Tools for Dyslexia

Dear Parents,
Reading to our kids is sometimes held up as a predictor of whether kids will become good readers or not, having dyslexia or not.

There are so many benefits to reading to kids~
💥Increases empathy as they see the world through someone else's life
💥Develops a love for good stories
💥Creates a shared book experience, sharing the story together
💥Calms and relaxes--why we read bedtime stories
💥Encourages curiosity and imagination
💥Can lead to fun discussions about the plot and characters
💥Builds listening stamina and exposure to language, vocabulary

It's important for all kids. It's even more important for the kids who struggle to read on their own. They get to hear the story, the language, the vocabulary, or the nonfiction information they likely couldn't read to themselves.

But it does not prevent or cure a neurological difference like dyslexia. Never buy into a statement that your student's reading difficulties exist because of a lack of reading to them. Parents, you could NOT have read your kids enough to prevent them from having dyslexia.

Read with your kids for the joy of a good story and all the other benefits! Here's another one: It's fun to read, laugh, and cry together over a good book!

Students won't outgrow dyslexia. With the right support, they can be taught the skills they lack at THEIR pace. They can grow through it to become literate, confident adults with dyslexia.

True. It's hard to realize what you've never experienced.

Support, support, support.

No matter how many repetitions it takes.
every lesson
every practice
every review
every explanation

Helping our students understand how English works until they make that understanding their own.

In your IEP meetings, ask for separate goals for each skill. It can be the means of more discussion about the skills the child needs and requires more accountability for working on those specific skills.

Many students with dyslexia have struggled with spelling SAYS and SAID. Sounding these words out would mean spelling them SEZ and SED. How do we work on these words?

We use the SAY word family for say, says, and saying:
🖊 write the words
🖊 write them out loud (spell aloud while writing)
🖊 write word sums
🖊 write them in phrases and sentences
🖊 spaced repetition (practice later that day, the next day until it is automatic)

❓Why are they spelled this way? For the word family and for SAID, the etymology shows us these words came from Old English, secgan (say), and Old English segde (said).

🇫🇷 Most of our English words with came to English from French. But words with an Old English root that become Present-Day English words with an often had a /g/ phoneme/sound after the vowel.

🗣The pronunciation of SAYS and SAID are what we often focus on because we like things neat and tidy--we figure an or word should sound like "pay" or "grain." I agree it would be nice. But it's common for a pronunciation to change over time.

Before English speakers were using "says," there was "saith", which is an old word we would find in a King James Version of the Bible ("Thus saith the Lord. . .").

Saith *can* be pronounced like my nephew's name, Seth. If I were reading saith, I'd probably pronounce it like "say-eth". But if you say it my way several times, you'll hear yourself starting to sound like "Seth."

The spelling of the Old English forms sometimes had an in it, which could have contributed to the way the pronunciation evolved.

The OED says that in early Modern English (1500- 1700) there was a shortening of the vowel in these two words that's comparable to our Present-Day English pronunciation of says and said.

There may not be a definitive answer as to why the spelling changed and why the pronunciation changed. But it did.

Help your students see the word families, history, and meaning connections!

As parents, we can hyper-focus on academics and allow that to define what we believe to be our child's potential. If I could go back in time, I would do more to recognize and point out the strengths I saw in my kids instead of letting my running game of worst-case scenarios obscure my vision.

Our relationships with students will thrive as we see their talents and potential. Not all talents are performance-based. Often it's character-based.

When we believe they are brilliant, treasured diamonds in the rough, they'll feel it. Our students need to feel that we believe in them.

Make our approval unconditional. Let our eyes and voices approve of them even when we don't approve of their behavior or choices. See their missteps as we might a pianist who hits the wrong key.

So many of our students struggle with spelling. It's a sequential string of letters, which may feel to them just like trying to remember a car's VIN number from a car --random and meaningless.

But what if we can teach them that English orthography, our spelling system, is built on structures that carry meaning (morphemes), history that shows how a word evolved to its current spelling (etymology), and the relationship between voiced sounds and written text (phonology) within a word family?

What a difference it can make!

Progress in the IEP meeting and better outcomes for our children and students can depend on our
🗣 speaking up
🗣 asking questions
🗣 raising the expectations
🗣 clarifying anything that seems vague

What do they understand about dyslexia?
What intervention will they be using?
How will we know if it's working?
Do the goals address specific skills the student is lacking?
Is there a spelling a goal?
When will you meet again to reevaluate the current plan?