Effective Instruction for Dyslexic Students

I found the following in my "to do" email box.  Oh, my, I did not have an author.  It's not my work.  But I offer it up as a guidepost.

Sylvan, although an excellent program for the student who just needs a little more attention, is not adequate to meet the needs of a child who is dyslexic.  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 someone 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.
• Roots and Affixes]
• Morphology

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.  This 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.

Comments

[Reg Adkins]

My understanding of Dyslexia is a neurocognitive deficit that is specifically related to the reading and spelling processes. Typically, children classified as dyslexic are reported to be bright and capable in other intellectual domains. Current research indicates that the vast majority of children with dyslexia have phonological core deficits. The severity of the phonological deficits varies across individuals, and children with these deficits have been shown to make significantly less progress in basic word reading skills compared to children with equivalent IQs. Without direct instruction in phonemic awareness and sound-symbol correspondences, these children generally fail to attain adequate reading levels.
Given the above I'd like your thoughts on the direct instruction article I posted to elemental truths on Decber 9, 2005.

[Rev. Marilyn Redmond]

Neurocognitive deficit means that now there is scientific evidence that this can be corrected.

There is a new use for therapeutic hypnosis and holistic counseling. Harold B. Crasilneck, Ph.D., and James A. Hall, M.D. of Dallas Texas states that relatively little use of hypnosis is used in treating dyslexia. However, they report that “three-fourths of the dyslexic children treated through hypnosis demonstrated moderate to marked improvement.”

In addition, the scientific research by
Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev has scientifically proven that affirmations along with meditation/ hypnosis (another term for meditation) will raise consciousness, well-being, and even change DNA.

Energy can be used to heal the nerves by raising the energy in the person. There are several supportive ways to achieve this.

Let's live in the 21st century where science shows us ways to improve our lives not explored before. A diagnosis does not have to be a life time sentence anymore. Isn't it compassionate to help people overcome maladies?

[glenn]

i need a story of great personal struggle, one with no fame or fortune in the end. about life! an hard work an strife, free of glory.the story needs to be true, it needs to be about a woman, an she must have dyslexia! im taking a class in collage and i would like tell her story. my subject is on unsung horoines. try to keep it short if posible? thank you,

[glenn]

i need a story of great personal struggle, one with no fame or fortune in the end. about life! an hard work an strife, free of glory.the story needs to be true, it needs to be about a woman, an she must have dyslexia! im taking a class in collage and i would like tell her story. my subject is on unsung horoines. try to keep it short if posible? thank you,

[Jennifer Martinez]

I have a student who has had intensive multisensory instruction to remediate his dyslexia by a very qualified tutor. He is a 5th grader and has intense dysgraphia. Even though work has been done to remediate this, we have not had much improvement. I need some research and instructional strategies to address his severe dysgraphia.