Teaching students who are Dyslexic

Although many students struggle with math, it can be even more challenging for students who are dyslexic. Most people associate poor reading and writing skills with dyslexia, and recognize the traditional symptoms of switching or writing letters backwards. However, many people are surprised to learn that often dyslexic students experience difficulties in learning mathematics due to poor sequencing skills and issues related to short term memory required for tasks such as multiplication. At the most basic level many dyslexic students know very few addition and subtraction facts by memorization, and almost exclusively rely on special counting procedures (counting forwards and backwards) to work out simple addition and subtraction problems. Often, dyslexic students do not naturally use the facts they do know to solve related unknown problems, and will frequently make mistakes when executing counting. These students may also struggle with perceiving patterns in the number system and counting arrays of numbers accurately. Due to the working memory demands of long sequences of double counting, many dyslexic students fail to link the initial problem with the ultimate outcome, and consequently fail to store the fact into long-term memory. This means that on subsequent occasions the same fact will be interpreted as yet another instruction to count.

A website dedicated to supporting dyslexic children can be found at www.dyslexia-teacher.com

Teacher guidelines for making it easier for dyslexic children to go home with accurate notes of their homework have been extracted from the above website [Rieger, B., 2009] and included below. These guidelines provide practical ways to assist a dyslexic student in the classroom

• Put daily assignments on the morning board. Some dyslexic students seem to function better in the mornings. They might not have a problem transcribing from the board when school first begins. (There also might be less on the board at the beginning of the day.)
• Try to keep the board clear from several days work and only do one day at a time. The extra clutter seems to be very distracting and frustrating. It is hard to distinguish Yesterdays work, from tomorrow or todays.
• Leave the assignments on the board for the entire day. This not only prepares the students for the day, but also allows adequate time for copying from the board. Dyslexic students like being informed ahead of time about what will be expected of them. This would be an excellent way for the student boy to know the day’s agenda.
• Write in block letters and larger.
• Use short assignment terms and always the same terms.
• Position the assignments in the same place on the board everyday. This will help the dyslexic students feel confident that they are copying the right thing down.
• Asking to see all the students’ assignment sheets before they leave for the day would be a way of checking to make sure it was copied correct. Students could pull the assignment out and lay it on their desk. You wouldn't be asking only the dyslexic student to do this, but at the same time you would be able to check the work.

Rieger, B. (2009). Giving Homework. Retrieved from Dyslexia Teacher September 18, 2009, from http://www.dyslexia-teacher.com/t63.html