What are the main points to keep in mind when planning reading and writing tasks?
How should we make it easier for the student who has a problem with reading or writing? The general accommodation principles apply, but there are some specific to these two types of skills, that are particularly challenging for students with dyslexia.
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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.
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. |
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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