I am an Early Childhood Educator and mother of a Dyslexic young adult. I can tell you from personal experience that I have found the following resources crucial:
- https://www.nessy.com/us/
- https://www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org/?gclid=CjwKCAjwzIH7BRAbEiwAoDxxTmzJONImb9nM-bKylJbyGSmzTZbQlS07ZdisTGbyfHAesuFrT-q2zRoC5sgQAvD_BwE
- A teacher trained in the Orton Gillingham approach to reading. This we could never access in public or private schools but had to find private tutors. The multi-sensory approach is good for every child in the classroom.
- A book for that ever changed the way I would parent and teach my child: "The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain" by Brock L. Eide, M.D., M.A., and Fernette F. Eide, M.D.
My perspective from a mother and educator viewpoint is that my son was far too many times based on his disability rather than his ability. Educators were constantly telling me what he could not do and I would have to tell them what his gifts and passions were. He was always measured by his ability to read and write and never by his verbal ability or his ability to show you. Our son is now 22 and a successful business owner of several business ventures. What I wish every teacher knew about my child:
- He was loved and adored
- He was a vibrant part of a loving family.
- He had tremendous gifts to evaluate others.
- He was blessed with three-dimensional reasoning and never given much of an opportunity to share that at school.
- Homework and the volume expected was a determent to our family life and created immense hardship on our son and myself. If he could have me scribe when he was tired and allow him to orally give me the answers we used that technique.
- As he learned to write on a computer the app Grammarly was an amazing tool to help him with the semantics of the language.
- His father and I would do anything to support his learning, but I wish teachers would have included us more from the start in the approaches and strategies so we could share what we knew about our son and the joy that he found in life. The school was not a safe place for him and his learning style. We had teachers out of frustration call him dumb and lazy. LD does not stand for lazy or dumb, but for learning differently. Even though I was his mother and love him to the ends of the earth I understood the teacher's frustration but never the hurt their words brought.
Upon graduating from High School with full rides all over the country for his technical abilities in mechanics he told me, "Mom, I know you want me to go to college, but I can not do it. I have spent the last 12 years being judged on my disabilities and not my abilities. A blind child would have never been asked to show how smart they were by writing and reading without brail. However, every time school wanted to evaluate me they asked me to read or write and never asked me to show it. Please allow me to use my hands and mind to pursue my dreams I am tired of being judged by a standard that I am not."
Sorry for the long rant but being a family with a dyslexic child is stressful and we want all teachers to love our child, value them for who they are, and work with our child and us to figure out what works best for them. Strategies and accommodations are often viewed as not being fair to the other children, but that logic is skewed as we would not deny an adult lying on the floor not breathing CPR because we could not also give it to the other children.
My advice to you is to learn as much as you can and remember they learn differently and need a variety of approaches to show you what they know. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for asking this question and being passionate enough to want to do what is best for your dyslexic students.
Gratefully Yours,
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Pamela Perrino
Early Childhood Advocate and Educational consultant
Perrino Consulting
Warren OH
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-14-2020 04:05 PM
From: Marissa Ridgley
Subject: Teaching Dyslexic Students
Good afternoon.
I am in my first year of tutoring children with challenges on how to read. Does anyone have any strategies on how to teach children with dyslexia?
Help, please.
Thank you.
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Marissa Ridgley
Anchorage AK
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