Guidelines To Help You Identify Dyslexia And Support Your Dyslexic Grade School Child
ShareDyslexia is a learning difficulty that affects a child's reading ability. Identifying dyslexia early will allow you to offer your grade school child support. Below are guidelines to help you identify dyslexia in your grade school child and tips on how to support your child to overcome the difficulty.
Reading Ability
Slow reading is one significant sign that shows a child is dyslexic. A grade school child should be able to read something out loud at a particular speed. So if you notice your child cannot read as fast as you would expect, then first get to know if their reading is way below what is expected. You can get your child's performance report from the teachers.
Remember that it's advisable that you get a professional speech therapist for your child if they have dyslexia. However, you can complement speech therapy by adopting paired reading and using it at home. Paired reading involves reading together with your child. Helping your child read this way will boost fast development of vocabulary and learning how to read words the right way.
Spelling Ability
Bizarre spelling is one way of identifying dyslexia in young scholars. For example, a dyslexic child will wrongly use letter u in place of letter n. So take time to help your grade school child to study. You can set aside a day during the weekend and do school homework or create an assignment for your child.
Adopting a Simultaneous Oral Spelling method when studying together with your child is one effective way of helping your young scholar to improve their spelling. The method engages a child's auditory, visual and motor abilities. For example, you can ask your child to spell aloud as they write a particular word that you've introduced.
Memory Ability
Poor memory that is below the ability expected for the level your child is at is a known dyslexia symptom. For example, you will find that your child cannot remember an outline of instructions that would be easy for other age mates or classmates to master. However, you'll find out that when you give your child the same instructions one-by-one, the child is able to follow through.
Memory issues associated with dyslexia occur because your child is not able to transfer learnt information to their long-term memory, states Dyslexia.ie. Repeating a word or a list severally will boost your child's ability to remember learnt items. Also, helping your child to do memory practices will greatly help them improve their reading performance.
Identifying dyslexia in good time will allow you to support your child in overcoming or dealing with the challenge. The tips above will come in handy in helping you identify dyslexia in your grade school child and also in supporting them through their learning difficulty.