 lines and colour coding for
the lines.
 Also, very important to encourage children to sit comfortably and to hold
their pen appropriately when spelling.
How we teach the spelling of regular words:
1.
T says a word
2.
Pupil repeats the word and tells the letters
3.
Pupil again names the letters of the word at the same time as they write down the word in
cursive script
4.
The T who has hidden the word while it is spelt by the pupil, shows it again and the pupil
checks if it is correct or not.
The process helps establish a link among all modalities (auditory, visual, kinesthetic, manual
kinesthetic)
How we teach the spelling of irregular words:
First multisensory method proposed by Fernand:
1.
Sts receive large cards on which the word is written in cursive script.
2.
The word is divided into syllables by the sts with a pencil and then the pupil follows the
letters with her finger on the card.
3. The pupil writes the word from memory. This way, we introduce visual and auditory modality.
4. If the spelling is correct, they repeat the action by tracing the word with a finger. The word
should be practised in context, in the context of a sentence and text.
Second method is the LCWC method (Look, Cover, Write, Check).
1.
The T shows the words for several seconds asking the st to look carefully and analyse
the word.
2.
The pupils say the word, they name the letters of the word, copy the word, both T and sts
hide the word. 3. The pupils repeat the word, they spell it and they write it down again.
4.
The T shows the word again and the pupils check their own spelling.
5.
The same routine is repeated over long intervals.
DICTATION
Before we give the dictation ,
• we make sure the child reads the text at least once before we dictate it.
• We may record the passage.
Multisensory routines to teach sentence dictation:
Dr Hornsby proposes the following sequence which induces people to listen, speak,
write, look and read (all the modalities are involved):
a) The T says the phrase at normal pace
b) The pupils repeat the phrase aloud
c)
The T repeats the phrase with a short pause between each word, speaking very
clearly
d) The pupils write the phrase as they say it out loud
e) Pupils read exactly what they have actually written and not what they think they
have written (very important distinction)
f)
If they’ve made mistakes T asks them to find these mistakes and correct
themselves
These multisensory routines for teaching regular/irregular words and sentences bring
into play phonological analysis and help memorisation.
If it’s not easy to do these routines in class, we can ask the parents to do these at
home.
Another thing we can do to help spelling is use memory tricks
(either auditory tricks or visual ones) to help the children
memorise the spelling of irregular words.
 An example of mnemonics for auditory words is to find a
sentence (the pupils should ideally come up with a sentence)
to memorise the correct spelling.
e.g. the word ‘because’ can be decomposed as ‘big elephant
can always use small entrances’
‘necessary’ ‘you need to have a shirt with one collar and two
sleeves’
 Or we can group families of irregular words into sentences:
e.g. ‘a good knight knows how to knit knots at night’
READING COMPREHENSION
The basic elements of reading is a combination of word recognition and then language
comprehension.
When reading is an effort, we need to actually separate out when children are going to get content
and ideas versus when they’re working on text processing. So,
To help the child absorb the ideas without the effort of decoding,
a) audiobooks are a great tool.
b) If sts are encouraged to read books at home, parents can help.
c) Use motivation as a tool for reading. Find books or websites the child is going to be interested
in.
When we work with text processing, we can have a say in how the text is presented:
•
•
•
•
Use typically a 14 font on a computer and fonts that don’t have curls on the ends of the letters.
Ariel is probably the most classic font.
Also, increasing the letter spacing can be useful (expanded spacing 1.5pt can help).
We can also try putting in an extra line between paragraphs.
In order to facilitate comprehension,
o we apply the pre-reading techniques we already know to predict
the topic, key vocabulary elements etc.
o If necessary, we chunk the text into manageable bits.
o We just have to make the strategies explicit otherwise they are not
going to be used.
o Use of mind maps can help with visualisation.
Rich online resources for reading strategies :
‘Reading Rockets’ website: www.readingrockets.org.
It has very concrete strategies for different parts of the reading
process.
‘Reading Educator’ www.readingeducator.com
The older the sts get, the less narrative texts and the more expository
texts they have.
So, things, adaptations and tricks, tips we can use across all domains are the
following:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Allow for extra time (common adaptation across many countries)
Bigger font size (14) Arial
Allow for the use of the computer where possible
Give definitions and teach the spelling of domain-specific vocabulary
Do not print the verse of the pages because dyslexic learners often omit
the pages they do not look at.
Do not look for marks off spelling especially if it’s not the evaluated
competency.
When you do evaluate spelling, allow for modified marking.
Try to avoid too many dictations with dyslexic learners.
Modifying the type, the marking of the copy of the dyslexic is not a favour.
We need to keep in mind that it takes at least 10 times more for the
dyslexic to learn the spelling of a single word compared to a non-dyslexic.
Read aloud the questions to the child every time unless you’re evaluating
reading and across all domains.
Use visuals to support the auditory input as well as manual-kinesthetic
tools.
• Adapt your demands when asking to write. Evaluate only one aspect of the
production.
• Write the correct answer when you mark spelling, rather than just cross
out the word.
• Also good for self-confidence is to circle the correct words rather than
point out the errors.
• Be tolerant to the reversal of letters and digits (into mathematics) because
it’s a common mistake for the dyslexic.
• Print a summary of the lesson you’re giving and give it to the dyslexic child
while the other pupils are writing down the summary of the lesson in their
notebook.
• Keep in mind that if a dyslexic child doesn’t have all the notes or proper
information which is often the case, they ‘re going to be penalized twice:
one when they study because they won’t have all the information to study
so there will be gaps in their knowledge and
second because usually they are going to be evaluated in writing.
• Try to evaluate the dyslexic orally rather than in writing in a friendly nonthreatening environment.
• Reinforce self-esteem.
• Be attentive to celebrate the progress of the dyslexic children publicly.
TECHNOLOGICAL AIDS FOR READING
Software used with computers/tablets/phones. Accessibility varies in different countries.
a) ‘Popplet’ is a free piece of software which gives a certain number of mind maps T can use for
free and are about how we can read a text. http://popplet.com
b) Text-to-speech applications. A free toolbar we can access is the Atbar. A multipurpose
accessibility bar (it has a text-to-speech facility but it covers other things in terms of text
manipulation. It allows us to magnify areas, take images, use the dictionary function, change the
colour contrast between the background and the text colour) https://www.atbar.org/
Some of these facilities can be done by word processing products like the Word.
 We should always check the cross-platform applicability of what we’re buying
 Companies like ‘Text Help’ are developing tools working across-platform.
http://www.texthelp.com/UK
c)
Increasing letter-spacing has proved useful for dyslexic sts although it may stress
non-dyslexic ones. This feature doesn’t come as a default option.
There’s a paid for application called VOICE DREAM that has multiple ways of manipulating
texts including letter spacing. It also does text-to-speech type features, as well.
http://www.voicedream.com/
d) Technology can definitely help with organisation. EVERNOTE is an organisational package that
helps us integrate different pieces of information which can be tricky for the dyslexic.
http://evernote.com
e) ‘TRELLO’ is another free tool. Many of these applications can be found in its free option. It is
more of a project management tool. http://trello.com
f) There are also lots of websites which you can get to send you reminders to do things. Even
phones where you can set yourself alarms can help.
TECHNOLOGY AIDS FOR WRITING
Presented in terms of the stages of the writing process:
A. Pre-writing stage: ‘Inspiration’ or the child version of ‘Kidspiration’ software. You
can create text boxes, picture boxes, you can link different boxes so it allows us
to create quite complex mind maps or organizational charts.
http://www.inspiration.com/Kidspiration
B. Writing stage: How is technology changing how we read and write?
In dyslexia, the planning stage is hard enough so we need to be careful to
encourage the pre-planning stage. So, either use electronic software like Inspiration or
do it on paper first before the typing begins.
•
word-processing programmes are aids to editing and formatting. Additional
tools are:
• A Text expander (instead of having to write a whole word, you can have a shortcut
you type and the whole word appears) Freely available examples are:
www. phraseexpander.com/, http://letmetype.en.softonic.com/,
en.softonic.com/s/texter
•
Word processors have in-built spell checkers but there are limitations. A new
generation of spell checkers is coming through and some have been designed for
and even by people with dyslexia. http://www.gingersoftware.com/download
•
There are also speech –to-text tools. They allow you to speak your ideas and then
it’s translated immediately into text. The most commonly used version , as long as
you pay for it, is ‘Dragon Naturally Speaking’
http://www.nuance.co.uk/for-individuals/by-product/dragon-for-pc/index.htm
•
Even general websites like ‘Lifehacker.com’ can help because it tries to give kinds
of shortcuts for different life activities e.g. shortcuts for reading, writing,
organization etc. http://www.lifehacker.co.uk/
AIDS FOR MEMORY
How pliable is our memory?
• a) If your auditory or sound based skills are vulnerable, we’re going to use
multisensory techniques to shelter and scaffold this skill. Rather than
expecting sb to learn everything from an auditory lecture, we should make
sure we provide more kinds of sensory experiences.
e.g. instead of just listening how things are done, try actually do these things
(manipulate objects, use pictures/images/videos or just get sts do something
as a real experience).
• b) Overlearning things is going to be essential.
• c) A third key strategy is chunking.
If you don’t have the time for all these, just be conservative. Make sure the
instructions you give are crystal clear. If possible, accompany auditory
instruction with visual backup. So, have something written on board.
d) Self-monitoring. Is there a subtle way T and st can communicate this
breakdown in comprehension to each other? If there is access to
technology, we can use audio recording.
AIDS FOR ORGANISATION
Organisation in time and space. It can be under-appreciated by those
who think that the reading problem has to do with reading and
spelling exclusively.
One key element is orientation in time. Time-tabling and planning can
make a massive difference.
• For younger children, we could recommend timetables for how the
day is going to look. Make multiple copies because sts need to see
them in classroom, in their lockers and give one at home so the
parents are aware what is needed and when. We may use colourcoding, pictures or text so that the timetable makes sense to the st.
• It can be useful for the T to give dyslexic children some content of
the lesson beforehand so that they can plan ahead for what is going
to be expected from the lesson.
• When setting homework, leave some time so that the st can try a
bit of it in class so as to check if there’s some misunderstanding.
Remember that planning takes time!