Understanding Dyslexia

Re-reading my previous posts after undergoing a quest to find out more about how to teach children with dyslexia effectively this sentence really stood out to me:
"One of my goals for this year is to ensure that all of my students have numerous opportunities to celebrate who they are and to experience success in all areas of their learning.  In order to do this effectively, and in order for this to become a smart goal I need to have a deep understanding of who my students are and what influences their lives. " 
At the time of writing this I was not aware of the extent to which a number of children in my class suffered from dyslexia - and this has just become all the more relevant with this knowledge. 

I have met with a number of teachers in the school regarding dyslexia - both the ESOL teacher who also commonly works with dyslexic students and previous teachers of the dyslexic students.  The advice I received from these ladies lined up with research that they directed me to on the subject.  I was given suggestions such as:

• Use pastel coloured paper to print worksheets on.
• Make sure the writing is large, bold and is in a basic font such as Comic Sans or Arial.
• Encourage the children to do lots of thinking and discussion first so you gain insight into their understanding - often they understand but it is the transfer from ideas to recording them that troubles them.
• Use lots of post it notes to help students be able to organise and rearrange their ideas, especially in writing.
• Use technology to assist students when possible - for example - in writing have students plan their ideas on paper but move to writing their story/argument/essay on the computer.
• Play lots of word games that allows them to become familiar with words and different parts of words in a fun environment where they are able to experience success.

Interestingly, when I talked to the students themselves, they also suggested the ideas in italics.

One website that I was directed to which I found extremely informative and insightful was http://www.4d.org.nz/edge/ 

The following areas I explore are all based around concepts I have explore on the sight and my understandings of them.  I loved this picture, as for me it allowed me insight into how dyslexic children might view what in my mind is a simple word - and therefore how daunting some of the tasks that I have been giving them might seem.

* If you get it right for dyslexics, you get it right for everyone.  This idea is explored in more depth in relation to differentiation of learning styles, the type of feedback you provide students and the way that the classroom is displayed.  

* Stepping back into the classroom, problems often arise when teachers equate weak basic skills with some sort of inability to think. If students are put into groups that are appropriate for basic skills but not for their thinking levels, they can quickly become frustrated and act out.  The solution is about placing students in thinking ability appropriate groups while supporting them with basic skills. This empowers them to develop high level subject knowledge and skills while their basic skills are catching up. All this requires a flexible approach to teaching.

This certainly provided a starting point for how I can potentially immediately change my teaching practice.  Whilst at the moment all students, including those with dyslexia, are placed in thinking ability appropriate groups for reading and maths I am not 100% sure that I could say the same with writing.  In writing, our assessment of students is based on what they can record individually within a set time frame.  In formative assessment with these children though I notice the discussion with them that I am having is often at a higher level than what I see them recording, and at a higher level at times than others in their group.  I wonder whether I should be moving these students so that even for writing they are being exposed to more extended and abstract concepts even if they are not able to transfer these into their writing - this is something I will need to discuss with other staff members and ponder.

* The website talks in extensive detail about the 'notice and adjust' philosophy - which read in consideration of the New Zealand curriculum is effectively what every teacher should be doing each day anyway - providing differentiated learning activities and a range of tasks that best suit the learning needs of each individual child. They explore a number of ways of doing this:

• Set clear lesson objectives. Write them on the board and refer to them frequently during the lesson, and especially at the end. Students need to have a purpose for their learning and will respond better when they know why they are doing something.
• Fortunately, this is something that we do effectively at our school and something for which support is continually in place for so that we can provide the best understanding of what they are learning for our students. 
• Differentiate to provide opportunities for success, and differentiate by outcome as well as task. By outcome means setting different activities based on levels of achievement. By task means setting the same activity for all students but letting them choose how to demonstrate their learning.
• I constantly differentiate by outcome within my programme, however differentiating by task - and letting the children choose how to demonstrate their learning is not something I have considered or experimented with - however is something that I would be interested in looking into exploring with my TT. 
• If board work is needed, use black or dark markers. Avoid red or green as many students find these difficult to read.
• At the moment I use all four colours frequently with little thought as to when I am using what colour and why - this is an easy fix and something that can be changed instantly that will make a difference to the students. 
• Encourage the use of colour to help organise notes.
• Since working with my release teacher who has dyslexic tendencies I have come to appreciate the importance of having this in my programme for the children and am continually considering different ways that I can do this and that I can allow my students to do this. 
• Technology can be a dyslexic student’s best friend, enabling them to use visual strategies or overcome handwriting or spelling difficulties. A laptop to word process work and reinforce numeracy skills, a dictaphone to record work, and phonetic spell checkers can enable learning.
• The use of iPads, and class PODs should hopefully help out these students tremendously - my challenge will be finding a way to use them that engages and challenges the children keeping them on task rather than just providing the students with the tools and no instructions for how to use them. 
• Link learning tasks to previous knowledge. This is about creating ‘building’ blocks which show how new things relate to previous lessons. Dyslexic processors often require additional exposure to new learning to make these links and retain understanding so that they can retrieve information and apply to other settings and tasks.
• This is a big aim within my programme anyway, but is something that is good to know to focus on.
• Emphasise strengths of student’s work, with specific praise.
• Something that I aim to do with students individually each day through conferencing, but again a big thing to keep in mind and to ensure that I am constantly doing.
• Empathy is the key. When a student feels understood and supported they can be encouraged to take learning risks.  Even more debilitating than having difficulty with basic skills can be an accompanying feeling of failure or low-self worth. 

I tried to put myself into the shoes of the dyslexic children in my class and realised that at times they may feel, that due to finding it harder to be able to complete some of the tasks given, and other students recognising that they are struggling, disheartened or as though they are failing.  On my student blog I have set up the following link - Appreciating each other's differences - that I will explore with them over the coming week looking at how everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, the importance of working as a team, and how even though something may seem tough at first, it is so important to keep on persevering if we want to achieve success.

I know that I am barely even scratching the surface of dyslexia and would love to find out more about this interesting topic, how to help my students learn and how to teach ALL my students effectively - if I am getting it right for dyslexic students - I am getting it right for everyone.