Dyslexia: Notes

I have worked with some people who have dyslexia and I have some friends who have worked around it. These are some notes from my reading about dyslexia. I was especially interested in helping a young student who was having difficulty learning to read and learning to spell.
Author

Jim Tyhurst

Published

February 24, 2021

I have worked with some people who have dyslexia and I have some friends who have worked around it. These are some notes from my reading about dyslexia. I was especially interested in helping a young student who was having difficulty learning to read and learning to spell.

I use these personal notes to help me remember articles and books that I have read. I hope they might be a helpful summary and introduction for others. However, these notes are not intended to be an exhaustive annotated bibliography nor a complete academic review of the current status of research. These are just my personal notes of material that I read while trying to become more informed.

Dyslexia in the context of education

Strategies to help students

Books - Recommended

Listed in the order in which I recommend that you read them.

  • Ronald D. Davis, Eldon M. Braun, 2010. The Gift of Dyslexia: Why Some of the Smartest People Can’t Read…and How They Can Learn. Updated Perigree paperback edition, 2010.
    • Summit County Library
    • First chapters explain how a dyslexic person deals with disorientation, reading, spelling, math.
    • The explanation of the reading process in ch. 4 correlates closely to what I have observed in GS.
    • “Trigger word list”: approximately 200 short, commonly used words that are difficult for dyslexics to master. Davis claims that these are difficult words, because they cannot be pictured in the mind.
    • Davis Symbol Mastery Procedure: dyslexic person creates form of letter or image of word, especially three-dimensional like with clay.
    • Part Four: Doing something about it: A guide for parents, tutors, and educators.
  • Daniel Franklin. 2018. Helping your child with language-based learning disabilities: Strategies to succeed in school and life with dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD and processing disorders.
  • Sally Shaywitz M.D., Jonathan Shaywitz, M.D. 2020. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2nd Edition.
    • Summit County Library ebook.
    • “A major update and revision of the essential program for reading problems at any level, incorporating the latest breakthroughs in science, educational methods, technology, and legal accommodations.”
    • Typing
      • “Teach your child to touch type as early as possible. First grade works for many children.”
    • “dysgraphia” is not in the index. There are only a couple of brief mentions of writing and handwriting.
    • I found chapters 11 and 12 to be very helpful:
        1. Should my child be evaluated for dyslexia?
        1. Diagnosing dyslexia in the school-age child
    • Key symptom that should lead to full evaluation for dyslexia: large gap between high intelligence and poor reading skills. (p. 158)
      • Test scores from psychometric measures are not necessarily sufficient to establish the presence or absence of dyslexia. Instead, knowledge of the individual’s history, clinical observations, behavioral observations, and judgment are essential to a diagnosis.
    • Typical dyslexia pattern (p. 164):
      • difficulty reading single words
      • poor phonological skills
      • particular difficulty decoding nonsense or unfamiliar words
      • particular difficulty in reading sinigle words when speed is required
      • lack of fluency as demonstrated by inaccurate, slow, and labored oral reading and a lack of inflection (prosody) reflecting the content
      • trouble reading short function words: {that, is, an, for}
      • poor spelling
      • reading comprehension often superior to decoding individual words
      • average or even superior intelligence
      • disparity between intelligence and reading
    • Chapter 16. All children can be taught to read
    • Chapter 17. Helping your child break the reading code
      • rhyme
      • segmenting/blending
    • Chapter 18. Helping your child become a reader has specific exercises and word lists to learn phonological patterns, syllable patterns, prefixes, suffixes, sight words.
  • Brock L. Eide M.D. M.A., Fernette F. Eide M.D. 2011. The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain.
    • Summit County Library
    • MIND strengths:
      • M = Material Reasoning
      • I = Interconnected Reasoning
      • N = Narrative Reasoning
      • D = Dynamic Reasoning
    • Ch 25 “Reading”, explains strategies to improve reading. e.g.
      • Explain the general idea of what student will read before they read it.
      • Make sure student knows all the words that will be encountered in the text.
      • Tutor reads first while student follows along. Then the student reads the same passage.
    • Ch 26 “Writing”
  • Alais Winton. 2018. Fun Games and Activities for Children With Dyslexia: How to Learn Smarter With A Dyslexic Brain.
    • Not available through Summit County Libraries.
    • The author is a teacher who is dyslexic herself.
    • The spelling exercises seemed odd to me, but the “hand skills” and “practice tasks” to improve writing looked useful.
    • Handwriting improvement exercises
      • Hand skills
        • Using the hand that you write with, crumple up a piece of paper.
        • Using a soft ball, roll the ball around on a hard surface, using the hand that you write with. Roll the ball up to your elbow and back and roll it around with your hand for a second time, moving it to the outer edge of your fingers this time.
        • Using the hand that you write with, break placsticine (play-doh) into 3 small pieces. Then use your thumb, the finger next to it and your middle finger to create a pincer/triangle shape. When that position has been formed, use your thumb and fingers to roll the plasticine into a ball.
      • Practice tasks with lined paper
        • Within the lines, draw a series of parallel vertical lines. Try to make them straight and the same length.
        • Within the lines, draw a series of horizontal liines. Try to make them straight and the same length. Try to fit three lines between each pair of lines on the page.
        • Draw clouds inside the lines to practise the curves of some letters.
        • Repeat as often as possible and monitor improvement in your handwriting.
      • Air brush
        • Use a large paint brush to draw straight lines in the air.
        • Use the same brush to draw out a letter that they wanted to improve whilst closing their eyes and thinking of a perfect image of that letter.

Books - Not recommended

  • Margaret Rooke. 2018. Dyslexia Is My Superpower (most of the Time): Interviews.
    • Summit County Library.
    • Short essays by children who have dyslexia.
    • I do not recommend it as a way to learn more about dyslexia or as a way to learn techniques for helping a dyslexic student.
  • Virginia Wise Berninger. 2016. Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, OWL LD, and Dyscalculia: Lessons From Science and Teaching. 2nd edition.
    • Summit County Library: Interlibrary Loan.
    • Has many teaching tips for the classroom teacher about how to cover language studies subjects.
    • Many of the tips seemed to be material that would be covered anyway in class. It was not clear to me how any of the tips applied specifically to learning disabilities or dyslexia in particular.
    • Even with the teaching tips, the book is very academic. Might be good if you are looking for research on dyslexia, because there are many references.

Books - Not read yet

  • Sally E. Shaywitz. 2020. Overcoming Dyslexia: A Major Update and Revision of the Essential Program for Reading Problems at Any Level, Incorporating the Latest Breakthroughs in Science, Educational Methods, Technology, and Legal Accommodations. 2nd edition.

Typing

  • Touch-type Read & Spell. Learn to touch type. For learners with dysgraphia: A program to get children and adults with dysgraphia touch-typing with additional support for spelling.
    • Based on English words, rather than random sequences of letters.
    • Speaks the words as you are supposed to type them.
    • They claim that this additional sound input is helpful for learners with dyslexia or dysgraphia.
  • https://www.typing.com/ : Free typing tutorials.
    • Starts with individual letters and repetitive sequences of letters, rather than real words.

Sight words

  • Sight Words / Tricky Words.
    • “Sight words are words that must be memorized by sight, rather than being sounded out phonetically. Sight words are important to learn because once children are able to read the most common 100 sight words, they can read up to 50% of most children’s literature. Mastery of the top 300 words, gives students access to 75% of what is printed in most children’s literature.”
    • 3rd Grade Sight Words: about, better, bring, carry, clean, cut, done, draw, drink, eight, fall, far, full, got, grow, hold, hot, hurt, if, keep, kind, laugh, light, long, much, myself, never, only, own, pick, seven, shall, show, six, small, start, ten, today, together, try, warm
  • Small, important words that “glue other words together” in syntax. Berninger and Wolf (2016:112).
    • and, as, but, if, only, since, so, sometimes, than, then, to, what, when, while, yet

Trigger words

  • Davis and Braun (2010:252-254). The key triggers for disorientation:
    • a, about, again, ago, all, almost, also, always, an, and, another, any, anyhow, anyway, as, at, away, back, be, am, are, is, was, were, being, been, because, become, became, becoming, becomes, before, between, but, by, can, could, can’t, cannot, come, came, comes, coming, could, do, did, does, doing, done, don’t, doesn’t, down, each, either, else, even, ever, every, everything, for, from, front, full, get, gets, getting, got, go, goes, going, gone, have, had, has, having, he, he’s, her, hers, here, him, his, how, I, if, in, into, isn’t, it, its, it’s, just, last, leave, leaves, leaving, least, left, less, let, lets, let’s, letting, like, liked, likes, liking, make, made, makes, making, many, may, maybe, me, mine, more, most, much, my, neither, never, no, none, nor, not, now, of, off, on, one, onto, or, other, others, otherwise, our, ours, out, over, put, puts, putting, run, ran, running, runs, same, see, saw, seen, sees, she she’s, shall, should, so, some, soon, stand, standing, stands, stood, such, sure, take, takes, taking, took, than, that, that’s, the, their theirs, them, then, there, there’s, these, they, they’re, this, those, through, to, too, unless, until, up, upon, us, very, we, we’re, what, when, where, where’s, whether, which, while, who, who’s, whose, why, will, with, within, without, won’t, would, yet, you, your, you’re, yours

Copyright © 2021 Jim Tyhurst
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.