Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder that falls within the specific difficulties of learning and is characterized by the presence of alterations and difficulties in literacy. But what can we do if our children or students suffer from dyslexia? How can we help you? You can find an answer to these questions in this Psychology-Online article: how to help a child with dyslexia.
The needs of children with dyslexia within the classroom they are highly variable, they always depend on the difficulties that each child presents in her particular case. But they all have one need in common and that is that they require teaching methods other than traditional ones, so in many cases they must be given more time so that they can carry out a good meaningful learning, give them emotional support and a multisensory teaching method to provide them with different means of stimulation that can reinforce and integrate their basic skills. Therefore, we propose a series of recommendations on how to help a child with dyslexia in the classroom:
- Be positive and constructive.
- Do not judge the abilities of the student.
- Use technological resources to improve reading and writing skills.
- Give premises and orders, since children with dyslexia tend to respond better when their environment is structured, orderly and predictable.
- Convey explanations and instructions clearly and, if necessary, more slowly and repeatedly.
- Congratulate their abilities, their strengths, their effort and their progress to take advantage of this foundation and continue to advance in their learning. On the contrary, it is not recommended at all to threaten or punish the student to improve, as this will not give results, but will have negative effects on your self-esteem, performance and confidence established with the teacher.
- Offer curricular adaptations with the help of the opinion and consideration of the school's psychopedagogical professional.
- Keep in touch with the child's family, to pass on information about the situation.
- Carry out joint work with the family and the professional outside the school.
If you suspect that your child may have dyslexia or have recently been diagnosed with it, it is recommended that you inform yourself as much as you can or consider necessary about dyslexia, always relying on reliable sources, such as research articles, books, consulting professionals, among others. In this article we explain how to know if your child has dyslexia. It is important to know well the situation of your children, since in this way it allows you to be able to help them with more knowledge and security. Here are some tips for parents of children with dyslexia:
- Find out about exercises or activities that enhance or promote the development of reading and writing skills and that you can do with your children, whether in a playful way or not.
- Inform the school. It is important for teachers to know that they are dealing with children with dyslexia, so it is important communicate the child's diagnosis to the teachers, so that from the school they work with resources adapted for them kids. It is also important to talk with teachers about the supports and services that the child can receive at school.
- Explain to your child what is wrong with him, in what aspects you will have difficulties and what benefits you can get from all this. Do not talk to your child about dyslexia as if it were something bad, he tries to see the positive side within her limitations and, at the same time, be aware of her difficulties in literacy. If the child with dyslexia is not explained or what it consists of learning disorder, he will probably present intolerance to frustration, since he will not know where his difficulties come from when it comes to reading and writing. On the other hand, if the child is informed, he will understand that he probably writes and reads worse than his classmates and will not feel inferior for it. In addition, it is also important to show the child that having dyslexia does not imply failure in life, that he is not different from other children and that if he sets himself a goal he will achieve it.
Knowing as much about dyslexia as possible lets parents know how to treat their children with dyslexia and can deal with the situation jointly with a specialist and the college.
How to help a child with dyslexia at home? There are a number of activities that can help children with dyslexia improve their reading and writing skills. These are activities through play that can be done at home, with the help and support of parents. Here are some examples:
- Make word searches.
- Play rhymes.
- Read a book together: for example, the child begins by reading the first page, the second is read by the accompanying adult, on the third page it is the child who reads again, and so on. Here we explain how to help your child read.
- Laterality exercises: give orders to the child, such as "touch your left ear with your right hand."
- Exercises to work the syllablesThese exercises are helpful in promoting syllable awareness. For example, playing word chaining, which involves starting with a word and moving on saying words starting with the last syllable of the previous one (example: puer-ta, ta-pa, dad,…). Another example is separating the words into syllables, the child can help himself by slapping each syllable that he separates (example: separates the syllables of the word ladder, how many does he have? es-ca-le-ra: 4). Play to omit, add and / or substitute syllables (example of omission: what would remain if we remove the third syllable from the word ladder? it's expensive). Playing I see-I see with syllables (example: I see-I see a little thing that begins with the syllable "is"), among others.
- Exercises to work phonemes (sounds): you can use the same games as in the case of syllables but adapting them to sounds, for example, saying a word "Loop" and ask the child if that word has the sound "z", play see-see with sounds (see-see a little thing that begins with the sound "S"). These are games that encourage the child to practice the different sounds of the letters in a fun way.
- Exercises to work semantic fields: name a word and play at naming other words derived from the same semantic field (example: cake, pastry chef, patisserie).
- Exercises to work on the composition of sentences: count the words in a sentence mentally. Write a sentence without spaces and have the child separate the words with lines (example: today / it's / hot). Suggest a phrase to the child and play to substitute some words for others or play to remove a word from the phrase to see the final result of the phrase.
- Exercises to work on visual discrimination: it is about carrying out activities that favor the child's ability to differentiate letters by their similar orientation (example: Make a word search with the letters "b", "p" and "d", the child must mark all the letters "b" of one color, and so on with each lyrics).
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
