Almost
all people with dyslexia have great difficulty with spelling.
Memorizing a list for a weekly spelling test may be workable,
but the same word which must be used in a sentence later in
the week may show transposition of letters, reversals, and processing
problems.
People
can also just have a specific spelling disability without having
a specific reading disability. This is a not as common and is
more a rarity rather than the usual. However it happens. Usually,
people having trouble with spelling have trouble with math facts
and math symbols.
Poor
spelling has to do with the awareness and analyzing of letters,
sounds, syllables, and coding. In the early grades, children
are considered to be " poor speller," if they cannot
code words. In the later grades, the failure to be able to spell
is now an "orthographic memory disability." {The difficulty
to memorize letters and words.}
There
are stages of spelling development. The first stage is the beginning
of writing letters and symbols that are not phonetic, but represent
the word. The second stage is writing words with the phonetic
sounds that are easily read. Children in the early grades invent
spellings of words to discover sounds to make up words. This
is just a short stage and should change as children learn spelling
rules.
Dyslexic
children have difficulty going through the stages of spelling
development. The phonetic stage seems to be the one they get
stuck in. They need specific pattern based systems to learn
by, or a common sense approach to spelling. One of the best
ways to teach spelling to a dyslexic is a multi-sensory way.
Through the use of a child listening, saying, looking and writing
spelling symbols and through the use of various combinations
of resources including anything that will help the student in
knowing how the word is spoken and written will be most helpful.
We recommend using the tactile approach to be your first approach.
You can use scented colors, macaroni, magnetic letters, sparklers,
traceable letters, the computer, or anything which can be manipulated
into making letters.
It
is also to be noted that perhaps, because of the severity of
the dyslexia, the person will benefit from the use of computers,
dictionaries, or other assisted technology programs. In this
manner, the dyslexic’s energy is not involved with a developmental
skill that can be remedied by technology.
Let’s
focus on the strength of the dyslexic rather than the weakness.
Our
English language of using letters for sounds is much more complex
than some other languages such as Spanish, but it is a learnable
system. Less than 5% of our vocabulary does not conform to the
spelling structural patterns; however, they seem to be the ones
that are the "odd balls" which children have the most
trouble with. Words like "they, does, their, " are
words which are not pronounced the way they are spelled and
some really odd ball words do not conform to a pattern of any
type.
Children
learn to spell by using the words as they write. It is important
to write about something they are interested in. Recently, we
discovered if we used the Internet to look up a particular item
of interest, read it, then wrote about it, the spelling of the
student became stronger. We then made a list of their favorite
words, not for a spelling list, but for them to write more information
about their subject. The next time they came we drew pictures
and wrote under them and put together a short book. We didn’t
stop there. Speeches were made on their subject and flyers about
their main idea were made. The children responded well to this
multi-sensory way of learning spelling and we used these words
over and over again as we did these tasks.
You
could think of a dozen ways to involve your child into learning
spelling. How about using scented markers to make a design and
put the words on the design? How about getting a box of cherrios
and spelling a word or two, then eating them. What if your child
had fun when learning his spelling words. You could cut up the
letters in his words and one at a time see how fast he could
put them together. You could get colored macaroni and form the
letters out of those or use paints to paint the letters of a
word using various colors. Get creative. You will enjoy the
project and it will not be a stressful situation for either
of you. Your dyslexic child knows when you are upset and all
learning comes to a halt when you are angry.
What
if all this doesn’t work?? There is always spelling computers,
dictionaries, and you. You must encourage your child to do his
best but don’t let him lose sight of "who he is."
Have fun with him.
