One of the biggest mistakes teachers and parents make when concerned about a dyslexic child is to focus too much attention on his or her reading ability. This is most evident when lesson plans for educating the child focus on reading (either in a textbook or online).
A dyslexic child already feels bad enough that reading is difficult and paying too much attention to reading, even when intentions are good, can sometimes be overwhelming. Many dyslexics are more sensitive as well, making the dramatic meltdown when they are struggling even more dramatic.
Dyslexics have more to offer
While some feel dyslexia is some kind of curse, those who can look at the bright side see that many extremely talented people are dyslexic. The debate continues over whether it is the dyslexia that caused them to be brilliant or if it just got in the way. But the fact of the matter is, dyslexics have many talents and many ways to shine.
Make sure your dyslexic students have a way to show off their talents. Try to include their skills when you are developing lesson plans for them. Encourage their strengths by including them in your lesson plans.
When educating a dyslexic child, don’t just use textbooks as the main source of information. Get creative and find other resources for teaching a subject. This could be games, videos, hands-on projects, cooking, sewing, investigating and experimenting. Consider the talents of your dyslexic student and try to discover ways in which he or she would enjoy learning a topic. Students who are very good LEGO engineers would enjoy building pyramids, castles, cabins or other buildings during history lessons. Students who are excellent cooks would enjoy whipping up something in a science lesson.
Links to more tips
These links will give you plenty of ideas for broadening your lesson plans to help dyslexics learn:
- Multi-sensory lessons: The basics on adding multiple senses to lesson plans.
- An unschooling plan: While it focuses on unschooling, a form of homeschooling, this page offers plenty of tips for making learning fun by using videos, fun websites, hands-on projects and more.
- Beaver unit study: This page focuses on a particular subject, beavers, but will give you ideas of how to add more to a lesson to make it a complete learning experience.
- Puppet narrators: This page gives ideas for making reading lessons more enjoyable. When you are actually studying reading, making it more entertaining will go a long way to encourage dyslexic readers.
