After dyslexic students make progress in their ability to decode words, parents, teachers, and students themselves may begin to breathe a sigh of relief; however, another monster challenge may be looming on the horizon – the other D…. Dysgraphia. The National Institutes of Health definition of Dysgraphia includes the following: “Dysgraphia is a neurological disorder characterized by writing disabilities. Specifically, the disorder causes a person’s writing to be distorted or incorrect. In children, the disorder generally emerges when they are first introduced to writing. They make inappropriately sized and spaced letters, or write wrong or misspelled words, despite thorough instruction. Children with the disorder may have other learning disabilities; however, they usually have no social or other academic problems. Cases of dysgraphia in adults generally […]
Teaching Science to Students with Dyslexia – Middle School [Premium]
Adolescents are at a stage of development when they need to be in an environment where they can experience independence, growth, cooperation, and creativity; however, the typical middle school provides an environment that stresses competition, grades, relative ability, and rote memorization.” – From The Middle School Experience: Effects on the Math and Science Achievements of Adolescents with LD Perhaps because of dyslexic strengths in direct observation, causal reasoning, and analytical problem solving, the subject of science in middle school present opportunities for talent and possibly future career development. The potential obstacles facing students with dyslexia with interests in science are several: extensive technical vocabulary, similar sounding but distinct terms, writing demands for essays and lab notebooks, however teaching strategies based on students’ relative strengths and learning preferences […]
Tips for Supporting a Student with Dyscalculia – Steve Chinn
Thanks Steve Chinn of Maths Explained for this post. Steve also has several books with practical strategies to help with math and dyscalculia. There's The Trouble with Maths and an eagerly awaited Mathematics for Dyslexics and Dyscalculics - 4th Edition which is now...
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 […]
Math Tips: Teaching Place Value [Premium]
“Many problems that appear in later numeracy can be traced back to a lack of understanding of place value. It therefore needs careful attention, particularly when zeros are involved.” – Chinn & Ashcroft, Mathematics for Dyslexics Place value may be covered quite quickly in a student’s first math lessons, but for the dyslexic student, who likely will have trouble with multi-stepped procedures and working memory overload, the problem will spread beyond borrowing and regrouping, into multiplication, decimals, and algebra. At left, from Diane Montgomery’s Teaching Gifted Children with Special Educational Needs, see examples of systematic place value errors. 83 +49 1212 #1: Carry-over mistake in addition. 46 -39 13 #2. Borrowing – Regrouping error in subtraction. 43 x 5 = 205 #3. Carryover mistake in […]
New Research: Dyslexia Gene and Auditory Processing [Premium]
New research from the University of Texas – Dallas, connects dyslexia with impaired auditory processing. Dr. Michael Kilgard: “We now have evidence that strongly suggests that people with dyslexia don’t actually hear all of the sounds they need to hear,” said Kilgard, who is the Margaret Fonde Jonsson Professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences and the associate director of the Texas Biomedical Device Center. “If you have trouble hearing the sounds in your language, you will have trouble learning to read later,” he said. “Armed with this information about a genetic link, we may be able to determine who is at risk for reading problems before they have trouble — before they even start learning to read.” For those who try to keep up with […]
