27/10/2009

Ref: 091027IS

One in 10 young people in the UK are dyslexic. This week is ‘Dyslexia Awareness Week’ and this year’s theme is ‘Dyslexia Strengths’. Dyslexia specialist Sharon Goldie (from leading assistive technology specialist, iansyst Ltd) offers readers her top tips for nurturing the strengths of young people with dyslexia.

1. Nurture self-confidence – With your child, make a list of their strengths and weaknesses. By sitting down and discussing these with them, they will have evidence of their strengths and this list often far outweighs their weaknesses.

2. Appeal to strong creative and visual senses – When communicating with your child, use metaphors and visual aids such as maps, magazines and diagrams to communicate messages.

3. Make the written word more accessible – When helping your child with reading text adapt the font size to a minimum of 12 and stick to a sans serif font (without the squiggly bits) such as ‘Comic Sans’ or ‘Century’ font. Always use pale shades of paper and dark text and keep justification to the left.

4. Adopt a multi-sensory approach to learning – No two dyslexic people are the same, it is important to encourage multisensory learning through visual (charts, graphs, video), auditory (music, sound recordings) and kinaesthetic (movement) methods. Show them (rather than tell them about) activities, making them aware the written word is not the be-all and end-all.

5. Break activity down into manageable chunks – Dyslexic children may need more time to absorb information. By breaking homework or tasks at home down into logical chunks you are giving them time to understand something fully before moving on to the next stage.

6. Overview, Preview, Review – Dyslexic people are often great lateral thinkers. Before starting homework or setting a task, give an overview of what your child will be doing, a preview of the work that will be expected of them and then review what you have discussed and learnt at the end.

7. Encourage their strong logical thought processes – By encouraging your child to analyse how they get to a conclusion, you are supporting their meta-cognition and will help support their strong logical thought patterns.

8. Highlight their strengths – People with dyslexia often focus solely on their difficulties. Remind your child of their strengths as innovative thinkers, fantastic trouble-shooters or lateral learners to put less focus on their difficulties.

9. Encourage their questions – By asking different questions about a particular subject or topic, a dyslexic child can have the specific information that they are struggling to process verbally reinforced. Try answering these questions in different ways and approaching problem solving from different angles. Their inquisitive strengths should respond well to such methods. 

10. Identify their personal learning style – Each dyslexic child will have an individual preference to how they feel they learn best. Make sure to discuss with your child what kind of learning techniques work for them. This will make learning more enjoyable for them and let them know that their opinions are valued.

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