Dyslexia is a learning disorder that causes learners to have trouble with text. Reading and writing are extremely difficult, and the problem only gets worse when learning English as a second language. In this post, you'll gain a basic understanding of dyslexia.
As English language tutors, you are probably very experienced at using various techniques to teach your learners English. However, once in a while, a learner might throw you a curve ball in the form of a learning disorder. Dyslexia is a very common learning disorder which unfortunately hadn't been talked about or researched much until the last 30 years or so. While this post can't serve as a step-by-step guide to teaching English to someone with dyslexia, it can help you better understand what your learner is dealing with and perhaps give you the information you need to form your teaching strategy.
One of the biggest problems with dyslexia is that there are so many myths and misconceptions about it in our society. Let's debunk a few with a brief overview.
Myth: "People with dyslexia have a lower intelligence level."
No! The intelligence levels of dyslexic learners are comparable to those without it. Learners with dyslexia are not less intelligent; they just have different strengths. It's important to recognize that even if your learner has dyslexia, they are probably very intelligent. A few notables who have/had dyslexia: Alexander Graham Bell, John Lennon, Albert Einstein, Keira Knightley, Muhammad Ali, Walt Disney, and Tom Cruise. All have been successful people in a variety of fields.
Myth: "Learners with dyslexia make poor students because they forget things, lose concentration, and make too many errors."
While these issues are symptoms of dyslexia, people with the disorder can still become good students. The key is that they are big-picture thinkers - they need an overview of the concept they're learning, right away. Dyslexic people have trouble thinking sequentially. Sometimes, teachers reveal things step by step, and students eventually put it all together to reach a sudden understanding, but this doesn't happen when the student has dyslexia. On the flip side, this affinity for strategic, visual, and 3-dimensional thinking mean that learners with dyslexia often have a lot of creativity and skill in arts and sports.
Unfortunately, 3-dimensional thinking is both a blessing and a curse. It allows dyslexic learners to see the bigger picture quite well, but their brains can also see letters as just shapes in different positions.
All three of these letters are essentially the same shape, flipped around into three different positions. If you've got dyslexia, it can be tricky distinguishing between the three, and this makes words like 'budding,' 'pudding,' and 'dubbing' a nightmare.
Myth: "Dyslexia could be cured if the student would just practice reading more."
Dyslexia is a problem hardwired in the brain, not a problem with the learner's work ethic. A common theme with dyslexic learners is the huge difference between what you perceive their ability to be and their reading and writing skills. Often times the tutor will be able to tell that their learner is in fact very intelligent, and strings together complex sentences when speaking, but just can't seem to read and write. It's the word processing that's the problem, and no matter how much they practice, this can't be changed. All you can do as a tutor is to recognize the ways to minimize this disadvantage for your learners.
English has many words that you simply can't sound out in any sort of logical way. The alphabet has 26 letters, and we all know the alphabet song. But wait...the English language has about 44 speech sounds. A speech sound is the way you pronounce a letter or a group of letters in a word. The problem is that this is often different from how the letter sounds in the alphabet.
In many languages, the number of letters corresponds with the number of sounds. English is very tricky because certain sounds have multiple spellings, and certain spellings correspond to more than one sound! Confused yet? Your dyslexic learner definitely is. Native English speakers often take for granted how certain letter combinations sound, but if you think back to when you first learned to read in elementary school, words like "friends" and "though" were probably a struggle.
Here are some words and their pronunciations. Each word has the same basic letter grouping but the pronunciations are totally different, which doesn't make an ounce of sense.
Ugh - "ugg" - the feeling many English learners get when thinking about these words. "Ugh" is in each of the three words above, but if you pronounced those words with the sound "ugg", you'd get some interesting results:
Luckily there are resources like this speech sounds chart which you can use to show your learner the relationship between the letters and sounds in English, and how they're used.
Learners with dyslexia recognize less words on sight, and have to work harder at it. Sight words are key to reading, because they are used frequently and you should not have to waste time and energy figuring out what they are. A few sight words:
When you're teaching a dyslexic learner, make sure to only teach a few words at a time. Start with common words and review them over and over again until your learner is comfortable. Don't overwhelm your learner with a flood of new words.
Dyslexia is such a complex, huge topic that definitely can't be covered in just one blog post. I'll be writing at least one more post on the subject, and there are numerous online resources like Beating Dyslexia which you can explore if you're interested in dyslexia.
There are many things I won't be able to talk about, but you'll be able to research more specifics based on who your learner is and what they're dealing with. I sincerely hope that any knowledge you get out of this series of posts will help you take on the challenge that is dyslexia and make the experience great for both you and your learner.
Happy tutoring!
Kris
Kristofer Pieper
Programs and Social Media Intern, English At Large
Tufts University, Class of 2016
ENGLISH AT LARGE
Literacy and Learning for Life
Join the conversation
As English language tutors, you are probably very experienced at using various techniques to teach your learners English. However, once in a while, a learner might throw you a curve ball in the form of a learning disorder. Dyslexia is a very common learning disorder which unfortunately hadn't been talked about or researched much until the last 30 years or so. While this post can't serve as a step-by-step guide to teaching English to someone with dyslexia, it can help you better understand what your learner is dealing with and perhaps give you the information you need to form your teaching strategy.
One of the biggest problems with dyslexia is that there are so many myths and misconceptions about it in our society. Let's debunk a few with a brief overview.
Myth: "People with dyslexia have a lower intelligence level."
No! The intelligence levels of dyslexic learners are comparable to those without it. Learners with dyslexia are not less intelligent; they just have different strengths. It's important to recognize that even if your learner has dyslexia, they are probably very intelligent. A few notables who have/had dyslexia: Alexander Graham Bell, John Lennon, Albert Einstein, Keira Knightley, Muhammad Ali, Walt Disney, and Tom Cruise. All have been successful people in a variety of fields.
Myth: "Learners with dyslexia make poor students because they forget things, lose concentration, and make too many errors."
While these issues are symptoms of dyslexia, people with the disorder can still become good students. The key is that they are big-picture thinkers - they need an overview of the concept they're learning, right away. Dyslexic people have trouble thinking sequentially. Sometimes, teachers reveal things step by step, and students eventually put it all together to reach a sudden understanding, but this doesn't happen when the student has dyslexia. On the flip side, this affinity for strategic, visual, and 3-dimensional thinking mean that learners with dyslexia often have a lot of creativity and skill in arts and sports.
Unfortunately, 3-dimensional thinking is both a blessing and a curse. It allows dyslexic learners to see the bigger picture quite well, but their brains can also see letters as just shapes in different positions.
Example: b - d - p
All three of these letters are essentially the same shape, flipped around into three different positions. If you've got dyslexia, it can be tricky distinguishing between the three, and this makes words like 'budding,' 'pudding,' and 'dubbing' a nightmare.
Myth: "Dyslexia could be cured if the student would just practice reading more."
Dyslexia is a problem hardwired in the brain, not a problem with the learner's work ethic. A common theme with dyslexic learners is the huge difference between what you perceive their ability to be and their reading and writing skills. Often times the tutor will be able to tell that their learner is in fact very intelligent, and strings together complex sentences when speaking, but just can't seem to read and write. It's the word processing that's the problem, and no matter how much they practice, this can't be changed. All you can do as a tutor is to recognize the ways to minimize this disadvantage for your learners.
English has many words that you simply can't sound out in any sort of logical way. The alphabet has 26 letters, and we all know the alphabet song. But wait...the English language has about 44 speech sounds. A speech sound is the way you pronounce a letter or a group of letters in a word. The problem is that this is often different from how the letter sounds in the alphabet.
In many languages, the number of letters corresponds with the number of sounds. English is very tricky because certain sounds have multiple spellings, and certain spellings correspond to more than one sound! Confused yet? Your dyslexic learner definitely is. Native English speakers often take for granted how certain letter combinations sound, but if you think back to when you first learned to read in elementary school, words like "friends" and "though" were probably a struggle.
Here are some words and their pronunciations. Each word has the same basic letter grouping but the pronunciations are totally different, which doesn't make an ounce of sense.
Though - "tho"
Tough - "tuff"
Thought - "thawt"
Ugh - "ugg" - the feeling many English learners get when thinking about these words. "Ugh" is in each of the three words above, but if you pronounced those words with the sound "ugg", you'd get some interesting results:
Though - "tho-ugg"
Tough - "to-ugg"
Thought - "tho-uggt"
Luckily there are resources like this speech sounds chart which you can use to show your learner the relationship between the letters and sounds in English, and how they're used.
Learners with dyslexia recognize less words on sight, and have to work harder at it. Sight words are key to reading, because they are used frequently and you should not have to waste time and energy figuring out what they are. A few sight words:
And, the, was, is, he, she, that, this, here, there, now, said, like, with
When you're teaching a dyslexic learner, make sure to only teach a few words at a time. Start with common words and review them over and over again until your learner is comfortable. Don't overwhelm your learner with a flood of new words.
Dyslexia is such a complex, huge topic that definitely can't be covered in just one blog post. I'll be writing at least one more post on the subject, and there are numerous online resources like Beating Dyslexia which you can explore if you're interested in dyslexia.
There are many things I won't be able to talk about, but you'll be able to research more specifics based on who your learner is and what they're dealing with. I sincerely hope that any knowledge you get out of this series of posts will help you take on the challenge that is dyslexia and make the experience great for both you and your learner.
Happy tutoring!
Kris
Kristofer Pieper
Programs and Social Media Intern, English At Large
Tufts University, Class of 2016
ENGLISH AT LARGE
Literacy and Learning for Life
Join the conversation
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