These are only five most typical classroom activities translated to the online setting. You can, of course, adapt them using your preferred online tools.
Here's a tip: use thinglink to create interactive reading and writing material for your student who struggles with those skills! They have a great voice-reading feature as well as breaking down the words into syllables. You can create virtual tours, link videos and websites to your pictures.
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This day has come, you are switching to online teaching!If you are apprehensive, there is not need. Actually, using technology is much more dyslexia-friendly than books, paper and pen.There are a lot of online tools that help students with reading and writing difficulties, and make their learning process much more enjoyable. In your online teaching environment, your students will have challenges with reading and writing, like in a traditional classroom setting. However, in the classroom, we were very much relying on the multi-sensory teaching, little objects, tokens, tactile stimulation and physical activity. This will mostly be absent in the online lesson, so you will need to compensate for it with interactive and animated tools, as well as your voice, exaggerated facial expressions, gestures, and your hands.
ReadingWhen it comes to reading, there are online features, add-inns and applications like changing the background color and an immersive reader option (like in the MS Word), giving the audio version of the written text. Remember to always present the text that is not black-on-white, with a large font, expanded character spacing, and line spacing of about 2. Use colours and coloured annotations as much as possible. WritingSome students will find typing much easier than writing, especially those that have poor hand-eye coordination. Typing even with spelling mistakes is less emotional, because it is easy to delete and there is no trace of the mistake on the page. Encourage students who suffer from severe spelling difficulties to use the 'dictate' feature in the word document. They can copy-paste that word in the chat box during the online lesson, or even use it to create their own text. The overall communication will be quite similar to the classroom setting. Remember to use your hands and arms to give the student clues and supplement your speaking, especially when giving instructions. Use the kinaesthetic approach as you would in the classroom. Constantly elicit feedback and student reactions. It's easier to get distracted when they are not with you in the room. This is a perfect time to take advantage of teachyourmonstertoread.com - an exciting application that the student may download on their phone or tablet. There are even digital phonics cards there which you can also use in the online lesson. I am including here a short list of some digital tools you may find useful when working with the students with reading and writing difficulties. Explore them and decide which works for you. Research the web to find some others that may be more appropriate for your students.
If you want to enhance the reading skills, you should think about covering all the stations on the 'reading train route'. Each student has their own strengths and weaknesses that originate from these different stages of the reading process. And this is before we even get to the sentence comprehension and understanding the explicit and implicit meaning of the text.Reading begins with visual processing, which is not caused by, and can be completely independent from, dyslexia.
It ends with the speech production, the system of organs involved in the articulation and pronunciation of sounds: mouth, nose, throat, vocal chords, diaphragm, tongue, teeth, lips, jaw. Some poor readers will really feel at disadvantage while writing. They will not be able to express their ideas or show their knowledge. It is crucial to decide whether the goal of activity is to show how much they have learned, or to actually physically write letters, holding a pen against a piece of paper. If it is the former, we might do the activity orally, or artistically, i.e. the student might give a presentation, draw or create something relateable to whatever he has learned. Another option is to record the answers to the question by voice recorder. Typing can also be an alternative to traditional writing. However, if the goal is to use the wrist motions and demonstrate handwriting, the teacher should not expect or even insist on perfect spelling. It might be helpful to provide a piece of paper, perhaps not white, lined with two different colours widely apart. Felt-tip pens are easier to maneuver than pens and pencils. A short finger/wrist/hand movement exercise before writing might prepare the student physically (see coordination). The cognitive preparation and encouragement will be in the form of scaffolding: giving a precise direction about the form, length, and even the sentence structure. In any writing task, it is of utmost importance to give instructions one by one. Only when the student has completed the first step, we will instruct him how to take the next one, and so on. In our child classes, the book provides some cut-outs and stickers at the back. I like to connect those with a writing task. For example, first step is to choose five stickers they like. The second one is to stick them in their notebooks in whichever arrangement they wish. Third step is to write one sentence about each sticker according to the template that I write on the board. If we are learning about animals, it will be: (name of the animal) can (verb) . If we are learning about clothes, I am/'m not wearing (a piece of clothing) . For paragraphs or even texts, similar scaffolding may be provided. We should focus on the preparation, making sure that the student has gathered all ideas and that he knows in which order he will present them. Using word processing software will make it less frustrating because there will be no visible traces of errors on the page. I would like to point out that the act of writing, i.e. moving the wrist, contributes to the enforcement of memory and development of hand-eye coordination. The writing is in a way a kinaesthetic approach to language learning, where the muscle movement enhances spelling as well as visual perception of the words being written. |
AuthorMartina Matejaš is a teacher of English and Yoga. She is keen on understanding the mind-body connection as well as cracking the 'code' of thoughts-emotions-behaviour matrix. Archives
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