As a teacher, you may encounter many challenging students and personalities. Some are behavioral, and some are learning related. One common yet seemingly insurmountable issue that teachers have to deal with is teaching dyslexic students how to read. In this blog, we’ll talk about different strategies for teaching students with dyslexia.
Consider Training As An Orton Gillingham Specialist
Traditional methods of strategies for teaching reading to children with dyslexia have not been easy or necessarily successful. In the 1930s, the Orton Gillingham method was created. Like reading therapy, the Orton Gillingham method is a philosophy for teaching the structure and code of the English language with sequential, systematic, multi-sensory, and cumulative techniques. This philosophy is based on extensive studies of children with language processing difficulties like dyslexia. It is also meant to help children with reading difficulties and mentor their teachers accordingly. The method incorporates tactile and visual as well as auditory elements.
Becoming an Orton Gillingham specialist means not only studying theory but spending hours practising on students under the direction of a highly qualified trainer. The average students requires 2 to 4 sessions per week, depending on how severe the reading deficit, and results can be exceptionally rewarding.
Educational Games
A game’s design for dyslexic students is an awesome teaching strategy for students with dyslexia because any learner can benefit from them, so you can easily incorporate them into lessons for the whole class. Nothing will excite your students more than playing games!
There are hundreds of apps and games designed for dyslexic students out there. Some popular ones include:
Simplex Spelling – if you have iPads in your classroom, these games help build up students’ understanding of phonics and how words are constructed. The apps improve English spelling and reading skills by using a powerful combination of phonics lessons, spelling/word patterns, and contextually relevant spelling rules.
Dyslexia Workbooks – If you’re classroom is not equipped with the latest technology, you can order some Dyslexia Games workbooks for your students. From art to puzzling to drawing to word searches, the Dyslexia Games workbooks bring the joy back into learning while using art and logic to retrain the brain.
Patience and Understanding
The best strategy you can probably use to deal with dyslexic students is good old-fashioned patience and understanding.
Don’t ask a person with dyslexia to read aloud, as words are likely to be mispronounced and cause embarrassment.
Accept their homework if it’s typed on a computer and not handwritten, as physical handwriting can be extremely hard for people with dyslexia.
Give them the opportunity to answers questions orally instead of having them write them down, as it’s possible they understand the material but just have difficulty writing it into legible sentences.
And always use praise over criticism. They are already struggling with their self confidence knowing they can’t do what the average student can, so building up their self esteem is key in getting them to overcome these hurdles.
Assistive Technology and Tools
A pocket spell checker can be a really great place to start when it comes to supplying your dyslexic student with a resource to help them write more easily. The dyslexic learner types in a word how they think it’s spelled, often phonetically and the spell checker will return a correctly-spelled match. This reinforces the student’s confidence that he is handing in a document with the words spelled correctly and that he won’t be embarrassed.
When it comes to computers and typing, teaching strategies for students with dyslexia abound. One very popular option for students who are just being introduced to typing is a colored keyboard. It aims to help assist learning by having an easy to remember color-coordination system.
While pocket spell checkers and colored keyboards are helpful, nothing can beat the feeling of being able to read independently and instantaneously.
That’s where OrCam Learn comes in. A student can hold the OrCam Learn device in their hand and with just the click of a button, have an entire page of text read to them instantaneously. Instead of reading line by line, a laser captures the full text on the page and then reads it back to the user. Zero percent struggle.
It is our hope that using some of the above resources you will be able to work better with your pupils, and your teaching strategies for students with dyslexia will improve. If you’d like to learn more about the OrCam Learn, enter your information below and one of our representatives will be in touch with you soon.
