Teaching Students With Dyslexia To Read

Teaching Strategies for Dyslexia Reading

Author Justin Clark, Learning Difficulties and Dyslexia Tutor in Brisbane.

Overview – Dyslexia and Reading

Teaching students with dyslexia to read is at the very core of dyslexia.  The most apparent symptom of this reading disability is difficulty with word recognition.

Indeed, the very definition of dyslexia offered by the International Dyslexia Association focuses on word recognition and describes the disability as being primarily characterised by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities (IDA, 2002).

These difficulties interfer with overall writing and reading fluency. This affects all areas of schooling achievement and is important to keep in mind as a dyslexic tutor.

For Dyslexic Students Word Identification Takes Time

For students with dyslexia and their reading, this means that attention expended on word identification leads to less time that is available for comprehension.  As a result, if dyslexic students have to spend significant amounts of attention in order to identify most of the words they encounter, they will have difficulty constructing meaning from the texts they are reading.

Reading Methods for Teaching Students with Dyslexia

For students with dyslexia to attain automatic word recognition while reading texts, it is essential to engage in extensive practice within meaningful contexts, encompassing both supported oral and silent reading. This constitutes a crucial element in the instruction of reading for students with dyslexia.

In fact it is often the case that students experiencing difficulties applying their word recognition knowledge to connected text find themselves faced with increasing amounts of decoding instruction in isolation.

Instead, increasing opportunities for guided practice in context should be the focus.  If teachers limit struggling readers to this primary form of practice, teachers can decrease the likelihood the child will become a skilled reader.

Reading Techniques

Prosody stands as a pivotal component of reading fluency, encompassing elements that collectively shape expressive reading, such as pitch, stress, and parsing. Additionally, readers must apply their understanding of oral interactions to capture the accurate sense of the exchange.

Mastery of these components empowers readers to discern subtle nuances and depths of meaning that might not immediately surface in written text. Consequently, there exists an interactive relationship where prosody both contributes to and reflects a reader’s comprehension.

Furthermore, cultivating an awareness of the significance of appropriate expression and phrasing in students can prevent the misconception that fluent reading equates solely to rapid reading.

Students with dyslexia need to be encouraged to understand that fluency consists of smooth, accurate and expressive reading at a rate that replicates oral language.

Fluency Instruction Used When Teaching Students With Dyslexia

To deliver effective instruction to students with dyslexia, a key approach involves incorporating four principles centered on fluency into oral reading teaching.

These principles encompass modeling, offering practice opportunities, including silent reading, providing necessary support and assistance, and demonstrating appropriate phrasing. While these elements serve as the foundation for various fluency strategies beneficial for instructing students with dyslexia, their integration into dyslexia-focused instruction is paramount for nurturing their growth as proficient readers.

Modelling As A Reading Strategy for Dyslexic Students

Engaging in such modeling not only has the potential to cultivate a love for reading among students but also imparts a clear sense of what fluent and expressive oral reading should entail. While reading aloud to students is commonplace in the early grades, it tends to be infrequent in later academic levels. However, various texts, including poems and eloquent expository pieces like speeches, offer valuable opportunities for older students. Hence, when instructing children with dyslexia in reading, it is crucial for them to regularly read in settings where some support is available. Lastly, incorporating selections from diverse genres enhances the likelihood that dyslexic students will encounter texts that captivate their interest.

Importance of Providing Opportunities

Providing opportunities means that students with dyslexia have an opportunity to practice reading connected texts.  It is essential that all students with a reading difficulty have opportunities to read challenging texts in a supportive environment.  These opportunities should include scaffolded oral reading along with silent reading in exploring a range of different texts.  Comics along with magazines and books are useful as dyslexic students can use pictures as a means of deciphering more difficult words.  It also exposes readers to a range of figurative language.

Support is Essential When Teaching Children With Dyslexia

Providing support when teaching students with dyslexia is essential in consolidating what they have learned about word recognition.  As a result, it is crucial that they regularly read in situations where some support is available.  This support can involve reading aloud, silent reading or the repeated reading of a single text until the students have reached a predetermined level of reading mastery.

Learning to Read – Appropriate Phrasing

The final principal involves appropriate phrasing.  This can be especially helpful when leading an echo or choral reading of a text.  Echo reading is where the teacher or leader reads a line of the text with expression and appropriate phrasing.  The dyslexic students then follow by imitating the way that the teacher read the text.

Choral reading is when students read aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students. This helps build dyslexic students’ fluency, self-confidence, and motivation.  Reading aloud together helps struggling readers who may feel self-conscious or nervous.

Phrasing instruction involves helping students determine where the phrasal boundaries should occur in texts they are reading by having them identify which breaks sound like language and which ones don’t.

Example of Phrasing

For example, in this excerpt from ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ (Tolkien, 1954), students discuss which sounds more appropriate: “Bilbo took out/ the envelope but/ just as he was/ about to set/ it by the clock/ his hand jerked/ back and the packet/ fell on the floor” or “Bilbo took out the envelope/but just as he was about to set it by the clock/his hand jerked back/ and the packet fell on the floor”.   By holding discussions around appropriate phrasing, it becomes possible to develop dyslexic students’ awareness of these elements and their importance in written text.

Therefore, using these reading methods is vital when teaching kids with dyslexia.  Reading disabilities such as dyslexia, manifest primarily through difficulty with word recognition and can be exacerbated when a mismatch of instruction occurs.

Summary – Teaching Students with Dyslexia to Read

Through specialised instruction tailored for dyslexic students and a strategic approach to timing and content delivery, multiple connections can be established, fostering increased automatic word recognition, fluent reading, and a deeper comprehension of word meanings. The crucial aspect of developing dyslexic students into proficient readers involves the integration of four key fluency-oriented principles: modeling, providing opportunities for practice, offering support and assistance, and emphasizing appropriate phrasing in reading instruction.

Hope Tutoring in Brisbane

Teaching children with dyslexia to read can as you will have gathered from the above article be a challenge both for student and for teacher.  However it can also be highly rewarding if the tutoring strategies used are aligned with the specific dyslexic profile of the child – and most importantly the tutor is able to engage the child and build rapport so that small steps can turn into larger steps and really significant progress can be made over time.  If you would like further advice regarding teaching students with dyslexia to read or would like to discuss engaging my services as a dyslexia tutor please call me on 0404 407 233.