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Dyslexia is a disability that affects a child reading, spelling and/ or speaking. The difficulty varies from person to person due to inherited differences in brain development, as well as the type of teaching the person receives. Because dyslexia is neurological it affect a persons language skill. This language processing disorder can hinders reading, writing, and sometimes even speaking. This research provides Guyanese educators with basic information about dyslexia, dispel some of the myths and misconceptions surrounding it and serves as a mini resource guide that will help to increase their capacity of implementing the correct intervention strategies to ensure the success of this diverse group of learners in their classroom.
Guyanese educators embracing dyslexic learners by learning and gaining appropriate knowledge about dyslexia, the cause, effects, symptoms and interventions that can be used in classrooms in Guyana.
Dyslexia is a reading and learning disability caused as a result of a defect in the brain processing of graphic symbols, which alters the way brain processes written materials. It is associated with structure and function of the left hemisphere brain that involved in the reading and language networks (Peterson & Pennington, 2015). Children with this disability usually have difficulties in word recognition, spelling, decoding and reading comprehension (Vellutino, Fletcher, Snowling, & Scanlon, 2004). Dyslexia learners usually experiences difficulties with other language skills such as spelling, writing, and pronouncing words. Dyslexia affects individuals throughout their life. however, its impact can change at different stages in a persons life. It is referred to as a learning disability because dyslexia can make it very difficult for students to succeed academically in the typical instructional environment, and in its more severe forms, will qualify a student for special accommodation, and/or extra support service from parents, teachers and other qualified personnel. Dyslexia hinders the capacity of a child to learn well. A learner having dyslexia doesnt have an easy life because their entire day at school is being scolded by their teacher for not being able to read and, being bullied by peers because they think that theyre idiots. Learners with dyslexia really need someone who understand and can help them. with the outline given above of what is dyslexia and how it affects persons. Guyanese educators having the knowledge can be a driving force in the success of the diverse group of children they come into contact with on a daily basis.
According to Alsobhi, Khan, & Rahanu (2015) there are three types of dyslexia, namely; vision- spatial, speech sound and central or surface dyslexia. Each individual may experience literacy, numeracy, and memory deficits (Baker, 2006).
- a. Visio- spatial: Dyslexia children that are Visio- spatial are more likely to understand the ideas through their feelings and mental images compared to sounds or words (Yeo, 2008). This is due to the fact that children with this type of dyslexia find it hard to develop an adequate understanding of words and symbols, making the standard educational settings a disadvantages to them. this set of children prefer sensory over auditory learning experiences.
- b. Speech- sound: Children with speech- sound dyslexia tend to stutter in a stressful situation and may mispronounce multi- syllable words when speaking (Moreland, 2015). Therefore, they usually avoid task that involves explaining or discussing a topic. These children tend to work more efficiently in isolation or one- on- one setting (Alsoobhi et al.,2015). Another difficulty faced by children with this kind of dyslexia is the omission of double letters within the word.
- c. Central or surface: Central dyslexia is a reading difficulty that occurs in stages of the lexical and sub lexical routes. Children with surface dyslexia usually read aloud through grapheme- to phoneme conversations (Fawcett & Nicolson, 2017). These difficulties can cause several problems in reading, such as regularisation errors in reading irregular words such as stomach or comb that have silent letters.
It is crucial for teachers and care givers to recognise the signs and symptoms of dyslexia. The earlier a child is evaluated, the sooner he or she can obtain the appropriate instructions and accommodations he or she needs to succeed in school.
General problems/ symptoms experienced by people with dyslexia include the following:
- Learning to speak
- Learning letters and their sounds
- Organizing written and spoken language
- Memorizing number facts
- Reading quickly to comprehend
- Keeping up with comprehending longer reading assignments
- Spelling
- Learning a foreign language
- Correctly doing math operations
Some specific signs for elementary aged children may include:
- Difficulty with remembering simple sequence such as counting to 20, naming the days of the week, or reciting the alphabet
- Difficulty understanding the rhyming of words such as knowing that fat rhymes with cat
- Trouble recognising words that begin with the same sound (for example that bird, baby and big all start with b)
- Pronunciation difficulty
- Trouble easily clapping hands to the rhythm of a song
- Difficulty with word retrieval (frequently uses word like stuff and that thing rather than specific words
- Trouble remembering names of places and people
- Difficulty remembering spoken direction
It is important to note that not all students who have difficulties with these skills have dyslexia. Formal testing of reading, language and writing skills is the only way to confirm a diagnosis of suspected dyslexia.
Dyslexia is not a disease and, therefore, there is no cure. Research have shown that the exact causes of dyslexia are still not clear, but anatomical and brain imagery studies show differences in the way the brain of a person with dyslexia develops and functions. Moreover, most people with dyslexia have been found to have problems with identifying the separate speech sound within a word and/ or learning how letters represent those sounds, a key factor in their reading difficulties. Dyslexia is not due to either lack of intelligence or desire to learn; with appropriate teaching methods, students with dyslexia can learn successfully. The impact that dyslexia has is different for each individual and depends on the severity of the condition and the timeliness and effectiveness of the instruction and remediation. The main difficulty involves word recognition and reading fluency, spelling and writing.
Jerome J. Schultz’s informative IDA fact sheet The Dyslexia- Stress- Anxiety Connection is a must read for teachers who need guidance on understanding in relationship between dyslexia and emotional and social difficulties, as well as the implications for academic performance and social interactions. Dyslexia can also affect a person self- image. Students with dyslexia experience a great deal of stress due to poor academic performance on the other hand if students succeed in school, they will develop positive feelings
about themselves. Children with dyslexia also suffer from depression. Depressed children and adolescents often have different symptoms than depressed adults. The depressed child will not want to talk about his/ her feeling and often times choose to misbehave and to cover up his/ her painful feeling.
Above all, it is critical that teachers, parents and other professionals working with children with dyslexia communicate on an on- going basis to provide the support needed, so that these children ca become happy and successful and eventually become happy and successful adults.
Students vary significantly in their ability to respond in different modes for example, student vary in ability to give oral presentation; participate in discussion; in discussions; write letters and numbers; write paragraphs; draw objects; spell; work in noisy or clustered settings; and read, write. Or speak at fast pace. Moreover, students vary in their ability to process information presented in visual and auditory formats because of the facts mentioned above the following methods/ strategies can be implemented to help students become academically successful.
The following can be implemented by teachers:
- Have a structured approach which provides extensive practice using controlled text. This mean teaching thing in an order that builds on previously learned materials.
- Use multisensory methods to explicitly teach new content. This will help with letters, sounds, spelling patterns, grammar, even math. Some ideas to integrate multi senses into activity is colour coding & high lightening, using movement, using songs and music, textured writing and games.
- Encourage the use of graphic organizers: A graphic organizer involves organizing material into a visual format.
- Placed students close to the teacher: Students with attention problem can be seated close to teacher, chalkboard or work area and away from distracting sounds, materials, or objects.
- Uses cues to denote important items: Asterisks or bullets can denote questions or activity that count for heavily evaluation,
- Allow the use of instructional aids: Students can be provided with letters and number strips to help them write correctly. Number lines, counters, and other assistive technology can help student compute once the understand.
- Display work samples. Sample of completed assignments can be displayed to help students realize expectation and plan accordingly.
- Use peer-mediated learning. The teacher can pair peers of different ability levels to review their notes, work on a given task/ activity, read aloud to each other, write stories, study for a test or conduct laboratory experiments.
- Use flexible work times. Students who work slowly can be given additional time to complete written work.
- Provide additional practice. Students required amount of practice to master skill or content.
This research seeks to highlights that dyslexia is a disability which can affect both children and adults. Studies shown that dyslexic children face many difficulties in their educational interaction and social surroundings. Also, they suffer from frustrations and low self esteem because of lack of achievements, particularly in academic. Teachers awareness in Guyana about dyslexia and its impact on their learners is imperative in ensuring that they keep themselves abreast with new methods and strategies that would ensure sustainable development of their students. Thus teachers need to be made aware of their students conditions as early as possible so that appropriate intervention could be taken, for the wellbeing of both parties. In this paper I examined some intervention approaches teachers in Guyana can implement in the classroom to promote that support base for their students wellbeing and their academic achievement and success.
References
- Accommodating students with dyslexia in all classroom settings Jan 2004
- Alsobhi, A. Y., Khan, N. & Rahanu, H. (2015). Personalised learning materials based on dyslexia types. Ontological approach. Procedia Computer Science, 60, 113-121.
- Baker, D.W. (2006). The meaning and measure of health literacy. Journal of general internal medicine,21 (8), 878
- C Mercer https://dyslexiaida.org/testing-and-evaluation/ Mercer, C. (2004). Accommodating students with dyslexia in all classroom settings.
- Moats Dyslexia basics, 1-3 Nov 2008/ Moats, L., & Dakin, K. (2008). Moats, L., & Dakin, K. (2008). Dyslexia basics, 1-3. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from IDA website, www.interdys.org.
- Basic facts about dyslexia and other reading problems Jan 2008 L MoatsK Dakin/ Moats, L., & Dakin, K. (2008). Basic facts about dyslexia and other reading problems. Baltimore, MD: International Dyslexia Association.
- Social and emotional problems related to dyslexia, 1-5 Oct 2004 M Ryan/ Ryan, M. (2004). Social and emotional problems related to dyslexia, 1-5. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from IDA website, www.interdys.org.
- Peterson, R.L, & Pennington, B. F. (2015). Developmental dyslexia. Annual review of clinical psychology, 11, 283- 307
- Shultz, J. (2013). The dyslexia-stress-anxiety connection, 1-4. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from IDA website, www.interdys.org.
- The dyslexia-stress-anxiety connection 1-4 Oct 2013 J Shultz
- https://www.understood.org/…/understanding-dyslexia
- https://dyslexiaida.org/testing-and-evaluation
- https://www.understood.org/…/child-learning-disabilities/dyslexia/understanding-dyslexi
- Yeo, D. (2008). Dyslexia dyspraxia and mathematics: John Wiley & Sons.
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