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https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jlB39RFsSTQ1FJQkDYcbdGdOPUpqZN_gcD2fLi71sFY

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https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aU_Hyl7__JFsRa7SNl6VEs2ix9oPc1BtCLpyxJp4maI

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Dyslexia Basics Fact Sheet 6-6-17 (8).pdf

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Effective Instruction Hal Version 3-27-18 refs.pdf

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How Difficult Can This be? The F.A.T. City Workshop

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https://dyslexiaida.org/louisa-moats-debunks-five-popular-myths-about-dyslexia/

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https://youtu.be/rrrLJR7Zbq0

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WPCSD Learning Strategist
Great Basin College, Ely Campus- Field Coordinator  & Student Teacher Supervisor  gbcnv.edu
kimberly.haslem@wpcnvadmin.com
775-293-2657 (cell)
FB WPCSD Nevada KIDS Read

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AB (Assembly Bill) 341 (RTI & Tiers 1, II & III Instruction pages 12-23)

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https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/authors/e--b--lewis/
http://eblewis.com/

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http://dyslexia.yale.edu/story/henry-winkler/

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Setting up a student-centered environment for students with Dyslexia

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Setting up a student-centered environment for students with Dyslexia

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A dyslexia friendly classroom begins with a dyslexia friendly teacher. The first step toward making your classroom a welcoming learning environment for students with dyslexia is to learn about it. Understand how dyslexia impacts a child's ability to learn and what the main symptoms are. Unfortunately, dyslexia is still misunderstood. Many people believe that dyslexia is when children ​ reverse letters and while this can be a sign of dyslexia in young children, there is much more to this language-based learning disabilities. The more you know about dyslexia, the better you can help your students.

As a teacher, you may worry about neglecting the rest of your class as you institute changes for one or two students with dyslexia. It is estimated that 10 percent to 15 percent of students have dyslexia. That means you probably have at least one student with dyslexia and possibly there are additional students that have never been diagnosed. The strategies you implement in your classroom for students with dyslexia will benefit all of your students. When you makes changes to help students with dyslexia, you are making positive changes for the entire class.

Changes You Can Make in the Physical Environment

Have an area of the room designated as a quiet area. Carpeting this area will help keep down noise. Minimize distractions to allow students with dyslexia to have an area they can read or concentrate on class work. For students with dyslexia who are showing signs of anxiety, this can be a time-out area when they are feeling very nervous, upset or frustrated.

Place analog and digital clocks on the wall, right next to each other. This will help students see both ways of showing time, connecting the digital time with how it looks on a clock.

Set aside several areas of the board for daily information. Write down the day and date each morning and post the day's homework assignments each morning. Use the same spot each day and make your writing large enough for them to easily see it from their seats. Large writing helps students with dyslexia find their place when copying information into their notebooks.

Post high-frequency words and information that is used often around the room. For younger children, this could be the alphabet, for elementary age children it could be the days of the week, for older children it could be word walls of vocabulary words. Strips with this information can be taped to the student's desk as well. This helps to reduce memory work and lets children with dyslexia focus on other skills. For younger children, add pictures to the words to help them connect the written word with the object.

Have children with dyslexia sit near the teacher. This doesn't necessarily mean they must sit in the first seat but they should be able to easily see the teacher using peripheral vision. Students should also be seated away from talkative children to minimize distractions.

Teaching Methods

Use slower speech and simple sentences. Students with dyslexia may need a longer time to process information, use pauses when speaking to give them time. Integrate examples and visual representations in lessons to help aid in comprehension.

Provide worksheets for organizing information for writing assignments. Have templates with different types of writing frames and mind maps that students can choose from when preparing a writing assignment.

Do not require a student with dyslexia to read aloud in class. If the student volunteers, let him read. You might want to offer a student the opportunity to read aloud and give her a few paragraphs to read and practice at home before speaking out loud.

Integrate different ways for students to show their knowledge of a subject. Use visual presentations, powerpoint projects, poster boards and discussions to help a child participate without feeling embarrassed or fearing failure.

Use multi-sensory lessons. Students with dyslexia have been found to learn better when more than one sense is activated. Use art projects, skits, and hands-on activities to reinforce lessons.

Assessments and Grading

Allow students with dyslexia to use electronic helpers when completing class work or tests. Examples include an electronic dictionary, speller or thesaurus, computers and talking calculators.

Do not take off points for spelling. If you mark spelling errors, do so separately and create a list of words frequently misspelled for students to refer to during writing assignments.

Offer oral testing and extended time for formal assessments.

Working Individually with Students

In the beginning of the school year, work closely with a student to assess their knowledge of phonics and set up a plan and specific practice sessions to help strengthen weak areas.

Assess a student's strengths and weaknesses. Use teaching methods to help build on strengths. Children with dyslexia may have strong reasoning and problem-solving skills. Use these as building blocks.

Praise a child's achievements, no matter how small.

Use positive reinforcement programs, instituting rewards and consequences to help a child learn to cope with symptoms of dyslexia.

Supply a schedule of the school day. For younger children include pictures.

Above all, remember that students with dyslexia are not stupid or lazy.

References:

Creating a Dyslexia-Friendly Classroom, 2009, Bernadette McLean, BarringtonStoke, Helen Arke Dyslexia Center

The Dyslexia-Friendly Classroom, LearningMatters.co.uk

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19 Tips for a Dyslexia-Friendly Classroom

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Here are some small but significant changes teachers can do to create a dyslexia-friendly classroom to help students succeed.

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RealiseMe | Maximising Teacher Potential

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The British Dyslexia Association states that 10% of the population are dyslexic. That's at least three students in your classroom. Dyslexia can be a significant barrier to learning and can leave students feeling marginalised by peers who are academically high-achieving. However, with the right support and opportunities, dyslexia need not be such an obstacle in a student's school life.

Recently I was speaking with a friend who was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was in school twenty years ago. She did not have extra support and was just seen as less bright than the other pupils. This massively impacted her self-esteem, knocked her confidence and led to her leaving school having not got much out of it. Thankfully, attitudes and understanding of dyslexia have massively changed since then though many teachers can still find themselves at a loss when a student with dyslexia is struggling and needs some support.

using dyslexia- friendly techniques can benefit the whole class

Many students with dyslexia will already be receiving alternative support from your school's SEN team so you should always check in with them when looking for tips and tricks that might help engage your student. If you suspect one of your students might have dyslexia but haven't got a diagnosis then there's no harm in flagging it up and getting them the support they might need. It could literally change their life. In fact, using dyslexia- friendly techniques can often benefit the whole class and encourage other students under your radar who are struggling.

Here's some teaching strategies to provide support for students with dyslexia that you can put in place in your lessons, including student-specific approaches, as well as general classroom resources and lesson strategies.

Personal Approaches

The first thing you need to do when approaching any student with learning difficulties is take away the learning difficulty and look at the students themselves. What are their personal interests, strengths and weaknesses and how can you use that to their advantage? Be perceptive of their personality and try to figure out what makes them tick and how you can spark their engagement in your lessons.

Understand the difference between laziness and difficulty concentrating. In fact, what can come across as laziness can actually be resignation to the task after coming to the conclusion that they will fail and therefore not trying due to fear of failure.

Remove fear of failure if you can, let them know that you would prefer a wrong answer than no attempt at the task at all. Never make a student feel bad for trying.

Praise for effort, not just achievement. Recognise the students who may not be getting the top results but are putting their all in and showing perseverance.

Look at behaviour- is a student acting out or refusing to work because they are struggling to understand tasks but don't want to appear "stupid" in front of classmates?

Check certain students understand what to do before undertaking longer, written tasks.

Recognise their skills and give them the chance to demonstrate these skills in class tasks- are they skilled orally, visually or artistically?

Ask them what they want- check in with them to get to grips with the kind of tasks they prefer. Ask them whether there is anything they would like you to do that could help them.

Classroom Resources

There are many dyslexia teaching resources online and surprisingly simple ways of altering your lesson resources to be more dyslexia-friendly. There are also a number of visual aids you can use to ease reading-heavy classwork that could be holding some students back from accessing the work. Providing support for students with dyslexia is becoming easier with the development of new learning tools.

Find a new font. Some fonts are more accessible to those with dyslexia, including increasing the size and spacing between words. You can even find specifically-designed dyslexia-friendly fonts, like 'Open-Dyslexic', that could help with how your student processes the words they read on the page.

Highlight key words on worksheets and minimise busyness on the page.

Consider colours. Certain background and text colour combinations may help with visual processing when reading. Use dark grey text rather than black to reduce glare and set a cream background.

Visual aids like illustrations and diagrams can often work better than paragraphs of text when trying to get the student to understand concepts.

Reader pens can sometimes be provided by schools or from your SEN team which can greatly help students with lower reading capabilities than their classmates.

Prepare print-outs of key notes to stick in rather than making them copy long paragraphs from the board. A fill-in the blanks sheet can work if you are concerned they may not be reading and taking in what is on the sheet.

Teaching Strategies

The saying goes "If you've told a child a thousand times and he still doesn't understand, then it is not the child that is the slow learner." Sometimes when a student really isn't getting it, you need to adapt your approach. Going over what you've already taught in a different way isn't time-wasting as it will help those understand who didn't before and consolidate the knowledge of those who did.

Value your teaching assistant, (if you have one), not only can they provide extra support to pupils who need help but they can also help identify struggling pupils

Break down information in to bite-size pieces.

Allow extra-time where it's needed.

Encourage class computer work and homework completed on the computer.

Try verbal answering/ discussion tasks. Often you will find that a student with dyslexia does understand the topic but just isn't putting it across in their writing.

Try game-based activities rather than simple writing tasks and encourage team activities.

Wider School Initiatives

If you're inspired by new techniques in the classroom that are working, why not spread awareness throughout the school? Whole-school approaches to SEND helps promote awareness, understanding and sharing of tips and strategies.

Online homework programmes like 'Show My Homework' have been widely adopted by schools and are fantastic for pupils who may struggle with organization and don't remember to do homework because they didn't write it down from the board on time.

Encourage typed homework which makes it easier for dyslexic pupils and allows them to take more pride in their work.

Organise paired reading schemes with your school library where older students can assist with the reading ability of younger students who need literacy support.

Study buddies are another great way to get pupils to help each other, making strategic pairings of students who can effectively support each other when they may not feel confident putting their hand up to ask for help.

Always work with your SEN team to develop personal strategies and targets for particular pupils.

Why not read our tips for supporting students with autism in the classroom.

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How to Provide Classroom Support for Students with Dyslexia | RealiseMe

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The British Dyslexia Association states that 10% of the population are dyslexic. That's at least three students in your classroom. Dyslexia can be a significant barrier to learning and can leave students feeling marginalised by peers who are academically high-achieving. However, with the right support and opportunities, dyslexia need not be such an obstacle in a student's school life.

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Let me introduce myself: My name is Ben Foss, and I am dyslexic.

When I was a kid, my mother read out loud to me. When I went to college, I'd fax my term papers home to her in New Hampshire so she could read them to me over the phone and help me find spelling mistakes.

I know what it's like to feel lonely, and I want to tell dyslexic people-especially dyslexic kids and their parents-that you're not alone.

Here I'm sharing some of the insights I've gained on my path from special education to completing my law and business degrees at Stanford, and eventually becoming the Director of Access Technology at Intel. I hope these insights will help you learn the facts about dyslexia, tell your story and build a toolkit that will allow people with dyslexia play to their strengths.

For starters, let me tell you that when it comes to dyslexia, most people focus on reading or spelling. They could instead focus on shame. Shame is a feeling that you're unworthy because of something you are. It's different from guilt, which is feeling bad about something you did, like stealing or cheating.

Shame comes from not feeling normal. But what is normal? As my mom told me when I was a kid, quoting the humorist Emma Bombeck, "Normal is just a setting on your dryer!"

If you're terrible at a thing you're asked to do every day-in my case as a kid, reading-you begin to assume that you must be the problem, and you try to hide it. That is shame. The key to success as a dyslexic person is to understand your strengths and weaknesses.

This can be very scary, and it takes time. Finding joy as a dyslexic person or as a parent of a dyslexic child involves first understanding the facts, then starting to tell your story to people you trust. If your child has dyslexia, he can eventually create a practical toolkit-including books on tape or a computer that will write down what he says-that allows him to play to his strengths.

I've found that people have a hard time believing my dyslexia when they see only the final product of my written work. These days, I generally speak to a computer and use Dragon Naturally Speaking to have it transcribed, greatly increasing my speed and accuracy when writing. For this blog, that material went through four rounds of edits, including structural, copy and proofing, further polishing the material.

Here's what the first paragraphs looked like before that. I call this my "native tongue."

Let me introduce myself. My name is ben foss and I am dyslexic. When I was a kid, my mother read outoud to me. When I went to gollage I faxed my paper home to my nother in new hampshipe so she could read them to me over the phoe and help me find spelling mistakes. I know what it is like to feal lonely and I want to tell dyslexic peopel and especially dyslexic kids and their parents.

Any opinions, views, information and other content contained in blogs on Understood.org are the sole responsibility of the writer of the blog, and do not necessarily reflect the views, values, opinions or beliefs of, and are not endorsed by, Understood.

About the Author

About the Author

Ben Foss, JD/MBA&nbsp

has dyslexia and is the founder of Headstrong Nation, a national organization for dyslexic adults and parents of dyslexic kids.

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Make Dyslexia About Strengths, Not Shame

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Let me introduce myself: My name is Ben Foss, and I am dyslexic. When I was a kid, my mother read out loud to me. When I went to college, I'd fax my term papers home to her in New Hampshire so she could read them to me over the phone and help me find spelling mistakes.

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Children each learn and develop at their own pace, and reading is no different from other skill building. It's common for kids to find reading challenging at one point or another. But if learning to read becomes an ongoing struggle that leaves a child falling behind their peers, it's possible that they have a learning disorder known as dyslexia.

Dyslexia is most commonly associated with trouble learning to read. It affects a child's ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds in language. Kids with dyslexia have a hard time decoding new words, or breaking them down into manageable chunks they can then sound out. This causes difficulty with reading, writing and spelling. They may compensate by memorizing words, but they'll have trouble recognizing new words and may be slow in retrieving even familiar ones.

Dyslexia is not a reflection of a child's intelligence - in fact it's defined as a gap between a student's ability and achievement. Some youngsters with dyslexia are able to keep up with their peers with extra effort at least for the first few grades. But by the third grade or so, when they need to be able to read quickly and fluently in order to keep up with their work, they run into trouble.

With help and strategies for compensating for their weakness in decoding, students with dyslexia can learn to read and thrive academically. But dyslexia is not something one grows out of.

How common is dyslexia?

It is estimated that as many as one in five kids has dyslexia, and that 80 to 90 percent of kids with learning disorders have it. Sally Shaywitz, MD, co-director of the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, notes that many children go undiagnosed as struggles in school are incorrectly attributed to intelligence, level of effort or environmental factors.

Although experts used to say that dyslexia occurred more often in boys than in girls, current research indicates that it affects boys and girls equally.

A young person with dyslexia may:

Struggle with learning even simple rhymes

Have a speech delay

Have trouble following directions

Repeat or omit short words such as and, the, but

Find it difficult to tell left from right

In school, children with dyslexia are likely to:

Have difficulty sounding out new words

Lack fluency compared to other children their age

Reverse letters and numbers when reading (read saw as was, for example)

Find it difficult to take notes and copy down words from the board

Struggle with rhyming, associating sounds with letters, and sequencing and ordering sounds

Stumble and have difficulty spelling even common words; frequently they will spell them phonetically (hrbr instead of harbor)

Avoid being called on to read out loud in front of classmates

Become tired or frustrated from reading

Dyslexia affects children outside of school as well. Kids with dyslexia may also:

Find it difficult to decode logos and signs

Struggle when trying to learn the rules to games

Have difficulty keeping track of multi-step directions

Struggle with getting the hang of telling time

Find it especially challenging to learn another language

Become incredibly frustrated, which can effect their mood and emotional stability

Social and emotional impacts of dyslexia

Dyslexia affects a lot more than reading - it can also impact a child socially. "A dyslexic person who has word-finding difficulties can have trouble with their expressive language," says Scott Bezsylko, the executive director of Winston Preparatory School, which specializes in teaching kids with learning disorders. "That has a social impact, in addition to your difficulties with reading and writing, that make you feel not so good about yourself."

Kids with dyslexia - particularly those who have yet to be diagnosed - often suffer from low self-esteem because they worry that there is something wrong with them, and are often accused of not trying hard enough to learn to read. "A lot of our work with dyslexic kids is to help them rediscover that they are smart and capable," notes Beszylko, "because they've stopped believing in themselves."

How is dyslexia diagnosed?

If your child isn't meeting expectations for reading, as parents you can ask the school district to perform an evaluation and share the results with you. The evaluation will test your child's intellectual capacity and reading skills, to see if there is an achievement gap. It should also rule out other potential causes like environmental factors or hearing impairment.

The school should then make recommendations on how they can support your child and maximize her learning.

If you are unhappy with the quality of the evaluation, you can also secure a private evaluation by a psychologist, a neuropsychologist, a reading specialist, a speech and language therapist, an educational evaluator or a school psychologist. This external evaluation can also be used to advocate for your child and get the accommodations and services she might need.

When should a child be evaluated?

Dyslexia can begin to reveal itself at a young age, and there are preschool evaluations that look at the child's awareness of the sounds that make up words, and ability at word retrieval. However, Matthew Cruger, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist at the Child Mind Institute, suggests waiting until kids are at least six years old and have had some formal instruction in reading to seek out a formal evaluation.

But Dr. Shaywitz notes that as soon as a gap between intelligence and reading skills is apparent - and evidence shows it can be seen in first grade - it's a good idea to get help. Schools sometimes encourage parents to wait until the third grade to see if their child truly needs an intervention, but Dr. Shaywitz argues that the earlier intervention is important not only to help kids catch up but to boost their fragile self-image, which is damaged by continuing struggle in school and comparisons with peers.

How to help kids with dyslexia

A dyslexia diagnosis does not mean your child will never learn to read. Dr. Cruger says there are a number of programs that can help, which might include these features:

Multi-sensory instruction in decoding skills

Repetition and review of skills

Intensity of intervention - that is, more than being pulled out of class once a week for extra help

Small group or individual instruction

Teaching decoding skills

Drilling sight words

Teaching comprehension strategies, to help kids derive meaning from what they're reading

Reading programs that been shown to help kids with dyslexia include:

Dr. Cruger points out that traditional tutoring may actually be counter-productive for a child with dyslexia, particularly if it is not a positive experience. "If the child hates the experience of reading help, it's not helpful," Dr. Cruger notes. "And it's not treating the source of the problem, the decoding weakness."

Instead, Dr. Cruger emphasizes that one of the most important ways to help kids with dyslexia is to make them more comfortable reading. This can be done in part by celebrating even small victories and accomplishments, while focusing less on correcting their errors.

Accommodations for kids with dyslexia

Kids with demonstrated dyslexia are eligible for accommodations in school. "Dyslexia robs a person of time," Dr. Shaywitz explains, "and accommodations give the time back to her." Accommodations may include:

Extra time on tests

A quiet space to work

The option to record lectures

The option to give verbal, rather than written, answers (when appropriate)

Elimination of oral reading in class

Exemption from foreign language learning

Other ways to support a child with dyslexia

One of the best ways to support a child with dyslexia - or any child who is struggling - is to encourage those activities that they like and feel good at, whether it is music, joining a sports team or anything else that helps build her confidence.

To help reinforce that dyslexia is not a marker of intelligence, it can also be helpful to talk about successful people - like Whoopi Goldberg and Steven Spielberg - who have also been diagnosed with dyslexia.

Other things that may help your child with dyslexia include:

Listening to audio books as an alternative to reading

Typing on a computer or tablet instead of writing

Apps that can make learning fun by turning decoding into a game

Using a ruler to help kids read in a straight line, which can help keep them focused

Emotional support

Dyslexia can result in frustration, embarrassment, avoidance and low self-esteem as a result of difficulties performing tasks that seem to come naturally to others. Demystifying the learning disorder with your child can help him develop the tools - and resilience - necessary to manage it, both in school and in social circumstances. Some things you can do to help include:

Discuss the specific challenges that result from dyslexia: "You know how you have a hard time reading signs or copying notes from the board? That's dyslexia."

Acknowledge their effort and celebrate hard work, even if there are still mistakes: "I know how difficult that reading homework was. I am so proud of how hard you tried."

Help them recognize their strengths: "You showed such great sportsmanship and teamwork in the soccer game the other night, and that was a great goal you scored!"

Combat negative self-talk: If your child starts saying things like, "I'm just stupid," don't ignore it. Instead, check out these ideas for helping kids who are too hard on themselves.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does dyslexia work?

How common is dyslexia?

What helps students with dyslexia?

What are the signs of dyslexia?

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Understanding Dyslexia - Child Mind Institute

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Find out how to recognize dyslexia, the most common learning disability. The Child Mind Institute on how to help kids who have trouble learning to read.