This post will be more multi-sensory and less written-text.
Actually, it's nothing newThe good old wisdom is reconfirmed![]() Multisensory Structured Language instruction is actually the natural way of learning a language, with family and friends, seeing, smelling, touching, hearing, tasting, feeling new concepts and ideas. This is now being recommended as the principal methodology for children with Learning Difficulties, or Differences. Each person has a different sense which is dominant and preferential, so we should cater to the whole variety of senses. To find out more details and practical implications, go to the Dyslexia International page. Probably the most neglected way of classroom learning is the kinaesthetic. I should write a separate entry on that one day. Until then, enjoy these lovely graphic summaries, that can be used as Aide Memoire after reading the DI article above. The amount of information about dyslexic learning and teaching keeps growing...And you feel overwhelmed. These are the main points:I am using this period to refresh and upgrade my knowledge about teaching EFL to dyslexic students. The above is one of the tasks done for a course I am currently doing - DysTEFL2 I mentioned before that teaching a foreign language will require a different approach from dyslexic intervention in the mother tongue. The current studies bust a lot of myths, and we need to constantly check in on the newest findings.
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.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. To teach correct pronunciation and make it easier to memorize the spelling, it is good to break down words into syllables, and present them as such. They already have the idea about syllables from French, so this is not a completely new territory.
When the vocabulary is being learned, the rapid naming (RAN) test comes in handy. This enforces the path between the memory, cerebral 'dictionary', and the speech production areas in the brain. This can be done on paper, or digitally, with fast transitions in powerpoint. Once the vocabulary is set conceptually, to train the retention of spelling, we may mimic the Irregular words reading test, which basically mean speed-reading sight words, the words that will not follow the typical phoneme-grapheme correlations. Instead of classical reading of the text, we may give students the jumbled up lines of the text, which they have to put in order. They will have to understand each line, and the connections between the final and initial word in order to succeed in the task. The accommodations we can easily create in the ALC classroom environment are cutting out paper to cover text and isolate words while the student is reading (i.e. creating a 'reading window'). In addition, we may even retype the text, using a font like comic sans, expand the character and line spacing, and print it out on a colored paper. There are two major recognitions that get developed in the language acquisition: sound recognition and written word recognition. In order to practice sound recognition, we may ask students questions such as: What word would I end up with if I say 'feet' without /f/? What word would I get if instead of /s/ in 'sun' I say /r/? What rhymes with walk? These are purely phonetic exercises, not meant to reflect the spelling. They can be brought to a higher level and we can use nonsense words, in order to sensitize the students that it is the sounds that are the elements of speech. We do not have the resources to teach our students about phonology, different kinds of syllables, etc., but we can spark their language creativity with this simple and fun Q&A. I found it useful to show similarities of English sounds to the Arabic ones, especially when it comes to 'th' and 'sh'. If you get a chance to tutor someone who is struggling with English, you can create a colourful chart of sounds that are the same, and those that are different - between English and Arabic. Write the sound and the word next to it, like this: At one point we need the students to understand that there are, in a way, two alphabets in English: the written one (graphemes) and the spoken one (phonemes). Most of our young learners already know the English (or French) alphabet before they start their course. This makes them somehow contaminated with the idea that 'B' is /bi:/ and not /b/. Some letters, especially vowels, are at a great disadvantage because of it, and the students will struggle to grasp why 'I' is sometimes /i/, and 'E' is sometimes /e/, but most of the time nowhere to be heard. I have discovered that it is useful to resort to an analogy of names and sounds of letters to names and sounds of animals. 'DOG' is the name of an animal that sometimes makes the sound /wuf/; it doesn't say /dog/ while walking around. Sometimes, this same 'DOG' will make other sounds, like whining, howling, growling and even the barking can be angry or happy. So, the sound that the 'DOG' makes will depend on the circumstances. Likewise, the sounds that the letters make will depend on the context it appears in. There are many possibilities, so it will take some time until we get used to them. Fun Fact: Cats can make about 100 distinctive vocal sounds, while dogs only 10! When it comes to written language, the simplest multi-sensory activity we can do is the 'blind reading'. One variety is in pairs, where one student writes the letters/words on the other student's back (this can be turned into a 'broken phone' chain!); and the other is to actually give students cut-out letters/words they can feel and guess them with their eyes closed.
Word search is a game that will be very frustrating to dyslexic students, but it is a good gauge to see their progress. Free generators are available online. One of the measurement tests for dyslexic children is the so called Bell test. It is a object-search activity. The speed and the eye-tracking shows the severity of the disorder. We can create a similar one, but with words. This will enforce the direct access path as well as encourage the student to follow a left-to-right sequence. To make it harder, we can change the direction of words. |
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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