Fab English ideas

It’s hard to know where to start so here are some of the books I’ve found useful, in order of “importance”, if you can only read a couple, start at the top:

Reid, G. & Green, S. 2011 100+ ideas for supporting children with dyslexia. London: Continuum

Reid,G. 2011 Dyslexia- a complete guide for parents and those who help them. Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Schneider,E. & Crombie,M. 2003 Dyslexia and Foreign Language learning, Oxon: David Fulton Publishers

Obviously every pupil  is different so these ideas will work with some but not necessarily all, the best thing to do is try them out and see what works, once you get to know your student it’s easier to know what will be most effective, and if you’re not sure, ask them!

I have found that most of these ideas help ALL my students, dyslexic or not.

Try and start the school year and even the lesson with something easy to get everyone in the mood for learning English, remember “nothing succeeds like success”.

Give more time to those who need it, this might simply mean alerting the students that their turn is coming – “John, when I’ve asked Claire and Mike about their weekend, I’ll be asking you”. This gives John time to prepare, but also Claire and Mike!

Give instructions one at a time, be sure to stand still and get the student’s attention by calling their name, be sure you have their attention before starting, be clear, model the activity with another student, write the instructions on the board. Chunk your instructions, dyslexic students can have difficulty using their working memory so a long string of things to do will be hard to remember.

Place the students who need most support in your “action zone”, most teachers have an area of the class they tend to give more attention to, usually this is the first few rows, centre or centre-right of the classroom.

Avoid lots of copying off the board, give handouts in dyslexia friendly fonts (Comic sans, Times New Roman, or even special downloadable dyslexia fonts) and use pastel coloured or recycled paper which doesn’t have so much of a glare as new white paper. Make sure you don’t cram too much onto one page, leave plenty of space between paragraphs.

Scaffold, explain, don’t expect them to “notice” grammar rules.

Dyslexic students have less sight words (words that we recognize by sight, rather than having to phonetically decipher) so why not print and laminate a chart of frequently used words?

Read out reading texts so the students can hear the pronunciation of unfamiliar words.

If necessary, record yourself reading a text (on their phone for example) so they can listen to it as often as possible.

Think-Pair-Share – give students time to collect their thoughts before they talk to their partner, then in groups choose someone (else) to be scribe, timekeeper, devil’s advocate, idea bank, etc. If you think carefully about your groups you have peer tutoring going on as well.

Encourage students to come up with mnemonic devices and acronyms to help remember key words.

Use KWL grids – created by Donna Ogle in 1986, students complete grids, firstly noting what K – what they already KNOW, W – what they WANT to know, and lastly, L- what they have learnt, thinking about what you’ve learnt is an important way of reaffirming learning.

Tests & Evaluations – start with easy questions, you don’t want anyone getting zero, so start with something less challenging so students don’t block or panic at the first step.

Use multiple choice, crosswords, matching images etc. to avoid writing where possible.

Wherever possible let students use computers or tablets, finished work can be produced using videos or oral recordings, comic strips, posters, drama productions, anything that the students feel comfortable with.

These are just a few ideas, many more can be found on the internet, in relevant literature, or by just spending time with yours students.

Thankfully nowadays the vast majority of primary teachers know what to look out for and children are usually assessed before arriving at secondary school. Without going into all the elements that make up a dyslexia assessment here are a few to think about;

• phonological processing and decoding is difficult, so many dyslexics find it hard to identitify phonemes or letters in words, eg. Can you hear the letter “a” in bland? Or “how many sounds can you hear in “bland”? – this can be seen at a young age by difficulties in learning nursery rhymes, dyslexic children can’t always decipher the individual words, especially when rhythm makes them all run into each other.

• Personally I have spotted students who have not yet been assessed for dyslexia but that I think may be affected. I give my students weekly vocab tests (before you all gasp in horror, it is our school’s policy to give a list of words to be learnt for a test every week, the validation of this is something we can go into later), and occasionally I’ll come across someone like Jane, who has obviously learnt her words, and probably worked really hard, not like some of my students who write or say “it’s a legume”, and hope to get away with it. However every word has at least one spelling mistake, “ushanb” is “husband”, “egli” is “ugly”.

• Other signs include omission of words, difficulty following instructions – as short-term memory is effected, students who don’t get to work with the rest of the class, or automatically start “chatting” whenever you set a task are probably asking their neighbour what to do, frightened of being caught out.

• Sadly other signs of a student with learning difficulties include frustration, anger, tiredness and especially, lack of self-esteem. They may also have difficulty in social situations and find it harder than others to make friends or deal with new situations.

• An essential point to remember is that dyslexic students are often very hardworking, they have to be to keep up with the demands on their short-term memory and processing skills, often a student who seems really serious, but never seems to get the results you would expect, some people say students have to use five times as much energy and effort to produce the same work as a non-dyslexic student.

• Keep an eye on the student who seems to have totally given up, arrives late, always gets sent out because he’s “forgotten” his books. There are plenty of ways to get around having to read out loud in class.

What should you do if you spot a student you think has a specific educational need?

Ask! – his class teacher, his previous teachers, his parents – tactfully, and him.

Talk to the student and his parents and ask how language learning was previously. Ask what the students finds challenging and what you can put into place together to help him succeed.

(Yes, I know I’ve used “he” to refer to my student throughout this article, it was to get you reacting!)