What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty that mainly affects a child's development in literacy and language.

It is characterised by:

• significant difficulties with reading and/or spelling
• difficulties processesing phonics
• difficulties in the speedy naming of letters, figures, objects, colours
•  short term memory problems - recall (the part of your memory you use to work things out)
• poor self-organisation
• poor sequencing skills
• persistent reversals of letters and/or numbers
• significant differences between oral/verbal ability and the ability to 'write things down'

Dyslexia facts

It appears across the ability range and is not caused by low intelligence. 

It is often hereditary.

It is likely to be present at birth and can have lifelong effects.

It is more of a spectrum with different children displaying a range of issues.

It can be resistant to conventional teaching methods.

Making our classrooms dyslexia friendly

Many of the ways that are successful in removing barriers for dyslexic children work effectively with all children.

These include:

• using suitably coloured backgrounds on the SMART Boards
• using the short form of the date more often to label work
• multi-sensory learning across the curriculum
• joining the letters in high frequency words that have irregular spellings
• Using different ways of recording, e.g. video, drawing, tape recording

For children who are or who we suspect are dyslexic we are also:

• removing stress from situations such as spelling tests
• providing them with coloured paper to work on
• giving them extra multi-sensory sessions for phonics, high frequency words and reading
• giving them longer to process information