Learn to spot the signs of dyslexia in the classroom, and how to help a child with dyslexia. Discover classroom strategies for students with dyslexia.
Teaching students with dyslexia
Understanding and being understood is vital for all of us. Whether at school or work, when we understand, we are more confident. Opportunities open up, and we can achieve more than we thought. It means we’re more likely to succeed.
But everyone’s brain works differently. We don’t all read, write and think in the same way. The average reading age is lower than you’d expect. In the UK it’s nine, and in the US it’s around thirteen. Millions of us have dyslexia – around 10% of us in the UK, one in eight Australians, and between 5 and 15% in the US, likely more. Huge numbers struggle with text in some way.
According to the International Dyslexia Association, dyslexia is, “a specific learning disability...It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.”
Here at Texthelp, we like to think of dyslexia as “thinking differently.” That’s why you’ll never hear us use language like “overcome” because we don’t think dyslexia is something that needs to be hidden, or overcome. We want your students to use their unique learning styles and out of the box thinking to thrive and excel throughout their educational journey and beyond. We’re here to help you and your students by arming you with lots of tools, strategies and resources to support you in teaching your students with dyslexia. Much like you would equip yourself with extra resources and teaching materials if you had students in your class whose first language isn't English.
To kick us off, here’s a great classroom resource to show your students that thinking differently doesn’t disadvantage them, whatever career they might be interested in.
In this short TED-Ed video Kelli Sandman-Hurley urges us to think again about dyslexic brain function and to celebrate the neurodiversity of the human brain.
We surveyed over 3,000 staff from thousands of schools across the country.
Each one contributed their experiences—sharing valuable information about dyslexia in their schools and districts. We asked staff from diverse and widespread environments to share their experiences and help us find common problems that could be addressed, to build better learning environments.
Knowing which students in our classrooms have dyslexia is the first step to ensuring the learning environment is conducive to learning. Next, it’s important that we begin to design teaching strategies with our dyslexic students in mind. Below we’ve collated some of the most tried and tested classroom strategies for dyslexia. Remember, every learner is unique and won’t process information or learn in the same way as the next, so a collection of strategies is the best way forward.
Allowing our students to build their mastery is recommended for every learner, but for students with dyslexia, it’s often the best way to accommodate their learning styles. Equipping students with new vocabulary before beginning a topic, then beginning with the basic concepts, and building to more difficult ideas is a strategy known as a Structured Literacy Approach. It allows students to gradually build upon the skills they’ve learned and gives them confidence in their own ability to learn a new skill or topic. The approach also asks that we, the teachers, are continually interacting with our students, making sure that students are understanding the topic, and we’re continually adapting our lessons and teaching methods to meet the needs of the students in our classroom.
Whether we have students in our classrooms with dyslexia, or other differences, creating an inclusive learning environment promotes a better learning environment for everyone. Multisensory lessons and the addition of assistive technologies can enhance the learning experience for students with dyslexia. In an inclusive classroom, it’s important that all activities and tasks are not centered around reading and taking instructions. Consider the many other ways to grow knowledge, skills, and confidence. There’s lots more to learn about inclusive education in our dedicated area.
Making our learning environments more inclusive is a great starting point in supporting the learners with dyslexia in our classrooms. But now, more than ever, there’s a whole host of tools and assistive technologies that can really transform education for our dyslexic students. Having a variety of classroom accommodations to hand means that each student can choose which tool and features suit their needs and learning styles best. There’s lots more information about choosing the right tools over on our How to pick the right tools for special education students page.
Identifying students in our classrooms with dyslexia means that we can start to alter our teaching strategies, classroom activities, and even the homework that we set to ensure that we’re meeting the needs of each and every student. A personalized learning experience means that we might place students with dyslexia closer to us, to allow them to ask questions easily. It might also mean that we give instructions in multiple ways, verbally, written down, and perhaps drawn. Change doesn’t have to be monumental either, small adjustments to our already great strategies and lessons can help to promote positive learning experiences, and make sure everyone in the class has a voice.
Not every student with dyslexia will display the same signs. In fact, if we’re teaching older students, chances are they’ve gotten very good at masking signs of their dyslexia, so we might have to dig a little deeper to uncover what’s going on for them. We’ve listed out some of the most common signs that a student might be dyslexic but remember, no two students will display the exact same signs.
Slow reading speed and a reluctance to read aloud in class are both classic signs of dyslexia. Here’s some others to look out for with students’ reading:
Spelling, grammar, and handwriting can be particularly challenging for students with dyslexia.
Some telltale areas in writing are:
Processing information, as well as both short and long term memory difficulties might indicate that a student has dyslexia.
The student may:
Planning and organizing their school day can throw up some challenges for students with dyslexia.
Students with dyslexia put some much time and effort into completing simple tasks and processing information that concentration on activities is often challenging.
This might cause them to:
In this short blog, discover five simple ways that introducing technology into our classrooms can help our students with dyslexia.
Discover how to evaluate the tools we have available, identifying gaps in technology and how we can pair tools together to enrich the learning experience for our special education students.
Discover the difference between equal opportunity and equity in education. Learn how technology can help DEI in our classrooms.
Take a closer look at how we can make testing more accessible for all our students. Discover what accommodations are available as well as the role of teachers, parents, and students themselves in testing scenarios.