DYSLEXIA

1
DYSLEXIA
2
What is Dyslexia

• Dyslexia is one of several distinct learning
  disabilities and literally means the inability to
  master language.
• More specifically, the term refers to people who
  have extreme difficulty acquiring the ability to
  read and spell, in particular, trouble with
  learning the code for written language.
• The difficulties of a student identified as
  having dyslexia occur in phonemic awareness and
  manipulation, single-word decoding, reading
  fluency, reading comprehension, spelling and/or
  written composition.

3
What is Dyslexia contd

• These difficulties are unexpected for the
  students age, educational level, or cognitive
  abilities.
• Dyslexia affects about 7 of people of all ages
  across the full range of socioeconomic
  backgrounds in society.
• People with dyslexia are often viewed as slow
  readers or slow learners however they are usually
  quite intelligent, oral people who simply
  struggle with language.

4
History of Dyslexia

• Dyslexia was made known to the world in 1876 by a
  group of doctors. Before then, doctors thought of
  dyslexia as vision problems. Doctors would make
  special glasses and check the patients' eyes to
  see if anything was wrong. Finally they
  discovered that it was not the eye, but the brain
  that caused the problems of dyslexia.
• Teachers saw students as dumb, lazy and not worth
  anything.
• Famous people such as Albert Einstein had
  dyslexia.

5
Causes

• The most common cause for dyslexia is genetic
  the child has inherited the genetic material from
  one or both of the parents which have affected
  how that childs brain was built during foetal
  development.
• Far less common are head injuries where the cause
  is acquired brain damage.

6
Causes contd

• There has been much detailed research with
  reference to the neurological causes of dyslexia.
  One common finding relates to the question of
  timing in that with either visual, auditory (or
  both) information coming in through the eyes or
  ears, timing issues of discriminating one piece
  of information from the next may be faulty.
• Basically, in people with dyslexia, brain
  function does not work as well and thus, the end
  result is that the person struggles to learn
  reading, writing and spelling to a degree far
  greater than people expect.

7
Characteristics

• Reading difficulties in visual short-term
  memory, word recognition, speed of reading and
  comprehension, extracting main points,
  misreading, the need to re-read several times
• Writing difficulties in expression, sentence
  structure, punctuation, planning and structuring
  essays, sequencing and transition between ideas
• Auditory assimilation difficulties in auditory
  short-term memory, remembering series (eg
  telephone numbers), polysyllabic words and
  remembering mathematical formulae
• Memory may be less effective, revision can be a
  longer process and support for study skills is
  needed

8
Characteristics contd

• Spelling each new word needs to be learned, may
  inhibit writing (fear of negative reaction), may
  affect the teachers understanding and evaluation
  of student work, reversal of letters and figures
  (eg b /d, 15/51), basic grammar rules not applied
  (eg likeing, lookd) and may not remember how a
  word sounds
• Proof reading difficulty in identifying errors,
  a document may require proof-reading 4 or 5 times
• Handwriting letters may not be joined, printing
  may be found to be of help
• Vocabulary language acquisition will take longer
  as more examples of a new word or sentence
  structure are required before they are learned

9
Understanding Dyslexia

• Dyslexic people hear and see normally but have
  difficulty remembering what they hear and see.
  This is called processing information.
• Brain scan experiments have shown that dyslexic
  people use different areas of the brain to
  process information.
• We all absorb information in different ways. Some
  people learn best through listening, some by
  seeing and others by doing.
• There are also combinations of these.
  Understanding how you absorb and process
  information is useful in the workplace or during
  study.

10
A Dyslexics Point of View

• My brain is wired differently.
• It's like my computer crashing with too much
  information!
• I know what I want to say, but I can never find
  the right words.
• I see things from a different perspective.
• I have all the right ideas, but I can't get them
  down on paper.
• Speaking out in front of other people makes me
  stumbleand forget what I was trying to say.
• I find a series of instructions difficult to
  follow but if I have time to make notes or a
  written list I can do the job.

11
Teaching Strategies

• DO
• Praise wherever possible
• Encourage
• Find something they are good at
• Give less homework
• Mark on oral responses where possible
• Make sure they understand and remember
  instructions
• Give them plenty of time to copy instructions
• Have expectations of success
• Seat them at the front of the class, closer to
  the teacher

• DO NOT
• Make them read aloud in public
• Ridicule or employ sarcasm
• Correct all mistakes in written work it is too
  discouraging
• Give lists of spelling words to learn, no more
  than 3 and related words eg plate and cake
• Make them write out work again
• Compare them to other students
• Make them change their writing eg printing is
  easier than cursive for them

12
Tips for Teachers

• A person with dyslexia tires more quickly than
  others greater concentration is required
• They suffer from constant, nagging uncertainty
• They are often disorganised and may also be
  clumsy and forgetful, despite trying hard
• Use wooden or plastic letters to teach them the
  feel and shape of letters
• Use pictures and memory books (eg Letterland)
• Give as much practice as possible in reading,
  writing and spelling as dyslexics need more
  practice than most children
• Talk about letters, words and stories to create
  interest in words and books

13
Possible clues of Dyslexic People

• a noticeable difference between the pupil's
  ability and their actual achievement
• a family history of learning difficulties
• difficulties with spelling
• confusion over left and right
• writing letters or numbers backwards
• difficulties with math/s
• difficulties with organizing themselves
• difficulty following 2- or 3-step instructions.
  

14
Resources

• Key To Student Levels
• P Preschool
• EC Early Childhood
• LP Lower Primary
• MP Middle Primary
• UP Upper Primary
• LS Lower Secondary
• US Upper Secondary
•  

• Hes my Brother by Joe Lasker Level MP-UP
• The Dont-Give-up Kid by Jeanne Gehret Level LP
• Different, Not Dumb by Margot Marek Level LP-MP
• The Gift of Dyslexia by Ron Davis
• Mark by Encyclopedia Brittania (Video) Level
  LS-US

15
Bibliography

• Miles T.R. Miles E. (1999) Dyslexia A Hundred
  Years On, 2nd ed., Philadelphia, Open University
  Press
• Lost for Words by BBC Worldwide (Video)
• Websites
• http//www.childdreams.com.au/disorder/dyslexia.ht
  ml
• http//www.acurrentaffair.ninemsn.com.au/factsheet
  s/451.asp
• http//dyslexia.org/helpful_hints.shtml
• http//www.dyslexiamylife.org/wb_help.htm
• http//www.users.bigpond.com/speldnsw/how_to_help.
  html
• http//www.users.bigpond.com/speldnsw/dyslexia.htm
  l
• http//www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/bussed/PWSN_info_service
  /dys_char.html
• http//64.119.172.210/dyslexia/index/3http//64.11
  9.172.210/dyslexia/index
• http//www.netxv.net/esc/specialpops/dyslexia/dysl
  exia_characteristics.htm 
• http//dev.triothinkquest.org/TR0111164/history.ht
  m
• http//www.dyslexia-teacher.com/t7.html