9 - 15. 05. '16
Awareness! In teaching languages that means phonological (articulation) and orthographic (writing). And again few basic strategies:
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The best thing I learned about in this week is Multisensored Structure Learning approach (MSL).
Basically, it's helping dyslexic students make touch, feel, look, hear connections. Once that connection is made, dyslexic students store the information in their longterm memory. Great! Even though this course is about teaching foreign language and MSL would be extremely beneficial in learning vocabulary, I must try that with TT. 25. 04 - 1. 05. '16
It's not easy to detect SPLDs. It takes a lot of observing and noting. Some symptoms are so common: being disorganized, bringing wrong books to school, being late, forgetting about homework, etc. Further more, there are NO specific tests for detection of SPLDs. So, back to observing and careful noting. But once it's detected, it cannot be un-detected! Things to keep in mind when working with dyslexic students in SPLDs or mainstream classes with SPLDs:
It's not easy to be different, and SLPDs students are. TT usually feels ashamed he can't catch up with the class. But what he doesn't realize is that the class can't catch up with him where visual arts are concerned. 18 - 24. 04. '16
As a human being, one would always try to help a child, but to do so, they'd have to understand the problem. Dyslexia is something a non-dyslexic person simply can't understand. So the usual comments are applied galore - lazy, disorganized, quiet, incapable,... But are they? My student, let's call him TT, is dyslexic. He came to my class in 6th grade. I won't talk about what happened before he came to my class. Starting the school year, TT was very quiet, but he wouldn't write in class. He'd look out the window, or sit quietly and never answer any questions. He was just there. I suspected he had a problem, but I wasn't sure what kind of problems. First suspicions were confirmed with the first writing task in class at the middle of September. His sheet was blank! I asked for a meet with his parents and his mother came with excuses for his results, saying she was divorced and her son was taking it hard so he was just lazy. DID SHE SAY LAZY!? OH DEAR! And what have you done about it!? You are his mother!!! - I thought to myself. Still, I suggested I work with him after class and see if anything improves. And I did. He'd come to my class once a week after his classes and we'd talk at first. That's how I found out he loved to work with his hands. Modeling FIMO, clay, dough, mostly. So I bought some, asked him to bring his next time we meet and he'd teach me how to model it. And it worked. He was beaming! We played with clay and then I suggested I repay him for his teaching me how to model clay with help for my class. So we started reading slowly. He was 12 at the time and we started reading tales for kids aged 6! Oh dear! But whatever works, right? And it did work. He'd never take any quiz or review with other kids. As I was getting to know him, it was obvious to me that his problem was different, not just being hurt by his parents' divorce! I called the mother again and invited her over to talk about the boy. She came 3 phone calls and almost 2 weeks later and after some persuading, agreed to take him to a special learning disabilities diagnostic center. Two months later, late February, she came to thank me for persuading her to take that trip to the LDC. He has dyslexia. So yes, I know quite a lot about dyslexia. But if you want to know, here's a link of approximately what a dyslexic person sees when they see text. |