Creating a dyslexia friendly classroom

1. Set realistic, achievable targets for each lesson

The academic content does not need be ‘dumbed down’ but the expectation in terms of writing and volume of work needs to thought about carefully.

There is nothing wrong with having high expectations, but remember that dyslexic children are often working twice as hard to process instructions and carry out a sequence of steps within a task. Aspects of a task that may seem routine can often drain all the child’s energy leaving little energy for creativity or thinking. Consider which skills you actually want the child to use or develop within a task and provide scaffolding for the other skills needed. 

Very often teachers ‘rob’ dyslexic children of a sense of achievement by just accepting whatever they complete in a lesson. The child knows that they haven’t completed the task and so feel like a failure.  Simply reducing the number of questions to be answered from 5 to 10 will make a huge difference. As can asking the child to write one paragraph rather than a whole story. But remember it should not always be the beginning of the story.  Use a teaching assistant to scribe the first paragraph and ask the child to write the middle of the story.  Use a dictaphone or ipad for the child to verbally record the beginning and middle and then write the end.  Shared writing where the adult and child take turns to write a sentence can make recording ideas less laborious.

     2.  Give positive, constructive feedback

Children with dyslexia already know that their spelling may not be correct and that their handwriting is messy. Mentioning this in every lesson is not helpful and will not lead to improvement. These skills need to be worked on in a structured way outside the classroom.  Remember what the learning objective for the lesson is and focus your comments on this.

3. Understand how spellings are learnt

Correcting numerous words within a child’s piece of writing will not help them spell them correctly next time. Nor will writing each word out 3 times at the bottom of the page. Dyslexic children need to use multisensory methods to learn new spellings, they also need to have spelling rules explicitly taught in a systematic way. They will need numerous repetitions and practise of using words in sentences before they will remember a word automatically.

They can also only take on spelling rules that they are developmentally ready for. For example: if a child is learning initial blends in their support lessons, there is little point correcting words with common suffixes like ‘station’ or ‘terrible’.

4. Keep verbal instructions short and provide visual checklists

One of the most common difficulties for dyslexics is weak working memory. This means that very often they find it hard to recall more than one instruction at a time.  If you give a lot of verbal information at once a dyslexic child may find it hard to process what you say and if their working memory overloaded they will not remember what was said at all. Breaking a longer instruction into 3 shorter instructions can help. Encourage the child to count each instruction with their fingers and recall what it is. Provide a visual checklist that can be referred to during the task so that they child can remind themselves of the steps.

      5. Consider font, layout and size of print of worksheets and resources

Many dyslexics have difficulty processing visual information. Certain fonts are easier for dyslexics to read these include Times New Roman, Comic Sans and Century Gothic.  Busy worksheets can be very daunting for a dyslexic child and they may not be able to successfully access the information needed to complete a task. You could consider splitting one worksheet into several worksheets and enlarging the text.

 6. Avoid copying from the board

Although supposedly this practise doesn’t happen anymore, I have observed enough lessons to know that there are still things that have to copied from the board. It may be the date and learning oobjective for the lesson, sentence starters or headings for each paragraph. Many teachers still think copying from the board is a simple task, but for the dyslexic child it is not. Many have visual difficulties that make switching focus between near and far difficult.  They may find it hard to keep track of the lines and the words within the lines.  I have watched dyslexic children spend a whole lesson copying just the date and the learning objective.  Even having to refer to the board for word list or instructions can be difficult.  Providing photocopied notes or information on an individual white board is the most helpful solution. If the information has to be displayed on the board then numbering the lines and using different colours for each line can also help.

      7. Provide a study buddy

Having to constantly ask the teacher for clarification or not being able to read the questions on a worksheet can be embarrassing. Seating the dyslexic child with a supportive capable child is a good strategy. This means that the child can discretely ask for help when needed and be more independent.

      8. Organise the classroom so that scaffolds, checklists, word banks and concrete resources are assessable to all pupils.  Resources that help dyslexic students are helpful to all students. Making it normal to use prompts and tools for learning benefits everyone.  Dyslexic children find it hard to keep all the information needed to carry out a task in their head and so checklists are vital. Also many dyslexics learn best with concrete materials particularly in maths and spelling.

 9. Try to highlight the pupil’s strengths both personally and publicly. Self esteem is a big issue for dyslexic pupils. Although they have genuine strengths very little time or acknowledgement is often given to these at school.  They have to face day after day of class work that challenges them to their limits. They are often painfully aware of their shortcomings compared to their peers. Receiving praise for something they know they are good at can be a real confidence boost. It also helps other children see the child in a more balanced light and not just as the child who is slow at reading and writing.

10. Allow time for skills to develop

Dyslexic children are not lazy, they are overloaded by much of everyday life and are working twice as hard to deal with many tasks that others consider simple or routine. Fatigue plays a huge part in their performance, leading to good days and bad days.

A dyslexic student can learn to read and write competently, it just takes time and the right teaching and support.  Just because a child cannot read in grade 2 does not mean that they will not read at an age appropriate level in grade 5. However, it is important to remember that they are not on the same timeline as the rest of the class. As a learning support teacher, I track children all through school and I know how much progress a child needs to make each year to reach the goal of adequate literacy skills at the end of primary school.  There is enough time for these skills to develop at a more natural pace for dyslexic students. Many teachers feel they are doing a disservice to child if they do not put pressure on them to ‘keep up’ with year group expectations.  This is a false economy, it is like building on sand. The learning is not secure and is quickly forgotten and lost.   This leads to a sense of failure and low self esteem.  It is better to accept the level the child is working at and find ways to help them develop age appropriate skills and concepts in other areas without focusing on reading and writing skills.  With high quality specialist interventions outside the classroom these skills will develop over time.