Posted two years ago on a FB page meant for teachers in my fraternity
Hi, I’m Sensei. I teach English at NLS. My school made it possible for me to attend an online course organised by the Orton Gillington Academy so that I could better help dyslexic students.
I hope you don’t mind sharing the learning points I have gleaned from the course so far because the trainer has enlightened me of several things that I was ignorant about. Additionally, I gathered various insights from a colleague who used to work at DAS.
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Dyslexia is a neurological condition, which leads to dyslexic people having phonological deficits. So, a dyslexic student may struggle with English even though it is considered to be a transparent language, where there is a high correspondence between the sounds and the letters. As they have phonological deficits, they find it difficult to process phonological sounds. However, the same student who struggles with English may excel in more transparent languages such as Spanish and German, where most words follow simple grapheme–phoneme conversion rules (GPC).
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Last year, one dyslexic student taught me something that remains etched in my mind. I had given the class blank sheets of paper and asked them to design a poster when he commented that he would rather use paper with lines because he "doesn't know what to do with all this space". I was so impressed that he could not only identify, but also articulate his needs despite being only 12 years old.
The OG trainer agreed with me and suggested that
(1) Many students with dyslexia also suffer from dysgraphia, so perhaps he needs the lines to be "neat" when he's writing,
(2) He wants to correctly gauge the space he's required to fill--these students might also suffer from poor spatial reasoning.
Regardless of the reason why my student preferred lines, this incident made me realise that I not only had to impart ways to help dyslexic students level up their English, but also needed to help them advocate for themselves in a respectful way so that others could be empathetic to their needs.
- The OG approach is a cognitive approach that leverages students' intelligence to impart them the rules and patterns that govern English. Students are assumed to possess average or above-average intelligence. But what about our High Needs Students, I queried the instructor. She acknowledged how students of below average intelligence might not experience A-ha moments that readily because they will reach a point at which they "top out" with what they are able to process, understand, and aggregate. So, things are just not clicking for them.
She provided various suggestions to help HNS:
a) Use visual keywords that are simple. Incorporate the visual aids where applicable to help them group ideas.
b) Include more than the normal amount of kinesthetic pathway/multisensory techniques.
c) keep reviewing previous concepts--typical learners need 5-7 exposures to new content to begin picking it up and dyslexics about 25-35, so these students will likely require even more.
d) Consider the skills they will need to operate in society. Easier reading tasks like menus, street signs, & simple text should be the focus.
e) Spelling is a more cognitive task than reading, so be prepared to moderate spelling tasks since they are likely to top out in spelling before they top out in reading.
I hope this humble sharing helps! I will really love to hear your anecdotes and insights and tried-and-tested tips so that Together Everyone Achieves More. 💪