Teaching students with dyslexia

peanuthead

I'm just wondering about this - is is counter productive to work on spellings with dyslexic children or is that just an ignorant thing to say?

I will be teaching a special needs class where a lot of them will have dyslexia. I will be their English teacher and I'm wondering whether or not it would be the done thing to work on spellings at all.

Also, what are the best things I can be doing with a class like this to give them the best quality of education in English class? I'm not really asking about content, because I've taught special needs children before, but my experience was of students who also had behavioural problems on top of that, whereas these students are quite different.

Thank you
p

byhookorbycrook

Are you secondary?I suggest you work on comprehension strategies first.If you want to do some spelling concentrate on high frequency words and if you can follow Brendan Culligan's corewords system it will give the pupil a real sense of getting somewhere.

Any handouts work better on cream paper, reduces the "glare" that many children with dyslexia find from white paper.

peanuthead

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Are you secondary?I suggest you work on comprehension strategies first.If you want to do some spelling concentrate on high frequency words and if you can follow Brendan Culligan's corewords system it will give the pupil a real sense of getting somewhere.

Any handouts work better on cream paper, reduces the "glare" that many children with dyslexia find from white paper.

Hi

Thank you very much!

Sorry about the late reply too - I'm just so busy!!!!

I tried what you said and it's going down a treat. I'll remember the cream paper too. I also write every second line on the board in a different colour, this was advised to me too.

thanks

byhookorbycrook

No point in every second colour if some children can't read the colour chosen. Check with them which is easiest for them.

golden virginia

try using the font " century gothic" or "century gothic school house" font for text. It directly relates to hanswriting in the way that letters are shaped to match handwriting,,,,, for example look at the way the letter "a" is scripted here,, compared with handwriting or century font.I know of primary schools that have made a decision to switch to century because they wish their digital texts to align with the handwriting that is taught there.

Queenalocin

Comic Sans MS is good as well, I use 'wordshark' from the learning resource as a font in all of my handouts. If you look on http://www.google.com/webfonts you can select ones that work. Avoid green/yellow when writing or highlighting, it makes the letters 'jump around' more. The Dyslexia Association of Ireland has a very good article on their website about creating resources for students with dyslexia.
I think it is a good idea to do some spellings with dyslexic students, a lot of them picture the shape of the word when working out spellings, at least if the picture the correct shape, they may manage to spell it half-way right.