Helping Students with Dyslexia | Dyslexic Students

How to Help Students with Dyslexia |  Helping Dyslexic Students

Teaching dyslexic students to read means unplugging the computer and thinking outside the box. Phonics was a dead end for me as a dyslexic learner, yet it can help many dyslexic students and even more LD students. The 44 phonemes that make up English are used for about 80% of written English, the other 20% use follow irregular rules. I learned to enjoy reading through my love of music and lyrics, and playing Kurt in a YMCA stage production of The Sound of Music. I honestly hated all the methods tried by my district special education teachers to correct my dyslexia.

Bottom line you have to use what ever works to help kids learn to read! Turn the closed caption css on your TV, sing lots of songs with the great lyrics, read and read with your children. Make reading fun!

If you want an out of the box solution, I would do a mini Reading Boot Camp at home on the weekends. You will need to use the NRVL  Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, and Grade 4 for your word work drills. The NRVL is the primary Tier1 Reading Vocabulary that meets CCSS ELA goals. You will also need lots of fluency drills. Read over the RBC pages, and if you have any questions I will be happy to help. More on what you need with links and resources on the Reading Boot Camp pages.

My class sings daily to teach reading, especially to LD, ELL,and dyslexic students! All the reading tools to build competent readers can be found in singing and learning song. Singing and Learning songs, builds fluency, articulation, voice, memory, expression, word attack, cadence, rhyme, rhythm, tone, pitch, vocabulary, decoding, phonics, auditory processing (listening) skills and FUN! Students are motivated, empowered, freed from traditional reading lessons, and intrinsically motivated when learning to sing a song. Learning to read is a very unforgiving process for many kids, learning a song gives them a great accomplishment in a very short time. Songs enrich and bring to life a students world in a way that is powerful! My students sing up to 8 times per day during the first few months of school. All you have to do is give students the lyrics and start the song, all else is built into the process. NO FANCY LESSON NEEDED JUST GREAT MUSIC AND LYRICS!