How can I support a child with dyslexia?
- Programs that work in teaching reading and spelling to students with Dyslexic difficulties differ in their specific techniques but have many principles in common.
- All programs that work include multisensory practice for symbol learning.
- Teaching approaches that are effective use direct, explicit teaching of letter-sound relationships, syllable patterns, and meaningful word parts, and provide a great deal of successful practice of skills that have been taught.
- Fluency-building exercises, vocabulary instruction, language comprehension and writing are also included in comprehensive programs of instruction and intervention.
- Word recognition and spelling skills are applied in meaningful reading and writing of sentences and text passages, and students receive immediate feedback if they make mistakes.
- Guessing at words and skipping words are discouraged and replaced by knowledge of how to analyse and read unknown words.
- Since dyslexia occurs on a continuum, a specialised teaching approach is best, rather than a program or method which does not allow flexibility
- There is comprehensive evidence that supports the use of programs and interventions based on the Orton – Gillingham principles and approaches – a multisensory, structured language approach. This approach taps into sight, sound, movement and touch to help student’s link language to words. Students learn the rules and patterns behind why and how letters make the sounds they do.