A Teacher Reflects on Teaching Dyslexic Kids

*I taught more than 1,000 students; if even 10 percent suffered from this learning problem, 100 of my students struggled with little or no help. Many times I thought students were lazy and didn’t want to even try. How wrong I was!

*The reading classes I took in college did not address dyslexia, and, I know from speaking to current education students, very little about how to work with a dyslexic student is taught today.

*The big problem with [dyslexia] is that many school districts do not test for it. The tests are complicated and rather expensive, so many districts refuse to even acknowledge the problem.

Orton-Gillingham based programs will teach a dyslexic person to read, even adults.  Why make kids suffer humiliation and failure?  Start OG by the end of second grade!

Dyslexic children struggle to readA guest column by Ann Rickert  Posted on Fri, Nov. 05, 2004

I was so glad that Fort Wayne Community Schools’ board decided last month to at least listen to the problems students with dyslexia face every day.

I’m calling dyslexia a hidden learning disease because little seems to be known about it, and at least 10 to 15 percent of our students are suffering from its effects. Actually, I have read research that indicates that as many as 20 percent of students have this affliction. Very little is done about it in our schools, and many children suffering from its effects never learn to read. If you can’t read, you can’t do a lot with your life. Reading is the foundation of all learning, and without the skills children can become depressed, easily give up and in many cases never become the people that they could become.

Dyslexia is classified as a specific learning disability, and children having it are usually referred to special education classes. The big problem with this is that many school districts do not test for it. The tests are complicated and rather expensive, so many districts refuse to even acknowledge the problem. Also, every child having dyslexia is different from every other child with the problem. In other words, each dyslexic student needs a different and specific learning approach unique to him.

Dyslexia is a language difficulty that causes problems in reading, writing, spelling and math. Children and adults having this learning problem suffer every day of their lives, because processing the information coming to them does not proceed along the same channels as someone without dyslexia.

Thinking back to the 35 years I spent teaching mostly fourth- and fifth-graders, I wonder how many of their learning problems had anything to do with being dyslexic. I taught more than 1,000 students; if even 10 percent suffered from this learning problem, 100 of my students struggled with little or no help. Many times I thought students were lazy and didn’t want to even try. How wrong I was!

I began tutoring a delightful 7-year-old girl last fall. Nothing that had been done in the past had helped her to learn to read and, needless to say, the student, her parents and the classroom teacher were completely at a loss as to what to do to help her. She was finally diagnosed with a learning disability in second grade, but despite going to special education classes every day, reading is still a real struggle for her. Every year, reading will become even more difficult. I searched the Internet and looked for ways to help her read. During my search, I found some lessons to help, and with a lot of repeat, repeat, repeat lessons in phonemes and phonics we have begun to see some improvement. The first time she read a Dr. Seuss book by herself, I was in tears! Unfortunately, a child with dyslexia might be able to read a book one day but struggle to read it the next.

I spoke with Kurt Walborn, director of the Fort Wayne Masonic Learning Center for dyslexic children, and he gave me ideas for working with my student. These techniques have helped, but I do not have any formal training in this area. The reading classes I took in college did not address dyslexia, and, I know from speaking to current education students, very little about how to work with a dyslexic student is taught today. Dyslexics do develop their own unique ways of getting and retaining information, but it’s such a continuing struggle for them.

There is no magic age to overcome this problem. If you have this learning problem now, you will have it all your life. It doesn’t go away when you become an adult. Many scientists feel it has its own gene and is probably inherited. In the case of my student, this is true. Her mother has the problem and also suffered in school, with even less help than students receive today. It has held her back from getting jobs she desired and given her low self-esteem. It is a constant daily struggle to do all the things we take for granted. There are still many words she can’t remember; directions such as right, left, up and down are confusing. I recently spoke to a retired educator who has suffered from this malady all her life and she still has difficulties because of this.

Dyslexics just don’t see the world the same as the rest of us. Concentration is very difficult, and, for children taking the ISTEP test, it’s a total nightmare. They can’t read the test, so it’s either guess or just simply give up and not complete it. This equates to failing the test; and it just doesn’t happen one year, but year after year unless they receive help.

Getting into Walborn’s program takes at least two years. There is a waiting list, and it’s growing longer every year.

I truly hope FWCS really looks into this problem as soon as possible and finds the needed funds to begin supporting this learning problem. The lives of so many children need to be saved before they become adults and have to struggle with dyslexia forever. It is truly a hidden learning disease.

This should be read as a 911 call for addressing the weaknesses in teacher preparation, if nothing else.  Don't forget the low reading skills of most criminals--what if we could reduce the crime rate by effectively educating people?

 

Comments

[Mona Berg]

I am a literacy volunteer with a dyslexic student.
I went through a training program as a volunteer.
I have no training in teaching a student with learning disabilities.
Any program that can give me help seems to be too costly
Any suggestions.

[Liz]

Here's the email I sent to Mona

readers might want to know more about the content of Orton-Gillingham programs. I have a sort of canned description:

Here's Susan Barton on what dyslexia is, and how to remediate it.

One shouldn't regard a dyslexia program as "tutoring".   Parents should select a program that has been shown to work, that has the following features:Effective Teaching to Remediate Dyslexia--These steps must be mastered in order!

Phonemic Awareness is the first step. You must teach the student how to listen to a single word or syllable and break it into individual phonemes--the individual sounds.

Phoneme/Grapheme Correspondence is the next step. Here you teach which sounds are represented by which letter(s), and how to blend those letters into single-syllable words.

The Six Types of Syllables that compose English words are taught next.

Probabilities and Rules are then taught. The English language provides several ways to spell the same sounds. For example, the sound /SHUN/ can be spelled either TION, SION, or CION. The sound of /J/ at the end of a word can be spelled GE or DGE. Dyslexic students need to be taught these rules and probabilities.

Morphology and Roots and Affixes--Morphology is the study of how morphemes are combined from words. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in the language. The curriculum must include the study of base words, roots, prefixes, and suffixes.

How it is taught: Simultaneous Multisensory Instruction: Sometimes we rattle this off and don't really explain what it means or why it is important

This can be confusing to parents Sight or seeing, using the eyes = VISUAL Hearing or listening, using the ears = AUDITORY Feeling or touching, using the skin = TACTILE Moving through space and time, using the whole body = KINESTHETIC

Reading and writing go together; writing is a kinesthetic task--(can you feel how all the muscles in your hand and arm work to form letters as you write a sentence?).

Dyslexic people who use all of their senses when they learn (visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic) are better able to store and retrieve the information. So a beginning dyslexic student might see the letter A, say its name and sound, and write it in the air -- all at the same time. 

Excellent instruction includes:

Intense Instruction with Ample Practice: The dyslexic brain benefits from overlearning--having a very precise focus with lots and lots of correct practice.

Direct, Explicit Instruction: dyslexic students do not automatically "get" anything about the reading task, and may not generalize well. Therefore, each detail of every rule that governs written language needs to be taught directly, one rule at a time. Then the rule needs to be practiced until the student has demonstrated that she has mastered the rule in both receptive (reading) and productive (writing and spelling) aspects. Only then should the instructor introduce the next rule.

Systematic and Cumulative Many dyslexic students are not identified until later in their academic careers. They have developed mental "structures" of how English works that are completely wrong. To develop good written language skills--reading and writing--the tutor must go back to the very beginning and rebuild the student's mastery with a solid foundation that has no holes or cracks.

Synthetic and Analytic: dyslexic students must be taught both how to take the individual letters or sounds and put them together to form a word (synthetic), as well as how to look at a long word and break it into smaller pieces (analytic). Both synthetic and analytic phonics must be taught all the time.

Diagnostic Teaching the teacher must continuously assess their student's understanding of, and ability to apply, the rules. The teacher must ensure the student isn't simply recognizing a pattern and blindly applying it. And when confusion of a previously-taught rule is discovered, it must be retaught.