 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Suzanne Day
Dyslexia is believed to be the most common of all learning difficulties. Too often dyslexic people will be labeled lazy, unmotivated, slow, and even stupid, destroying a person's view of their worth and of God's given abilities.
Contrary to what people think, dyslexia is more than the reversal of letters. Dyslexia is NOT related to a person's intelligence. Interestingly it is estimated that at least one in six Canadians has dyslexia.
Thomas G. West summarizes dyslexia in that it "signifies a problem with words: written or spoken words, words of speech, words that are recalled on command, the organization and memorization of words, and words that conform to complex rules which originate from foreign languages." Simply put, dyslexia is a problem with written symbols including letters of the alphabet and math signs.
The symptoms of dyslexia
The symptoms of dyslexia vary greatly from one individual to another.
The dyslexic person can experience difficulties in many areas, including: forming and/or naming letters, appropriate sequence in individual letters which make up a word such as was/saw, finding the right word when talking, distinguishing left from right, telling time, days of the week, memorizing multiplication tables, difficulty memorizing non-phonetic words, and more.
Three fundamental types of dyslexia
There are three fundamental types of dyslexia shared by most dyslexics to some extent. The first type of dyslexia has to do with a difficulty in developing memory for direction of the lines in the written symbols. The student will have difficulty, he writes "b" instead of "d" and writing in general will be painful. The second type of dyslexia, the most predominant, is a deficit with the memory of the sound and symbols and has to do with the ability to develop skills to analyze what is needed for syllabication and working with morphemes (root words, prefixes and suffixes). The student will read "house" instead of "home" and write "posaih" instead of "position." The third type is a deficit in remembering the configuration of whole words. The student will read, "ball" instead of "bell" and writes "enuf" instead of "enough." Often a dyslexic person has a combination of these three types. Parents will be puzzled by the fact that their child may read some long words but be regularly stumbling on words like "the".
The standard universal method for dyslexics
The standard universal method of reading instruction is not effective for dyslexic children. To learn to read, these children require a systematic, explicit, and sequential teaching method in order to efficiently retrieve the information. A program, which is only focusing on phonics, is helpful but not sufficient. They need phonemic awareness, which is the discovery that words in spoken language can be broken into small units of sounds called phonemes. These children's brains also require help in linking the information and in integrating the way each letter sounds, looks, and feels and how combination of these letters create pictures. The International Dyslexia Association recommends a multisensory approach inspired by the Orton-Gillingham method. The Simultaneous Multisensory Teaching, known as SMT, developed by Louise Ward of the Canadian Dyslexia Association is among the best Orton-Gillingham based programs. It is user friendly as it includes detailed lesson plans that outline the pedagogical objectives and expected outcomes for each step. Each lesson incorporates twenty steps, which allow a constant activation of the brain in the different visual, auditory and motor areas.
I cannot express adequately my excitement in having a tool to train parents on how to teach their dyslexic child at home. In fact, although developed specifically for dyslexic students, this method can be used for student who struggle with reading to prevent reading failure and reduce the need for remedial help later on. As professionals specializing in helping homeschoolers, we have prayed for such a powerful tool that would allow us to train parents in a relatively short period.
Success stories
Here is one of many success stories. Sam was 7 years and 10 months when first assessed. The grand father offered to teach the child at home because of the family situation did not allow the mother to do it. Following the training, the grand father started the program with Sam, one hour per day, for a total 16 months, completing the 145 lessons of the program. Here is a summary of Sam's amazing progress. Sam's reading at the first evaluation seems average for his age but he was greatly struggling in spite of the grandfather helping him in reading.
|
|
First evaluation
|
9 months later
|
1 year later
|
|
Reading
|
beg. grade 3
|
beg. grade 4
|
mid HS
|
|
Spelling
|
mid grade 1
|
mid grade 3
|
end grade 6
|
|
Math
|
beg. grade 2
|
end grade 5
|
end grade 7
|
Here is another homeschooled eight years old boy. John couldn't read or write some letters given to him in spite of the mom working on the alphabet almost daily for two years. The improvement over one year and a half is especially exciting considering that John has a severe attention problem and that his family of eight people lives in a mobile home which includes a set of twins, and the older child is ten. They had finished the fiftieth lesson at the time of the third evaluation and they had completed three-quarter of the program when I last saw John .
|
|
First evaluation
|
4 months later
|
1 year later
|
1 year later
|
|
Reading
|
beg. Kind
|
End Kind
|
end grade 3
|
mid High School
|
|
Spelling
|
mid Kind
|
mid grade 1
|
mid grade 1
|
mid grade 1
|
|
Word Attack
|
mid grade 1
|
mid grade 5
|
end grade 3
|
end grade 6
|
The reading test is using real words. It is a test of word recognition. However, the test of Word Attack analyses the ability to use decoding skills and apply them in reading new words, which is one of the goal of learning to read. John’s progress in this skill confirm a real maturity of his reading skills.
If your child is experiencing difficulty in reading, writing, spelling and reading comprehension, he or she may have dyslexic reading and spelling patterns. Especially, homeschoolers, who are already putting the effort of teaching on one-on-one basis, need to invest this time and energy efficiently. Too often parents wait and hope that the child "will grow out of it". Yes, these children often progress because of the individualized teaching but they really learn to compensate and never reach their full potential in reading and writing. The parents must first recognize and accept the problem in order to better address their child's needs. The training is available for those who are willing to take one hour per day to be their own child's "reading therapist". The training is provided every month in Barrie, Ontario, and during the year in different part of Canada according to the requests. If you cannot do it and know somebody else who has the time to work with your child, send this person to take the training. Do not hesitate for more information if you are interested.
Copyright 2005 Suzanne Day, Neuropsychologist member of l’Ordre des psychologues du Québec
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
