Dyslexia

In order to read, our brains have to connect letters and sounds, put those sounds in the correct order, and finally place the words in a sentence in the right order. But people who have dyslexia find it hard to put the letters and sounds together, which makes the other steps more difficult. Dyslexia is an unexpected disability among readers who are capable of becoming strong and intelligent readers.

One of the challenges that students with dyslexia face is reading fluently. They might read slower, and at a lower level. They also struggle with correctly spelling words and learning a second language. Backward writing or reverse writing is also a problem with students are prone to. They spell letters and numbers backwards without being aware. 

Students with dyslexia find it easier to learn with multi-sensory learning, which includes activities that engage students with movement and touch.

1. One example of multi-sensory learning is sand writing. In this activity, the students would have a plate covered in sand. You would call out a sound, and have your students repeat it and trace the letter that corresponds with the sound.
   
   

2. Another activity is arm tapping. You would show your student a card with a word on it, they would say the letters of that word. Using their dominant hand, they would tap their arm while saying the letters, beginning with their shoulder and finishing with their wrist. Then the student would say the complete word while sweeping their hand across their arm.
   
   

3. You can have your student with dyslexia use a pocket spell checker to check if they have misspelled any words. They can try their best to enter the spelling of a word, and the pocket spell checker will tell them if it is correct or not.
   
   

4. The blending board activity is another great way to help students with dyslexia. For this activity, you will need cards with digraphs, blends, or individual letters printed on them to form CVC words. Then you would cover up the letters or sounds on the cards and reveal them one at a time. You would have your student pronounce each sound individually and then say the word the separate cards formed.

1. Reading together encourages growth in your child’s reading ability.

2. It is important for children to learn heart(sight) words. Heart words are words that appear often in books, like it, a, do, then, and been. Children with dyslexia find it difficult to recognize heart words while reading. You and your child with dyslexia should focus on sight words so they can become better readers.
   
   

3. The Dyslexia Foundation

4. A mnemonic device, a phrase that helps remember things, can be useful for remembering heart words. Use this mnemonic device generator to help your child remember heart words.

https://learnsmarter.ai/mnemonic-generator/