Systematic and explicit instructions help develop sound-letter awareness and an understanding of written language, which is beneficial for improving reading fluency in dyslexic children. The blog post will discuss how dyslexic students learn to read, write, and spell.
How to Improve Reading Skills of Dyslexic Students?
Dyslexia refers to the way the brain processes language. It can range from mild to severe. Keep in mind that dyslexia is not associated with low intelligence, vision or hearing problems. With Orton Gillingham tutoring in Toronto, children with dyslexia can learn to read, write and spell efficiently.
Dyslexic students lack phonemic awareness. It is a recognition that words are made using individual sounds that can be represented by written letters and spelling patterns. All children with dyslexia need to develop phonemic awareness before they learn to read. It would be difficult to blend and segment sounds and letters without phonemic awareness.
Poor orthographic coding can also cause problems for some children. It is the series of conventions for writing a language, such as punctuation, standardized spelling, capitalization and so on. If a child doesn’t understand these writing rules, then it would be difficult to read fluently. It has been seen that dyslexic children struggle with morphological awareness. It is another challenge that dyslexic students face when they read.
Orton Gillingham Tutoring for Reading Comprehension
One of the most crucial components in supporting children with dyslexia to learn to read and write is using Orton Gillingham’s Approach. In Orton Gillingham, the phonemes are used in a sequential, systematic and cumulative way. The Orton Gillingham Tutor starts with the most basic elements of the English language.
- Tutors teach phonemes step by step in a logical order using sequential and repetition building blocks of our language.
- By systematically teaching one reading or spelling rule at a time, and providing ample practice until dyslexic students can fluently apply the rule, we can effectively eliminate reading and spelling gaps for these students.
- Orton Gillingham develops a strong reading foundation. As the dyslexic students progress to short vowels, they start reading and writing sounds in isolation.
- From there they move further to digraphs, blends and diphthongs.
- Dyslexic students are taught how to listen to syllables or words and divide them into individual phonemes.
- They also take individual sounds and mix them into a word, change the sounds in the words, delete sounds and make comparisons with the sounds.
Every lesson in the Orton-Gillingham program is carefully structured and taught in an orderly manner. A child learns a skill and does not move on to the next until they have mastered the current one. As they acquire new material, they continue to review previous content until it is committed to long-term memory. Throughout this process, the focus remains on phonemic awareness.
The Orton-Gillingham method consists of 181 phonemes or rules to learn. This program is not limited to younger children, it progresses to advanced topics for older students, such as English language rules, syllable patterns, and the use of roots, prefixes, and suffixes. By teaching children to combine individual letters or sounds to form words and to break longer words into smaller parts, both synthetic and analytic phonics are integrated throughout the entire program.
Orton Gillingham Tutors use Orton Gillingham’s approach, which is a multisensory, structured, repetitive and step-by-step program to teach every sound and spelling rule. Although this technique works with all students, it is especially beneficial for dyslexic students. You can reach Class in Session if you find your child has dyslexia and finds difficulty in reading, writing and spelling.