Dyslexic Myths Part 2

    

I hope that you had a try at last week's dyslexia quiz and maybe confirmed something you already knew or learnt something new.

See how you fair with Part 2.

Remember all the statements are based on real statements made by teachers or parents.

Good luck !

   True or False?  Dyslexic or not?

    She’s very artistic, she can’t have poor visual discrimination

    At home I say the same things again and again, he doesn’t listen to a word I say 

   She’s so bright , I think she must just be lazy

    If he has extra lessons he’ll fall even further  behind

    She’s so far behind she’ll never catch up, she’ll never achieve anything academic

    He's too young for anyone to know if he's dyslexic. There's nothing we can do to help 

Here are the answers

1. She’s very artistic, she can’t have poor visual discrimination

    Indeed many dyslexics are excellent at drawing or painting and may include great detail in their drawings. However, it must be remembered that letters and numbers are abstract and our brain processes them in a different way than images and pictures.  It can be much harder to register and remember the shape of a letter. It is harder still when some are so similar or mirror images of each other.

2. At home I say the same things again and again, he doesn’t listen to a word I say!

    The ability to process and remember verbal instructions is one of the main weaknesses of dyslexic learners.  It can be very frustrating for teachers and parents when they give an instruction and the child can not remember what was said.  Young children may only have a working memory span of 3 -5 seconds making it only possible to remember the beginning or end of an instruction. Children can often appear not to be listening, this is often because their working memory is overloaded and they can not process what is being said. Imagine how hard you need to focus when you are surrounded by people speaking a foreign language you are not fluent in. Think how quickly you lose track of what is being said and eventually completely tune out.

    This is what it can be like for children with weak working memory or auditory processing difficulties.  They have to work so hard to follow what the teacher is saying and will only pick up snippets, so eventually they will tune out or they may decide it's not worth listening in the first place.

3. She’s so bright , I think she must just be lazy

    Dyslexia affects people of all abilities and some very bright and even gifted students will be dyslexic. More able students are often able to mask their difficulties to an extent, but will still frustrate or puzzle their teachers when their written work does not match their verbal ability.

    I was labelled 'lazy' when I was at school. I was very slow at writing and it was full of crossings out and spelling errors. It was upsetting to feel that no one saw how hard I was trying with my writing. It is worth remembering that many dyslexic children are  often working twice as hard to do routine tasks. Fatigue sets in and can make it hard for them to focus, making them appear distracted.

4. If he has extra lessons he’ll fall further behind

    The debate will always go on about how best to support dyslexic learners. Of course we want them to be well integrated into their classes and have access to a full range of learning experiences.  However, experience tells me that the sooner we can help a child close the gap in their reading and writing skills, the sooner they will be able to freely participate in class without adult support.

    Many teachers and parents are against withdrawal and are always worrying about what the child is missing.  

In my opinion, the quickest way to help a dyslexic child is for them to have specialist individual teaching outside the classroom. This support should focus on specific reading and spelling skills and developing underlying skills like memory, visual discrimination and listening skills.

    While the learning support teacher could give support in class,  this will be about scaffolding tasks with word lists, sentence starters or acting as their working memory to make notes or remind them of their sentence ideas. This type of support is very helpful to the class teacher and makes classwork less stressful and more manageable for the child. However it does little to tackle the reasons for the child's difficulties or close the gap.

Worrying about what the child misses during specialist teaching is a short term worry. Not being able to work independently in class, not having sufficient reading skills to read information presented to the class, not being able complete written tasks which other children can manage is a bigger worry. Along with damage that is done to a child's self esteem when they can only complete tasks with adult support.  

Success breeds success.  Specialist teaching allows a child to tackle their difficulties head on and actually begin to improve their skills. Children know themselves when they can read more words or their reading becomes more fluent. They remember when they can spell words themselves rather than always guessing or having to ask.  Working on visual discrimination, memory skills or listening can help the child develop as a learner and may help them learn more effectively and access more in class.

5. She’s so far behind she’ll never catch up, she’ll never achieve anything academic

    I have found in my 16 years as a learning support teacher that this really isn't true.  The sooner specialist interventions start the sooner a child can 'catch up'. In my experience those children identified in Reception and Year 1 (5-6 years old) will catch up by the end of Primary (11 years). Although they may always need extra time for reading and written tasks. They will also have to develop strategies to compensate for auditory processing and memory difficulties. Many students are able to pass exams and go on to university.

6. He's too young for anyone to know if he's dyslexic. There's nothing we can do to help 

    While we may not want to label a young child, the signs of dyslexia show up very early (see my recent article about Early Identification.) While we might not formally assess until the age of 7 or 8 there are plenty of things we can do to intervene from 3 or 4 onwards. There are lots of fun activities which can work on building up basic skills.  Children need good visual discrimination, auditory discrimination and memory skills to be able to read or write.  In addition they need good language skills or fine motor skills. All of these pre literacy skills can be worked on long before we need to diagnose a child as dyslexic.

    Strengthening any of these skills or teaching compensation strategies that use the child's stronger skills will help a child with dyslexic type be more successful at school.

Want to know more?

For practical advice on Dyslexia check out Liz Dunoon's book