Dyslexic - Spelling Help

sooty&sweep

Thankyou all,

Until recently he wasn't that keen on reading (although loved to listen to audio books) However he's now hooked and he's now requesting books himself from our local library and reading them. His current favourite author is Rick Riordan who wrote Percy Jackson etc.
I've got the Ace Spelling dictionary but he wasn't keen on using it however I've not rried for a while so I'll try again. Thats why I'd wondered about an electronic dictionary as you know boys & their toys !
I didn't mean to sound like I have low expectations for him. He is incredibly gifted on the maths & science side of things. We have very high expectations of him and he has very high expectations of himself. We are also very proud of him and he knows this. However expectations need to be achievable otherwise it kills self confidence if you never achieve your target.
Jen

Frugalbride

Try making the words with wooden letters/ writing in sand etc.
Use look say cover write check method. This way he will look at the word hear it being said and then practice writing it.
Keep writing it in usual handwriting over and over - theory is that this will use muscle memory - the body remembers.
Look for words within words e.g. There is a rat in separate.
Mnemonics as already said.
Play memory games.
Write out with pictures underneath.
The big one is to only work through a few at a time. To go through lots of different senses - touching, hearing, looking. To repeat and apply.
If I set spellings I would only give a child with dyslexia 3 or 4 spellings, rather than the usual 10. The aim being to develop confidence and use if different strategies.

Mojisola

sooty&sweep wrote: »

Until recently he wasn't that keen on reading (although loved to listen to audio books) However he's now hooked and he's now requesting books himself from our local library and reading them.

My son found his reading improved when he started using a Kindle. He read the words while the text-to-speech was on. He was able to enjoy the books more because he didn't have to keep stopping to decode words that he didn't know. After a while, he realised that his reading was improving.

Previous to that, he had used all the techniques Frugalbride describes plus glasses with a particular shade of red in the lenses (different colours help different people - yellow and green made it harder for him to see the words).

He also did a Saturday morning class with the local dyslexia group. He said he learnt more in that hour each week than he did all week at school.

pmlindyloo

Mojisola wrote: »

My son found his reading improved when he started using a Kindle. He read the words while the text-to-speech was on. He was able to enjoy the books more because he didn't have to keep stopping to decode words that he didn't know. After a while, he realised that his reading was improving.

Previous to that, he had used all the techniques Frugalbride describes plus glasses with a particular shade of red in the lenses (different colours help different people - yellow and green made it harder for him to see the words).

He also did a Saturday morning class with the local dyslexia group. He said he learnt more in that hour each week than he did all week at school.

You could get in touch with The Dyslexia Institute (now renamed on website) here:

http://dyslexiaaction.org.uk/services-and-support

securityguy

Counting_Pennies wrote: »

Many children are given yellow or green glasses to help them in day to day life.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/education_and_treatment_of_children/v032/32.2.hyatt.html

sillysid

My son is dyslexic...

He went to dyslexic institute for years, started early, learnt lots of strategies and then plateaued about 12.

the things he was taught were breaking words down to syllabeles.
Using mnemonics , eg - THE (IR) (RE) etc.
W/c/sh - ould (became oh you lucky ducks)
friend - fr - I will be your fr-i-end till the END
Learning word patterns - e.g. - vowel sounds, au, ee, ay, ea, or WH/W. TH, THR, T -they or rather he heard things differently from me.

I got a phonetic dictionary - barely used...

The difficulty is as they get older, vocabulary becomes more complex and if he is anything like mine, he can spell a learned word 6 different ways in a paragraph. He also has a patterning sequencing problem, so times tables could never be rote learned but he rounded up from 2,5 and 10 then deducted.

Books - I bought age specific books that were written especially for dyslexic readers, typically they'd be double spaced, off white paper,
and abbreviated, yet still content age and topic appropriate.

However the most valuable thing he learned was how he learned - visually - he could remember things by attaching a visual association to facts, eg, poetry, quotes.

He will never chose reading, and no matter how many rules you instil, spelling and written work will always be challenging. Keyboard skills are essential - my son can barely read his own writing, let alone anyone else reading it. Printing words rather than link up helps.The schools help at national exam time - using a computer, an audio paper, extra time, scribe, reader if needed.

As a parent you have to help - make sure he gets proper notes from when they are writing notes in class - short study guides rather than a telephone book textbook. Break up long passages, summarise notes, numbered bullet points. I am sure he will have excellent verbal skills, discussive study rather than written helps. watching a film of the book he is studying in class.

My son also has the associated chaos, disorganised, last minute dot.com, everything gets lost...He uses his phone for notes/quotes,etc. and I remind, remind, remind.

He can do everything, just takes so much longer than you would. And they never-ever want to do studying, you literally have to nail them to a chair and hover, as in no time he'll be off for a drink, the loo, etc. He has expert cunning skiver methods! Observe how long his concentration span is, roughly 30 mins in my sons case, then everything else is just noise and he doesn't take it in anyway. Play to his strengths while trying to accommodate weaknesses.

He's in uni now, fingers crossed!

choccymoose

securityguy wrote: »

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/education_and_treatment_of_children/v032/32.2.hyatt.html

There is just as much research out there in support of correctly screened tinted lenses as there is against. Same as dyslexia just as much it exisits asmit doesnt exist research out there.

Personally my son has dyslexic tendancies, he also has mears tendancies. He doesn't learn phonetically which is unusual so has to learn the shapes of the words. He wears a specific tint of green shade glasses that no matter how many different slight differences were made to, he always reverted back to this particular shade. When wearing his glasses his reading speeds up, his writing is legible and on the line. He is above average in Maths but was 3 years behind in writing and reading but comprehension slap where it should be. In the last 6 mths in his new school where he has been given all this support alongside a creative curriculum he has come up 4 reading levels, previously it was 4 reading levels in 4 years!
I know that it works for my son he is so confident now where as he used to dread going to school as he couldn't understand why he couldn't read and write, please if you are going to comment, make your comments useful. What works for one may not work for another, but surely why not try.

He also uses a tablet for speech to text software

yvonne9683

Have you spoke to the senco at your sons school? There are loads of software packages to help a dyslexic person. The British dyslexia association run parents courses around the country?
I attended one to help my son and the are a very helpful organisation!

Yvonne

summerspring

Association is a good way of remembering things.

depending on the word you can introduce a memory cue to remind him how trickier words are spelt. For example 'one cap, two socks' reminds you that the word necessary has one c and 2 s es

sillysid

choccomoose... (apologies I don't know how to quote)

Can i ask what speech to text software your child uses, and how he coped with learning it. I looked into the dragon software, and some others, but on the reviews and on discussion with vendors, users needed training for voice recognition in order to utilise. The training was a)costly, b)time consuming

By that time my son was sitting his exams and I felt it would have been too much for him to cope with on top of learning the modification tools he used to assist him in his exams, (audio, computer, extra time) but it would be useful for the future.

thanks in advance.