Children with dyslexia should be screened for hearing problems, says a UK researcher, after her research team found that 1 in 4 students had significant hearing problems that were not suspected by parents. Their study also found that 1 in 3 children with a hearing...
Bridging the Gap to Reading Long Words [Premium]
In our last post, we wrote about the 3rd grade gap or wall. Dyslexic students typically get through the hard slog of phonemic awareness and then parents and teachers breathe a sigh of relief. Many times, the extra work fades away and students are integrated back into their usual classroom routine. All seems well, but a problem may remain. Reading remains effortful and the complexity of the text goes up. Students may not be able to keep up. With little extra help and too little time to complete assignments, the “guess and go” approach may dominate the reading strategy so that the gap between peers increases. A large part of the problem may be that students have not effective strategy to read long words. These problems can come […]
Dyslexia and the Third Grade Wall
If you're not aware if the '3rd Grade Wall', you can get blind-sided. A recurring theme that we hear about when we interview accomplished dyslexic men and women is the trouble and failure (often grade retention) that happens in the 3rd grade. Why? What's the big deal...
Best Early Dyslexia Screeners for Schools – Elementary [Premium]
With new legislation moving schools toward early identification of students with dyslexia, teachers, classrooms, and districts are having to decide on which screener would be best for identifying students “at-risk.” For dyslexic students, presence of a reading gap has been detected as early as the first grade and early intervention is well-recognized to be beneficial. Universal screening in schools is a great idea – parents, teachers, and students should just be aware of the limits that a brief screening tool can have. Most early screeners will not include cognitive or intelligence tests (e.g. working memory, reasoning, ‘giftedness’) nor will they assess non-reading academic tasks such as math, writing, or spelling. They are a start, however, and will definitely be valuable for helping kids get the […]
Dyslexia in the General Classroom – YOU DECIDE : 2nd Grader and Reading [Premium]
YOU are a 2nd-grade teacher in a busy public school classroom. You just learned that Teddy, a student in your class has been tested and found to be dyslexic. Teddy already gets pull-out instruction with multisensory learning to help him read. What can you do to help Teddy make more progress in reading? ************ 1. Alliteration, Rhyming, and Singing – All students can benefit by alliteration and rhyming. New readers will find the books easier to read and reinforcing in terms of the patterns of sounds and printed word families, but good readers can also use alliteration and rhyming as a prompt for poetry and humorous writing. Here is a nice graphic organizer for alliteration: (click here for more). This teacher created alliteration spinners to […]