Dyslexia and Teacher Knowledge

For the first time this year I worked with a student who has dyslexia. While I was educated in my teacher preparation program on how to give systematic instruction for students with dyslexia, I found that the student did not make as much progress as I would have liked them to make in their reading fluency.

The National Research Counsel says that children learn to read well when:

• Have normal or above average language skills;
• Have had experiences in childhood that fostered motivation and provided exposure to literacy in use;
• Are given information about the nature of print via opportunities to learn letters and to recognize the sublexical structure of spoken words, as well as about the contrasting nature of spoken and written language; and
• Attend schools that provide coherent reading instruction and opportunities to practice (p. 315).

Several of my students who are struggling to learn to read have normal language skills. There is very little I can do about their experience of their exposure to print at home. What I can do is send home books and word work materials to foster exposure.

What can be controlled by teachers is the reading instruction and the opportunities to practice. Children with dyslexia struggle with phonological awareness. While their comprehension is good, they struggle to be able to read single words accurately and fluently. These students benefit from instruction that is systematic, explicit, direct, and intensive.

I am guilty as a teacher of saying that the child is just dyslexic to the child’s classroom teacher. Because the child comprehends well, we see the benefit of having the child in their general education classroom the majority of the time, with reading groups that are with other children at their reading level. The question I need to ask myself as a teach is what else can I do to help children in my classroom who have dyslexia become readers.

Studies have shown that having an understand of phoneme and grapheme relationships is vital to teachers who are teaching early reading. This makes it possible to better focus your instruction in the curriculum and gives the teacher more confidence in their instruction.

Being aware of the fact that dyslexia is a deficit in phoneme processing and not a visual problem is the key to being successful in your intervention for students with dyslexia. Ensuring that their reading instruction is rigorous and that the child is given ample opportunities to practice is important when having a student who has been identified as dyslexic or who has dyslexic type symptoms.