Dyslexia affects about 10% of the population in Singapore. If you’re a tutor or mainstream school teacher, it is inevitable that a few of your students would be dyslexic.
And you’ll know they are dyslexic when you see the common signs and symptoms: letter reversals, letter transpositions, missing words, etc. Sometimes, they’ll make mistakes that will make you tear your hair out. “How could you have made a simple mistake like this?” you might scream internally.
To me, teaching children with dyslexia is the easiest thing on the planet. In fact, I prefer teaching them to neurotypical ones because they’re more fun to be around.
However, I can understand the frustration that some educators feel when they’re teaching dyslexic students. It feels like you’re getting nowhere and nothing is working.
So, how does one tutor or teach a child with dyslexia even without a background in specific learning difficulties (SpLD)?
Related Article: Strategies to Manage Dyslexia
Teaching Dyslexic Students — A 9-step Guide
1. Understand dyslexia
First, you need to know what dyslexia is—see the linked post for more information. Once you’ve developed a better understanding of it, you’ll be able to see better from your student’s perspective.
2. See through your student’s eyes
Some dyslexics can write eloquently, while some struggle with basic concepts like punctuation.
This is because every dyslexic sees and understands things differently.
This isn’t a euphemism for “some people are smarter than others”. Some students genuinely can’t comprehend certain concepts until they are taught in a specific way.
For example, Student A might be weak at reading comprehension because he doesn’t understand what a couple of difficult words mean. The solution is to explain what they mean, and paraphrase the text in a way that he can understand.
Student B, on the other hand, might be weak because he can’t even read the text accurately. In this case, the solution is to work on his literacy first before doing anything else.
If you want to help your student improve, ask yourself, “What exactly is he struggling with?” See through their eyes, and you will find the solution.
3. Have a formal lesson plan for every lesson
As mentioned earlier, dyslexics learn better when you teach in a scaffolded manner. This means you need to build on what they have learned from previous lessons.
Thus, if you want your student to grow to his or her fullest potential, you should create a formal plan for every lesson.
It helps you to keep track of what you have taught and what you will be teaching. You can also refer back to past lesson plans to see if there is anything to follow up on. It even helps you and your student to develop clearer goals and how close they are to meeting them.
If you’ve never drafted a lesson plan before, I highly suggest you start doing so for every lesson. Check out our free lesson plan template if you need one.
4. Teach in steps
Many students (not just dyslexic ones) learn best when they are taught what to do step-by-step, in a scaffolded manner.
When they’re given an assignment but aren’t taught how to properly approach it, they can get overwhelmed. Furthermore, just doing corrections without learning the steps to arrive at the correct answer can lead to even more frustration.
Instead, go through the process one step at a time. Make sure they fully understand each step, then move on to the next one. Help them see the scaffold. In my experience, this achieves far more than just doing practice after practice*.
*Note: they can do practice after practice when they’ve mastered the necessary skills, not when they’re still in the process of doing so.
5. Use Concept-Checking Questions (CCQs)
Concept-Checking Questions (CCQs) are specific questions that you ask students to ensure they’ve understood what’s been taught. These can include short open-ended questions like:
So, a closed syllable ends with a…?
They can also include MCQ questions, like so:
When we add suffix “-s” to a noun, it becomes plural or singular?
Don’t just say “Clear?” or “Understand?” Many times kids will just nod their heads regardless of whether or not they really understand.
Instead, ask CCQs. When you do so, you’re shifting the focus to what’s been taught and getting your student to actively think about it. If they answer a CCQ wrongly, then you know for sure they did not understand what they were taught.
6. Break up difficult tasks into manageable chunks
Dyslexic students can get overwhelmed when a task is too challenging for them. Break it up into smaller portions. If necessary, teach in steps (see above). Take a short break if they need one, then push on.
For example, if teaching reading comprehension, don’t do all the questions at once. Focus on summary writing for that day, then work on visual text questions the following week. This way, students will not feel like they’re constantly put through a grinder.
7. Use the “Rule of Three” to mark your students’ work
It goes without saying that students with dyslexia tend to make more mistakes than their neurotypical peers. You’ll find that a composition written by a dyslexic primary school student tends to have more punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors, not to mention problems with language command and the organisation of the story.
You could mark it extremely strictly, thus completely destroying your student’s confidence.
Or, you could just point out and focus on two or three of most frequent types of mistakes that the student had made. Ignore all the other mistakes. You can always highlight them in future assignments.
By doing so, the student is less likely to get overwhelmed. This also helps them identify their biggest weaknesses, so they can avoid repeating them.
I call this the “Rule of Three“.
8. Engage your students as much as possible
Just because a child is dyslexic does not mean they are naturally quiet. Engage them, talk to them, ask them to share their thought processes. Many dyslexic students who appear quiet at first will become vocal once they get comfortable with a tutor or teacher who makes an effort to reach out to them. Not only does this build rapport between the teacher and the student, but it also makes the classroom environment more fun and dynamic.
9. Praise them for their strengths
Speaking of rapport, students appreciate it when their efforts get recognised. If you see your student doing well in a certain area, praise them even if it’s not relevant to the subject that you’re teaching.
I have a Secondary 4 student who is gifted in art. Really, she can draw effortlessly. When she was younger, I used to praise her art skills and encouraged her to write backstories for her OCs (original characters). This is how she writes today:
Praise your student when they deserve it. They may surprise you eventually.
More Strategies on How to Teach Students With Dyslexia
The above provides a rudimentary guide to teaching dyslexic students. For those of you really passionate about helping and want to go the extra mile (and I salute you for that!), here are six more tips and strategies on how you can make your teaching style even more effective:
10. Customise your lesson materials
Rather than photocopying materials, consider recreating them with your personal touch. Use dyslexic-friendly fonts and make them bigger! Add images to your printouts and worksheets, and even print on coloured paper if it will help your student. Dyslexic students do better when they experience less visual-perceptual confusion.
11. Engage your students in multisensory learning
One assumption of the Orton-Gillingham method is that dyslexic students learn better when there are multisensory elements in the classroom.
This isn’t always true, but nonetheless, multisensory learning does help students retain knowledge better in many cases.
To make your lessons more multisensorial, consider using technology, manipulatives and learning aids. Some examples:
- Technology: Using your laptop to play ambient sounds when you and your student(s) are reading a story.
- Manipulatives: Using Snap Cubes to demonstrate addition and subtraction.
- Learning aids: Using a Fidget Cube to help hyperactive students stay focused.
- Visual aids: Incorporating visuals in reading comprehension texts to help students visualise the narrative.
It is well-documented that a multisensorial learning environment helps children with dyslexia to learn better (Shams, Seitz, 2008). In fact, I have observed my students to learn well and stay engaged when both visual and auditory aids are used concurrently. By tapping on the different senses, students are more stimulated, more able to visualise or process concepts, and therefore more able to store and retrieve taught information.
12. Teach your dyslexic students to blend simple words
If you have some knowledge of phonics, you can teach your student sound blending. Many dyslexics rely on sight memory, and this creates confusion when they have to deal with words that they’re unfamiliar with. For example, look at the following sentence:
The grapes were stuffed and sold in small sacks.
I use this sentence as part of my diagnostic assessment with new students. Many will read “sacks” as “snacks“.
This is because visually, the two words look almost identical. When a dyslexic student reads fast, their mind tends to capture the word’s general structure rather than correctly identifying its graphemes.
And that’s why they see “sacks” as “snacks“.
On the other hand, when students are taught to read by blending, they have to decode a word’s graphemes. This forces them to slow down and helps “recalibrate” their visual-perceptual orientation (i.e., their tracking). In the long run after they get used to it, their reading fluency and accuracy will dramatically pick up.
Read This Next: Learn More About Sound Blending
13. Teach them to syllabicate long words
As with blending, if you have knowledge of how syllables work, you can teach your student to syllabicate (cut) polysyllabic words. This will help them to decode long words more easily.
If you’re not sure how to syllabicate long words, follow this quick and easy guide:
- Find the vowels.
- Find the consonants between the vowels.
- Split between the consonants. If there is only one consonant between the vowels (like the word “tulip”), then cut between the consonant and first vowel.
Obviously there is more to the process that involves knowledge of morphemes and syllable types, but the above should be good enough to help your student manage a significant number of bisyllabic words.
14. Use games
Consider using games in your lesson. I typically take 30-minute gaming breaks with my students in a 2-hour session. It breaks up the monotony of the lesson and gets them to interact with one another.
If you’re looking for a good starting point, I strongly recommend Learning Resources. They have many educational games that work well with students of all ages.
15. Encourage them to read more
Keep encouraging your student to read. It will pay off eventually.
I must confess that I’m a huge book nerd. I love reading, especially the pulp classics like Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, etc.
I think my passion rubs off on them, because the older ones tend to get into reading around the Secondary 2-3 phase. Many times, they would ask me for recommendations and I’d happily oblige. I even had one Sec 3 student try to read Lord of the Rings.
Keep encouraging your student to read.
It will pay off eventually.
Teaching a Dyslexic Student is Fairly Straightforward
At the end of the day, teaching a dyslexic student isn’t difficult (especially if they’re the compliant type). Sure, they may be weaker at reading and spelling compared to their peers—at least in the beginning. However, as long as you’re able to see through their eyes and make some concessions like breaking up a difficult task into smaller chunks, they can eventually surpass expectations.
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