Presented by: Simon

Meeting The Needs of

Students with
DYSLEXIA
DEFINITION
‘Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty characterized
by difficulties that can undermine the acquisition of
literacy and numeracy skills, as well as musical notation, and have an
effect on verbal communication, organisation and adaptation to
change.’

FACTS
• 10% of the population is affected by dyslexia.
• Signs of Dyslexia are common among other specific learning
difficulties.
• Dyslexia occurs in all racial, linguistic and socio-economic
backgrounds.
• The degree of dyslexia will vary from person to person.

FAMOUS FIGURES WITH DYSLEXIA

• Albert Einstein (theoretical physicist)
• Thomas Edison (famous inventor)
• Alexander Graham Bell (inventor of the first
practical telephone)
• Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert
comic strip)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald (writer of The Great Gatsby
and many other famous novels)
• Agatha Christie (famous author)
• Moose Mason (Character from Archie Comics)

SIGNS DURING PRIMARY EDUCATION (AND CARRY INTO

SECONDARY)
• Slow in getting dressed (putting on buttons, tying shoelaces,
etc.)
• Finds difficulty in keeping his or her desk organized. Finds
difficulty in retuning supplies to their original places.
• Miss-uses left/right, up/down, forwards/backwards.
• Has difficulty recognizing syllables.
• Makes semantic errors (ie. Reading ‘horse’ instead of ‘pony’).
 • Makes up sentences based on pictures.
• Reads and writes mirror reflections of letters
(ie. ‘b’ instead of ‘d’).
• Adds additional unneeded syllables in words
(ie. ‘rememember’ instead of ‘remember’).
• Uses more advanced vocabulary when
speaking than when writing.

SIGNS DURING SECONDARY EDUCATION

• May arrive having forgotten school supplies, homework, or other
material possessions.
• May enter the wrong classroom.
• Cannot follow step-by-step problem solving techniques (will
show up mostly in the science and math classes).
• Has trouble with sentence structure.
• Copies notes incorrectly from the board.

TEACHING STRATEGIES
‘If you can’t learn the way I teach,
can I teach the way you learn?’

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
• Give verbal information in segments
separated by either questions or breaks.
• Feel free to repeat instructions and
encourage students to ask for repetition
from the teacher and their peers. (This will
decrease anxiety of the student.)
• When repeating instructions, repeat using
a different style/sentence. (This will help students
make connections of concepts.)
• Ensure that students have written down instructions correctly.
• Give breaks whenever possible.
• Encourage students to cross out finished instruction steps as
they follow a list of instructions. (This will ensure that students don’t repeat
steps by mistake.)
• Have the student split words up into syllables by drawing vertical
lines.
ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGIES
• Try to place students with concentration
problems at the front of the class. (Students are more
distracted by students in front of them, than students behind them.)
• Encourage students to play with clay, building
blocks, play-dough, etc. (This will help develop motor skills.)
• When working with right-handed students, sit on
their left side. When working with left-handed students, sit on
their right side. (This allows for the teacher to clearly view the student’s work.)
• Have left-handed scissors available. (This will help left-handed students with
struggling motor skills.)
• Supply tinted rulers. (Students will feel more comfortable
being able to see through the ruler as well as being able to easily
see where the ruler and the paper separate.)
• To teach the sound of letters, use flashcards
with pictures on one side and the letter on
the other. (Use words like Tea instead of Train for the letter T,
because Train makes a Tr- sound, whereas Tea makes an actual T-
sound.)
• If you give out stickers, purchase stickers with words (ie. Wow!, Good
Job!, Fan-Tas-Tic!).
• An Aurally Coded English dictionary can be more suitable for a
student with dyslexia. (An ACE dictionary sequences the words by sound, rather than
spelling.)
• Label the side of the dictionary from A to Z.

OTHER STRATEGIES
• Encourage the students to use visual ‘pegs’, such as the ‘Roman
House’ method. (The ‘Roman House’ method is to connect and visualize a set of concepts
with furniture in your house, so you can later visualize a journey through the house and be
reminded of the concepts you wanted to remember.)
• Give special strategies to help students remember things. (For
example, the left hand can open into an L-shape, to help the student memorize which side is
left.)
• Use nursery rhymes to teach students about
rhyming. (Auditory rhyming is more effecting than written
rhyming because certain words may ‘write’ like they rhyme, but don’t
actually rhyme (ie. Laun’dry’ and ‘fry’).)
• Use the ‘Six Box Trick’. (A student will be able to easily
summarize what he or she has read.)
Who? Where? When?

What Is Happening? What Happens How Does It End?

Next?

EXTRA RESOURCES
Simple English Wikipedia
http://simple.wikipedia.org

KidsHeatlh.org
http://kidshealth.org/kid

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• Have you had any experiences teaching students with dyslexia
that you would like to share?
• Which teaching strategies from today’s JigSaw did you find most
compelling?
• What can be changed in the school system today to benefit
students with dyslexia?

REFERENCES
Masset, J. (2008). Meeting the Needs of Students with Dyslexia
(Meeting the Needs). Grok: Network Continuum Education.