At School

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS

Teachers often ask how they can help a dyslexic child in class.  Here are a few suggestions; some may seem too obvious to mention and others too difficult to implement.  What can be done must depend on the circumstances and on the ingenuity of the individual teacher.

DO

• Praise.

• Encourage.

• Find something that he is good at.

• Give less homework (e.g. shorter essays, or underline main points to learn).

• Mark written work on content (not spelling) – tick what is right instead of crossing what is wrong.

• Mark on oral responses when possible.

• If reading long words, divide syllables with a pencil line.

• Help him to pronounce words correctly.

• Put him in front of the class so you can help.

• Make sure he understood and remembered instructions.

• Let him work with textbook open.

• Put important words on blackboard clearly.

• Give plenty of time to copy from blackboard – writing on alternate line in different colours may help.

• Check whether he knows his alphabet, and that he can say the days of the week and months of the year in the right sequence; also whether he can tell the time.

• Send an exercise book home with him, with homework assignments written in, and a note of important things to bring tomorrow, e.g. swimming things.

DON’T

• Don’t make a dyslexic read aloud in public if reluctant.

• Never ridicule.

• Don’t correct all mistakes in written work – it is too discouraging.

• Don’t give lists of spelling words to learn; two or three are as much as he will manage, and it is better if they are related, e.g. plate, cake, name.

• Don’t make him write out work again.

• Don’t compare with others.

• Don’t make him change his writing (put loops if he doesn’t, etc.).

REMEMBER

• A dyslexic tires more quickly than a “normal” person; far greater concentration is required.

• A dyslexic may read a passage correctly yet not get the sense of it, and vice versa.

• A dyslexic may have great difficulty with figures (e.g. learning tables), reading music, or anything which entails interpreting symbols.  Learning a foreign language is usually a problem.

• A dyslexic is inconsistent in performance.

• A dyslexic may omit a word or words, or write one twice.

• A dyslexic suffers from constant nagging uncertainty.

• A dyslexic cannot take good notes because he cannot listen and write at the same time.

• When a dyslexic looks away from a book he is reading, or a blackboard he is copying from, he may have great difficulty in finding his place again.

• A dyslexic works slowly because of his difficulties, so is always under pressure of time.

• A dyslexic will probably be personally disorganised – he may also be clumsy and forgetful, no matter how hard he tries.

• A dyslexic is likely to have difficulty following a string of instructions.

​

Source unknown