Dyslexic learners can all learn to read. It takes time, diligence and the right methods. While some children will learn to read fairly easily with any method, dyslexic learners need to be systematically and explicitly taught and retaught every aspect of reading. It simply does not come naturally and needs to be taught, every step of the way. The International Dyslexia Association publishes a booklet about the best instruction methods for children with dyslexia. These methods are based on the latest research as well as the consensus of thousands of educational therapists over 50 years. We’ll look at what the experts say about what to teach and how to teach and then look at some programs that can be used at home that follow these guidelines.
What to Teach
Phonemic Awareness: How to listen to a single word or syllable and break it into its individual sounds. Students should be able to change sounds, remove sounds and compare sounds all in their head. Research has shown that an early deficit in this area is a sure sign of reading problems in the future.
Sounds-Symbol Association: The knowledge of the various sounds in our language and their corresponding letter or combination of letters that represent those sounds. This includes blending sounds together into words and segmenting or taking whole words apart into individual sounds.
Syllabication Instruction: Instruction of the six basic syllable types and how these formations affect the composite letters’ sounds.
Morphology: The study of base words, roots, prefixes and suffixes.
Semantics: Instruction in reading comprehension strategies.
How to Teach
Most anything you will read about effective reading instruction now days will talk about research-based instruction methods or the Orton-Gillingham method. The basic multi-sensory structured language technique known as the Orton-Gillingham approach was developed in the 1930s and 1940s. During the 1920s a neurologist named Samuel Orton began an intensive study of a group of people whom he called ‘word blind’. After studying what they could and couldn’t do, he took an interest in learning whether or not these children could learn to read. For many years he worked with Anna Gillingham and a team of others and eventually came up with an approach to teaching reading that taught the structure of sound-symbol relationships and used all of the senses to reinforce these associations. Since then, the Orton-Gillingham approach has been adapted and modified by institutions, agencies and private educational therapists.
Here are the individual facets of an effective reading program:
What to Teach
Phonemic Awareness: How to listen to a single word or syllable and break it into its individual sounds. Students should be able to change sounds, remove sounds and compare sounds all in their head. Research has shown that an early deficit in this area is a sure sign of reading problems in the future.
Sounds-Symbol Association: The knowledge of the various sounds in our language and their corresponding letter or combination of letters that represent those sounds. This includes blending sounds together into words and segmenting or taking whole words apart into individual sounds.
Syllabication Instruction: Instruction of the six basic syllable types and how these formations affect the composite letters’ sounds.
Morphology: The study of base words, roots, prefixes and suffixes.
Semantics: Instruction in reading comprehension strategies.
How to Teach
Most anything you will read about effective reading instruction now days will talk about research-based instruction methods or the Orton-Gillingham method. The basic multi-sensory structured language technique known as the Orton-Gillingham approach was developed in the 1930s and 1940s. During the 1920s a neurologist named Samuel Orton began an intensive study of a group of people whom he called ‘word blind’. After studying what they could and couldn’t do, he took an interest in learning whether or not these children could learn to read. For many years he worked with Anna Gillingham and a team of others and eventually came up with an approach to teaching reading that taught the structure of sound-symbol relationships and used all of the senses to reinforce these associations. Since then, the Orton-Gillingham approach has been adapted and modified by institutions, agencies and private educational therapists.
Here are the individual facets of an effective reading program:
- Simultaneous & Multi-Sensory: Research has shown that dyslexics using all of their senses as they learn (visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic) are better able to store and retrieve information. Using as many of the senses as possible at once (simultaneously) is best.
- Systematic and Cumulative: Multi-sensory language instruction requires that the organization of material follows the logical order of the language. The sequence must begin with the easiest and most basic elements and progress methodically to more difficult concepts. Material must be taught systematically to strengthen memory. Introduce a rule, practice until it is mastered, and do lots of review.
- Direct instruction: Dyslexic learners do not naturally pick up the rules of written language. Every rule must be taught directly and practiced until mastered.
- Diagnostic Teaching: Teaching must be individualized and the student’s needs and progress must be constantly reassessed.
- Synthetic and Analytic Instruction: Multi-sensory, structured language programs should include both synthetic and analytic instruction. Synthetic instruction presents the parts of the language and then teaches how the parts work together to form a whole. Analytic instruction presents the whole and teaches how this can be broken down into its component parts.
Research-based Reading Programs to use From Home
These methods may sound confusing but there are specific reading programs that are designed for teaching a dyslexic student to read at home. Some of the most effective, and therefore popular, programs for at home reading instruction are:
- Reading Horizons
- All About Reading
- Lexercise
- Barton Reading and Spelling Method
If you know someone that you think may be dyslexic, know that they can learn to read, spell and write successfully. The unique learning style of the dyslexic mind means that the approach for teaching will necessarily be different than other kids, but it can be done!
RSS Feed