When I came across a remarkable article titled, "Dyslexia and Learning a Foreign Language: A Personal Experience," I knew that I wanted to talk to the author. Charlann had the unique perspective of being both dyslexic and a speech language pathologist. She dodged the...
Teaching the Schwa [Premium]
What is the schwa? The schwa sound is the most common sound in English and symbolized by the upside-down e in International Phonetic Alphabet and is pronounced like “uh” in words like “the”. It’s a maddening sound because it’s not really associated with any specific letter of the alphabet…and that affects spelling as well as […]
Learning Irregular Words [Premium]
Question: Why does dyslexia intervention focus so much on phonics and phonological awareness when so much of English doesn’t follow rules? Every comprehensive structured literacy program includes lessons and intensive practice with sight words and orthographic mapping as well as morphology (the study of words from the perspective of small meaning parts like prefixes, roots, […]
Q & A: Bilingual and Dyslexic [Premium]
Question: Our 9 year old son is bilingual and also dyslexic. We have decided to allow him to attend a bilingual school with his older sister for cultural and family reasons. Will this harm his educational development? The school seems supportive, but does not have teachers trained to remediate dyslexia. There are many reasons why […]
Language Teaching and Dyslexia: What About Exceptions to the Rules?
The English language is especially difficult to learn if you are dyslexic - because about half of its words are not predictable by simple rules. So what to do? WORD FAMILIES Learning similar words in similar groups can be motivating for students because they learn...
Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) and Its Impact on Dyslexia [Premium]
“Substantial evidence shows that dyslexic readers have problems with rapid naming of visual items. Early research assumed that this was a consequence of phonological processing deficits, but recent findings suggest that non-phonological processes may lie at the root of the association between slow naming speed and poor reading. The hypothesis that rapid naming reflects an […]
Foreign Language Learning [Premium]
Q: HOW CAN I IMPROVE MY FLUENCY WITH A SECOND LANGUAGE? Recently, a member of this community asked about how to improve his fluency with a foreign language. He mentioned that he’d been trying to learn for the past 30 years, but only recently started making more progress with the app Yabla because […]
Dyslexia and Bilingualism [Premium]
There are many bilingual or multilingual families who are also navigating a path through dyslexia. Bilingual students with dyslexia usually have similar problems in both languages, but some languages are “easier” to learn if the phonology and spelling are more predictable. So functionally, it is possible for a student to appear dyslexic in one language, […]
How Not To Give Up On Learning A Second Language [Premium]
Learning second languages are difficult for many dyslexic students; foreign language waivers or substitutions are common, but in spite of this, many can learn other languages and even multiple languages if the goal is conversation. Writing and spelling second and third language can be more difficult, but also possible for many people. Students may be […]
READING FLUENCY: Phrase Cueing [Premium]
Once students have made significant progress with single word decoding, reading fluency practice can be rolled into reading practice with phrase cueing. HERE is a nice review of reading fluency approaches that includes a discussion of phrased reading. Phrase scooping or cueing involved the drawing of scoops underneath groups of words that go together in […]
Dyslexic Advantage Premium TECH Guide 2019-2020
This issue features our largest Premium TECH Guide ever at 54 pages! Become a Premium subscriber at just $5 per month. Individual issues can also be purchased through Dyslexic Advantage apps in iTunes or Google Play. Dyslexic Advantage Premium Apps review includes the best dyslexia apps for iOS and Android in the areas of basic […]
How to Help a Dyslexic Student in a General Education Classroom
From the Connecticut Longitudinal Study, up to 1 in 6 students are dyslexic, but only a minority of these students will be found in special education classrooms. What does this mean for regular classroom teachers? 1. Get Basic Facts about Dyslexia - Dyslexic students...