During the month of October, the difficulties that our learners have in the area of reading will be in the limelight, as it should. 5-10% of the world’s population are impacted by dyslexia, which is defined by the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity as “an unexpected difficulty in reading in an individual who has the intelligence to be a much better reader. While people with dyslexia are slow readers, they often, paradoxically, are very fast and creative thinkers with strong reasoning abilities.” Individuals with dyslexia demonstrate reading weaknesses at the phonological level. This is characterized by trouble with: the sounds of letters; decoding of words; knowledge of the phonetic code such as the long versus short vowel rule or when c should make a hard “k” sound as in cat versus a soft sound “s” as in city; auditory analysis; spelling; as well as in the reading of text. A strong foundation in the phonetic code is necessary to becoming a fluent reader.
In this article, I would like to discuss resources available to parents to help their child. In addition to the difficulties our learners have in reading, I’d like to discuss several other areas of learning disabilities that do not have an awareness month and yet often go hand in hand with dyslexia. I am talking about dysgraphia and dyscalculia.
According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, dysgraphia is a learning disability that impacts ones writing abilities. It shows up as poor spelling, poor penmanship and as having trouble with putting thoughts down on paper. These individuals appear as sloppy and disorganized writers.
Learners who have persistent weaknesses in the area of mathematics may have a learning disability known as dyscalculia. Dyscalculia shows up as difficulties with number sense, math facts and calculations, and mathematical reasoning.
Many learners with learning disabilities may demonstrate weaknesses in one or more of these critical skill areas. Here’s an example of a student with learning disabilities – Johnny is a 3 rd grade student with dyslexia. Functionally, he is reading on a first-grade level. He knows about 20 sight words, confuses his b/d, p/q and g/j. Johnny is learning to sound out words that have long/short vowel sounds. When he writes, he holds the pencil incorrectly, his spelling is poor, and his handwriting is large and illegible. In the area of math, Johnny can do basic computations on his fingers but struggles with multiplication/division, multi-digit problems and word problems. Based on this profile, it is likely that Johnny may present as a child with multiple learning disabilities in the area of reading, writing and mathematics. The challenge is that the difficulties in reading and handwriting are impacting all academic areas. When developing interventions for Johnny, care needs to be taken to ensure that the skills targeted for intervention will impact all areas of need. For Johnny, he needs intensive daily intervention in reading and handwriting. He needs at a minimum 45 minutes a day of evidence-based reading instruction and daily intervention to improve his fine motor strength, endurance and legibility for handwriting. He is also in need of at a minimum 30 minutes a day of mathematics intervention using evidence-based methods. These recommendations are the minimum recommendations I would make for a learner with this profile of learning disabilities.
So, what can a parent do when their child presents with persistent learning difficulties in the area of reading, math, and writing? The first thing to do is DO NOT WAIT!!! No matter what the doctor tells you, no matter what your friends tell you, no matter what the school tells you – DO NOT TAKE A WAIT AND SEE APPROACH!!! All too often, I work with learners in grades 3 and up who have long had learning difficulties but whose parents have been told to just hang in there because their child will grow out of these difficulties. Children with persistent learning difficulties that are present in their early elementary years do not grow out of these difficulties. What ends up occurring is the achievement gap becomes so large that it takes years of work to close that gap while the learner continues to miss out on grade-level instruction. Early intervention is the key to addressing any learning difficulty.
So, where does a parent begin? If the child is in the public school, the parent needs to approach the school administrator and ask for comprehensive testing to be done on their child to identify all learning difficulties and whether there is a learning disability. This process will take the team 65 days to complete. If it is determined that your child has a learning disability, it will take another 30 days to develop an Individualized Education Plan which is the service plan identifying the instruction your child will receive to address their learning disabilities. With this timeline, it will take 3 months, at a minimum, before your child can receive educational services. If your child does qualify, your child will receive academic services and supports to address all areas of need.
What can you do in the meanwhile? Find a highly qualified educator who can provide intensive intervention to address all areas of deficits. Because the achievement gap is likely large, you want to find a provider who will deliver intervention at a minimum of 3 days a week for no less than 45 minutes a session. I highly recommend that you find a provider who can give your child 1-1 instruction. This level of intervention ensures that the provider is responsive to your child’s needs alone and not the needs of the group. Your child has no time to waste. The achievement gap needs to be closed so that they can keep up with instruction in the classroom and be a successful student. Find a provider who uses the science of learning to assess your child’s performance daily and uses that information to evaluate and improve instruction within session. Your child should leave each session with improved skills and excited to return for another session. As a parent, you should be receiving daily data-based reports of progress. Just as your child does not have time to waste, you as the parent do not have the resources to waste on session reports that only speak to how happy your child is in session. You should expect and receive information on growth on specific skills and growth in comparison to peers. Visit the Directory of Macaroni Kid Roanoke to find the names of tutoring services in our area who can assist your child.
So, what can a parent do at home? Practice, practice, practice. There are so many great resources available that provide materials and ideas for activities to do at home. They key thing is that these
activities should be fun. If you find that there are tears and refusals, it is likely that the activities are too difficult for your child. Below are links to some helpful resources:
17 activities to support kids with dyslexia
7 Practical Ways Parents can help a child with dyscalculia
Math Coach’s Corner (fantastic resource)
If you would like to learn more about how to address the reading or other learning needs of your child, send Teresa an email at teresalyons@academicsaccelerated.com or give her a call at 540-443-3748. Teresa Lyons is the owner of Academics Accelerated, a learning center located at the Hive in Vinton. They provide an individualized and intensive learning program to learners from preschool to adults that address many skill areas from reading, writing, math, reading comprehension, penmanship, college test prep and more. All programs are supervised by a licensed general and special education teacher as well as by a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. To learn more about Academics Accelerated, visit www.academicsaccelerated.com. Be sure to click on the “Reserve Your Free Consult Now!” button to schedule a free 45 consultation. We are here to help your student thrive.
