Top tips of how to help students with Dyslexia and Dyspraxia

Aims of session

• To help suggest tips of how to help students with dyslexia and dyspraxia

• To disseminate findings of my action research

• 10-15 minutes of questions at the end

Write down in pairs..... what you know about dyslexia and dyspraxia and what

you have done to help students with Dyslexia and Dyspraxia that has worked?

Key facts about Dyslexia

• About 10% of the population are affected by dyslexia to some degree.

• Dyslexia is not the same as a problem with reading. Many dyslexic people learn to read, but have continuing difficulties with spelling, writing, memory and organisation.

• Did you know that 40 percent of all the entrepreneurs in Britain are dyslexics? And that number is 35 percent in the United States.

• As against popular belief, dyslexia is not just about reversing numbers and letters, in fact only a fraction of dyslexics suffer from this (30 percent of dyslexics to be exact).

Dyslexia

• The word 'dyslexia' comes from the Greek. It means 'difficulty with words'. Dyslexia is a general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence

• Dyslexia is a brain-based, genetic trait. • Research supported by the National Institute

of Child Health and Human Development suggests that dyslexia affects the temporal parietal lobe.

• Brain activity while reading of a non-dyslexic person (left) and dyslexic person (right). These two brains are reading. The red and yellow sections indicate brain activity.

Dyspraxia

• Developmental dyspraxia is an impairment of the organisation of movement. The way that someone with Dyspraxia processes information in the brain can result in messages not being properly or fully transmitted.

• The term dyspraxia comes from the word praxis, which means 'doing, acting'. Dyspraxia affects the planning of what to do and how to do it. It is associated with problems of perception, language and thought.

• Dyspraxia is thought to affect up to ten per cent of the population and up to two per cent severely. Males are four times more likely to be affected than females. Dyspraxia sometimes runs in families.

How to spot someone with Dyslexia

• They often report that words seem blurry or that they move or dance on the page or are jumbled up

• They might see some letters as backwards or upside down

• They might not be able to tell the difference between letters that look similar in shape such as o and e and c

• They might not be able to tell the difference between letters that have similar shape but different orientation, such as b and p and d and q

• The letters and words might look all bunched together

• The letters of some words might appear completely backwards, such as the word bird looking like drib

• They might see the letters o.k., but not be able to sound out words -- that is, not be able to connect the letters to the sounds they make and understand them;

• They might be able to connect the letters and sound out words, but not recognize words they have seen before, no matter how many times they have seen them -- each time they would have to start fresh;

• They might be able to read the words o.k. but not be able to make sense of or remember what they read, so that they find themselves coming back to read the same passage over and over again.

• A dyslexic person could have any of the above symptoms – or none! It is possible for a dyslexic person to be able to read very well, yet find it extremely difficult or impossible to write or spell.

How to spot someone with Dyslexia

Symptoms• It is best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category, and there are no

clear cut-off points. • Co-occurring difficulties may be seen in aspects of language, motor co-

ordination, mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation, but these are not, by themselves, markers of dyslexia.

• Difficulties with numbers (eg learning times tables, getting numbers in the wrong order, confusing numerical signs)- Dyscalculia

• Poor organisation

• Directional confusions

• Difficulties with sequencing information

• Poor sense of time

• Problems making skills become “automatic”

• Difficulty taking in oral information

• Problems with pronouncing some words

• Problems finding the right words (word retrieval)

• Difficulty learning and applying rules eg punctuation rules

Associated Strengths

• Not all people with dyslexia experience all of these “symptoms” from the previous slide. Everyone is different. People with dyslexia may also experience some of these strengths, again to differing degrees:

• Intuition

• Good at visualisation, including in 3D

• Creativity

• Good at seeing the whole picture

• Good at making links between things, seeing connections

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.-Albert Einstein

How to spot someone with dyspraxia

• Clumsiness. May drop things, spill things, bump into people, etc.

• Difficulty writing, both forming letters and the speed. Writing may even be painful.

• Reading difficulties and Speech problems.

• Poor short term memory. E.g. If given a list of instructions to carry out, may remember the first and last one but not the ones in between.

• Awkward walking and running. • Sensitive to sounds, e.g. may not like

loud music

• Poor concentration. E.g. easily distracted by background noise.

• Poorly organised. E.g. leaving things you need for school at home

• Have trouble learning new tasks particularly those involving organization and concentration.

• Trouble with social skills, E.g. problems reading and understanding body language, trouble understanding distance rules when sitting/standing next to someone, cannot keep eye contact, etc.

How to spot someone with dyspraxia

What you can do to help students with Dyslexia and Dyspraxia

• Treat them as individuals- you cannot help until you know what their difficulties are and if they need any help! So a discussion of their needs early on would be useful!

General Hints and Tips for organisation and homework

• If they have difficulties with organisation- letting them use a phone to set deadlines and reminders this will help with time management and remembering to bring resources

• Encourage good organizational skills by the use of folders and dividers to keep work easily accessible and in an orderly fashion.

• Break tasks down into small easily remembered pieces of information. • Deadlines and tasks must be written clearly on the board and students

strongly encouraged to write down• Set a limit on time spent on homework, as often a dyslexic child will take

a lot longer to produce the same work that another child with good literacy skills may produce easily.

• All children should be encouraged to proof read, which can be useful for initial correction of spellings. Dyslexics seem to be unable to correct their spellings spontaneously as they write, but they can be trained to look out for errors that are particular to them.

•Use a plain, evenly spaced sans serif font such as Arial and Comic Sans. Alternatives include Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic, Trebuchet. •Font size should be 12-14 point. Some dyslexic readers may request a larger font.

•Try to do handouts with cream or pastel backgrounds and black writing•Some students have a colour preference so if they wanted you could print their resource on this colour paper

•If visual memory is poor, copying must be kept to a minimum. Notes or handouts are far more useful.•The use of diagrams, flow chart, graphs etc may be helpful for students rather than lots of text as they can visualise the information

•Limit the amount of text on a power point•Avoid using writing that is all in capital letters as this can be difficult for students to read

Tips for creating

resources

Tips for Board Work

• Use different colour pens for each line if there is a lot of written information on the board, or underline every second line with a different coloured pen.

• Use of mind maps on the board helps to break up information for students as well as using their visual skills. Even better if different coloured pens are used for different sections

• Ensure that the writing is well spaced. Leave the writing on the blackboard long enough to ensure the child doesn't rush, or that the work is not erased from the board before the child has finished copying.

Hints and Tips

• Give them thinking time when you ask on the spot questions• Let them talk to the person next to them (task related)- they

are not trying to be disruptive often they are checking understanding and building confidence.

• Inspiration software for mind maps• Audio tapes for recording lessons that can then be written

up at a later stage.• Written record of the pupil's verbal account, or voice

activated software can be used such as dragon.• Students could be encouraged to listen in lessons rather

than take notes and then write up notes from moodle after the lesson.

Use of colours i.e. Different coloured packs for different topic areas or students could be encouraged to use highlighters

More tips

Make sure if you do in class tests that students are given their allocated extra time otherwise this will put them at a disadvantage especially if it will be graded or peer marked!

Use of coloured line ruler- different colours work for different students so they need to experiment for themselves- often this will change over time. They can also change the background of their computer screen to a different colour to help them

More tips

• Starter sentences- or begin task in class

Provide written directions and checklists for assignments.

Provide model answers, templates for structure for essays or extended writing

Use of videos, role play and posters to reinforce learning

Reasons why I did my research

• Frustration!

What I did

• Student led focus groups- learn strategies from each other

• Symptoms in no two dyslexics may be the same. In fact it is now known that only 30% of all the dyslexics are known to reverse the letters in words, the rest however, suffer from a range of different combination of symptoms.

• Therefore IEPS!• Shared with teachers

Findings• Students-The response was overwhelmingly positive • “the focus groups were useful to talk to other students and helped me to

learn ways to learn from others”, • “I found the focus groups extremely helpful. It was great to have both fellow

students’ and a teacher’s support and advice. It was good to know you had a teacher who was on your side and understood our difficulties, so could help us challenge our disability especially when the challenges involved other adults”

• “I have really enjoyed meeting students in a similar position to myself. It makes me feel less alone and more capable to do things, because they have been through it before e.g. lessons, exams and assessments (an AS student talking about A2 students) and have come out smiling and fighting and that gives me a little reassurance that I can achieve despite my problems”

• “it is good to know that you are not alone”. • In terms of the IEPs 100% of the students said that they found them helpful

and 100% said that it helped them to develop strategies for learning

Findings

• Data from teachers-• 75% said they had seen improvements in

individual traits for example note taking, time management or confidence.

• When asked if teachers felt they were more aware of how to help these students since the IEP 11% strongly agreed, 55% agreed, 18% said that they didn’t know and 14% disagreed.

• 82% of teachers saying that they would like to receive IEPs in the future.

Questions

Maths specific tips

• It has been estimated that around 90% of dyslexic children have problems in at least some areas of maths. General mathematical terminology words need to be clearly understood before they can be used in calculations, e.g. add, plus, sum of, increase and total, all describe a single mathematical process. Other related difficulties could be with visual/perceptual skills, directional confusion, sequencing, word skills and memory. Dyslexic students may have special difficulties with aspects of maths that require many steps or place a heavy load on the short-term memory, e.g. long division or algebra.

• The value of learning the skills of estimation cannot be too strongly stressed for the dyslexic child. Use and encourage the use of estimation. The child should be taught to form the habit of checking their answers against the question when they has finished the calculation, i.e. is the answer possible, sensible or ludicrous?

• When using mental arithmetic allow the dyslexic child to jot down the key number and the appropriate mathematical sign from the question.

• Encourage pupils to verbalize and to talk their way through each step of the problem. Many children find this very helpful.

• Teach the pupil how to use the times table square and encourage them to say their workings out as they use it.

• Encourage a dyslexic child to use a calculator. Make sure they fully understand how to use it. Ensure that they have been taught to estimate to check their calculations. This is a way of 'proof reading' what they do.

• Put key words on a card index system or on the inside cover of the pupils maths book so it can be used for reference and revision.

• Rehearse mathematical vocabulary constantly, using multi sensory/kinesthetic methods.• Put the decimal point in red ink. It helps visual perception with the dyslexic child.