Dyslexia

Last month, our school district put on a wonderful workshop all about dyslexia that I was lucky enough to attend. There was so much information that it was hard to condense it into a single post, but I will do my best!

Early Warning Signs (preschool- 3rd grade)

• Late learning how to talk, lower vocabulary than is age-appropriate
• Failure to understand that words are made up of parts or individual sounds
• Difficulty learning the letter names and their corresponding sounds
• Difficulty reading single words in isolation
• Difficulty reading fluently
• Difficulty spelling phonetically
• Difficulty with word retrieval/ naming
• Difficulty following directions

Working with Audiobooks Helps Kids with Dyslexia and Improving Literacy:

• Listening to audiobooks and following along help your child become a better reading, particularly for those with dyslexia
• Your child will become a more effective learner by listening (they focus on the meaning of the words, rather than decoding)
• Increases self-esteem and confidence- eases frustration with reading
• Fosters motivation and a natural love of stories

How to start with audiobooks:

• Start with 3-5 high interest titles
• Set aside plenty of time to practice listening
• Use comfortable good quality headphones
• Be flexible; maybe your child wants to listen while lying in bed or coloring a picture
• Experiment with pitch and speed to find the right fit
• Read along with your child and discuss the story

*But remember: Audiobooks are not a replacement for good reading instruction!

Other Related Disorders:

• Dysgraphia- difficulty with handwriting, poor/ slow handwriting, messy papers, difficulty copying, poor fine motor skills, unsure of handedness
• Dyscalculia- difficulty with math, counting, misreads numbers, hard time memorizing math facts, etc

• ADHD- difficulty with attention, distractible, impulsive, hyperactive
• Dyspraxia- difficulty with motor skills, uncoordinated, struggles to motor plan
• Executive functioning difficulty- loses papers, poor sense of time, forgets homework, messy desk, overwhelmed by too much input, works slowly, "out of sight, out of mind"

• Memory problems
• Needs high levels of repetition to learn
• Difficulty with written language (hard time putting ideas onto paper)
• Difficulty with rapid naming (colors, objects, letters, numbers) This means when you fire off questions "What is this? This? This? This?" really quickly.

A "reading" rapid naming. This could be done with colors, letters, pictures or people or objects, etc

Areas that May Need Work
After reading through this next list (for JUST reading work!!!), I felt torn. I was glad that there was the information out there, available for me to access to help my child, but when her needed school, therapy and home practice time totals up to more than 20 hours daily... What on earth am I supposed to do? That doesn't even include the time I have to invest to research these aspects of reading development and preparing the materials to implement it!

There will always be something that doesn't get done, which leaves us as special needs parents feeling simultaneously like we are failing our kids by not getting them the help, and sticking up for them- because NO ONE can maintain an 20 hour/ day schedule of people focusing on what you struggle with (or even be awake that much!), so why would anyone try to impose that ridiculous schedule on our sweet babies??? Just my 2 cents.

• Oral Language
• Vocabulary
• Listening comprehension
• Verbal expression
• Written expression
• Handwriting
• Memory for letter/ symbol sequence
• Mathematical calculation/ reasoning
• Phonological memory
• Verbal working memory
• Processing speed

The delivery of reading tutoring is very important. Think about not only what you are going to teach, but HOW you plan on teaching it.

Good way to work on letter matching! Increase number of letters and speed

• 3 Rs- Rhyme, repetition, and rhythm
• Multisensory work- visual, auditory, tactile simultaneously (THIS IS MY FAVORITE!!!! SUPER SUCCESSFUL WITH BOTH MY KIDS!)
• Systematic and cumulative
• Very intense!
• Automaticity!
• Start small and build up so it is incremental and painless
• Analytic instruction

The Brain and Dyslexia

• The inferior frontal gyrus "Broca's Area"- used for vocalization and articulation
• Parieto-temporal area- responsible for word analysis
• Occipito-temporal area- Controls word recognition and automaticity
• Left side of brain- "Sees" the word
• Right side of brain is for thinking.

*Fun Fact* Dyslexics re-route language through the right side of the brain. This is why some people have "bizarre" ways of remembering things- their brains have re-routed the information to be accessed by the "stronger" side of their brain, even if it doesn't make sense to others. 20% of people have some form of dyslexia, which would indicate this isn't a "wrong" way to think, just different.

Skill Area developed by:

• Starting with a 1 step task
• Add more incrementally
• Using multi-sensory techniques
• Provide multiple opportunities for practice
• Transitioning to final goal of smooth automatic processing (frees up the working memory!)