From Christine ASIKO:
"A disabled person is defined as someone ‘who has a physical or mental impairment which has an effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’ and covers any physical or mental disability, including sensory impairment and ‘hidden’ disabilities such as mental illness, learning disability, dyslexia, diabetes and epilepsy. "
British Disability Discrimination Act (1995)
The community has a role to play in supporting disabled people. The community can choose to make the lives of the disabled easier. The community, namely SAGAM can be a ‘disabled-friendly’ community. If community members find basic ways of supporting people with disabilities, by using available local resources existing in the community, we can reach more disabled people in the community and improve their well being. Family members, teachers, religious leaders and disabled people organizations have the ability to support disabled people to achieve a more ordinary lifestyle. Undoubtedly, community members require knowledge about disabilities and guidance on how to assist disabled people and this article is a token of the extensive knowledge that can be made available to anyone who is interested. SAGAM take on this challenge!
In a ‘disabled- friendly’ community a more ordinary lifestyle for disabled individuals is made possible in many ways. Enabling access to information, treating people as individuals, providing support for the family as a whole are examples. The support should be imaginative and should be available at the right time. This should be provided by well informed, supportive and approachable staff that are flexible.
For the purposes of this article I will not expand on the ideas above. Instead I have chosen to focus on DYSLEXIA, one of the disabilities and the role that the teachers of SAGAM, our existing resources, can play in making our schools ‘dyslexia-friendly’. Dyslexia is just one of many learning difficulties but it affects severely a significant percentage of the population.
Dyslexia causes difficulties in learning to read, write and spell. Short-term memory, mathematics, concentration, personal organisation and sequencing may also be affected.
Dyslexia usually arises from a weakness in the processing of language-based information. Biological in origin, it tends to run in families, but environmental factors also contribute.
Dyslexia can occur at any level of intellectual ability. It is not the result of poor motivation, emotional disturbance, sensory impairment or lack of opportunities, but it may occur alongside any of these.
The effects of dyslexia can be largely overcome by skilled specialist teaching and the use of compensatory strategies.
The Dyslexia Institute 2002Each dyslexic's difficulties are different and vary from slight to very severe disruption of the learning process. There is no total cure but the effects of dyslexia can be alleviated by skilled specialist teaching and committed learning. On the positive side there is a hypothesis that the neurological abnormalities also give some dyslexic people visual, spatial and lateral thinking abilities that enable them to be successful in a wide range of careers. Each dyslexic person has her/his own pattern of strengths and weaknesses. Many shine in such fields as the arts, creativity, design and computing. What they need is to be identified and taught, to enable them to release their talents in wide-ranging careers.
The condition is linked to a huge range of social problems. There is a higher incidence of dyslexia in people in prisons, youngsters excluded from school and the long-term unemployed. Early intervention of dyslexic children who have behaviour problems usually improve when the right kind of teaching for reading, writing, spelling and basic mathematics is provided
Below are a few characteristics that teachers may notice in their students and these are possible pointers of dyslexia.
All ages
· Is s/he bright in some ways with a 'block' in others?
· Is there anyone else in the family with similar difficulties?
· Does s/he have difficulty carrying out three instructions in sequence?
· Was s/he late in learning to talk, or with speaking clearly?
Ages 7-11
Does s/he have particular difficulty with reading or spelling?
Does s/he put figures or letters the wrong way e.g. 15 for 51, 6 for 9, b for d, was for saw?
Does s/he read a word then fail to recognize it further down the page?
Does s/he spell a word several different ways without recognizing the correct version?
Does s/he have a poor concentration span for reading and writing?
Does s/he have difficulty understanding time and tense?
Does s/he confuse left and right?
Does s/he answer questions orally but have difficulty writing the answer?
Is s/he unusually clumsy?
Does s/he have trouble with sounds in words, e.g. poor sense of rhyme?
Ages 12 - adult
Is s/he sometimes inaccurate in reading?
Is spelling poor?
Does s/he have difficulty taking notes or copying?
Does s/he have difficulty with planning and writing essays, letters or reports?
Some common problems
You may think:
S/he's not listening
S/he may have difficulty in remembering a list of instructions.
S/he may have problems getting thoughts together coherently for story or essay writing.
S/he may have sequencing problems and may need to be taught strategies to cope/alternative ways of remembering.
S/he's lazy
S/he may have difficulty in organizing work and need specific teaching to help her/him.
S/he may be able to answer the questions orally but can't write them down.
The child may have found that the less s/he writes, the less trouble s/he gets into for making mistakes
S/he's not concentrating
S/he may have difficulty in copying accurately. This is often because s/he cannot remember chunks but needs to look at each letter, write it, then look at the board again, find the place, and so on...
S/he's careless
S/he may have very poor handwriting as s/he hasn't sufficient hand skills to control the pencil.
S/he's not checking work
S/he may spell the same word several different ways if s/he doesn't have the visual memory to know what is right or the kinesthetic memory for it to feel right as s/he is writing.
S/he doesn't look carefully
S/he may have a visual memory deficiency and therefore experience difficulty when interpreting symbols.
S/he's being awkward / impossible on purpose
S/he may be able to produce very good work one day and the next "trip up over every word". "Off days" are quite common and require extra encouragement and understanding.
Some common strengths
You may be surprised that:
S/he has a good visual eye
S/he may be able to arrange the furniture in the classroom very effectively.
S/he's very imaginative and skilful with her/his hands
S/he may be able to make the best models.
S/he's practical
S/he may be able to work the computer before the others - even perhaps repair it. S/he may be able to start the car when others have failed.
S/he's mad on sport
S/he may excel at individual sports.
S/he's got a fantastic imagination
S/he may be able to tell wonderful stories- if her/his long term memory is good.
See the chart that appears above. It is a quiz that teachers can use to alert them to the possibilities of dyslexia in an individual of any age.
“It is a lonely existence to be a child with a disability which no-one can see or understand, you exasperate your teachers, you disappoint your parents, and worst of all you know that you are not just stupid”.
Susan Hampshire
If a child cannot learn the way we teach then we must teach the way s/he can learn
In what way can the teacher make the dyslexic learner experience in class easier?
· An understanding of dyslexia as a condition would be useful.
· Evaluating existing methods of teaching and materials used in the classroom to determine how ‘dyslexia friendly’ they are is important.
· Subjects that are difficult and discouraging for the learner should be left out to a large extent.
· Teacher should suspend unremorseful or negative judgments about students, after all they are simply responding to our level of teaching skills. It is our responsibility to get through to the students to ensure a successful learning session.
· Learning is a multi-level experience therefore the most effective teaching has to be multi-sensory. The student will learn best through the use of all their senses
· The greatest percentage of what students learn is not in a lesson plan, it is in our attitude, feelings, dialogues, actions and classroom set up. It is very possible to learn something new from no information at all.
· One common tendency amongst we teachers is to teach the way that we like to be taught. This way is guaranteed to please at least one person; us. Our preferred teaching strategies will only be beneficial to us and this is not about us, it is about the learner.
· An ideal lesson will contain lots of emotion, celebration, play, humour, fantasy and imagination. Music is one example
· Appropriate communication -use language that the learner is familiar with. Remember that what has not been said is often more believable. For example you ask a student, “What is wrong?” He shrugs his shoulders and in a cracked voice says, “Nothing really…I’m okay.” You do not believe his words but you believe his non verbal message. Now reverse the situation…Our body language must be checked constantly. Our posture, eye contact, physical positioning, expressions and gestures must be thought through with a lot of care. Take notice of your voice qualities: tonality, pitch, tempo and rhythm. When you deliver your message make it short-watch the length of your sentences
· A picture presentation of words is an important. Help the learner to visualize words.
· Use colour coding to draw attention to the message.
· Repetition is vital. The challenge is to find 10 or more different ways of repeating vocabulary, concepts and sentence structures
· Whenever there is an introduction or teaching point start from a tangible point.
· When teaching vocabulary start with a general term before teaching a specific meaning. This makes comprehension and memorizing the word much easier. Generalized meaning would be words like ‘BIG’ and ‘LARGE’. These words can be broken down to have a variety of meanings for instance, ‘height, weight, width or length’ A specific meaning could be ‘tall or wide’. To put it simply ‘big’ should be taught before ‘tall’ and ‘large’ before ‘wide’
· In antonym pairs it is suggested that the (+) be taught first. On/Off. On is the positive state and off the negative state
· Pictures to teach new words should be simple. To teach the word DOG one should use a simple picture. To present one that shows a dog eating, jumping or inside a kennel could be misleading. These simple pictures are also useful when used to form sentences.
· In order to teach spellings start with the letters that are not confusable. ‘n’ ‘t’ ‘b’ ‘s’ ‘g’. This should be followed up by names and sounds. The letters ‘a’ and ‘I’ can be used to build up words like ‘bat’ ‘sat’ ‘tin’ ‘sin’ ‘bin’ ‘bit’ ‘big’. When these have been mastered the plural‘s’ can be added as soon as short sentences can be written.
· Add physical movement cues for example tapping for words or syllable gestures
· Shorten and breakdown information it is easier to remember
· PROVIDE INDIVIDUAL HELP
British Disability Discrimination Act (1995)
The community has a role to play in supporting disabled people. The community can choose to make the lives of the disabled easier. The community, namely SAGAM can be a ‘disabled-friendly’ community. If community members find basic ways of supporting people with disabilities, by using available local resources existing in the community, we can reach more disabled people in the community and improve their well being. Family members, teachers, religious leaders and disabled people organizations have the ability to support disabled people to achieve a more ordinary lifestyle. Undoubtedly, community members require knowledge about disabilities and guidance on how to assist disabled people and this article is a token of the extensive knowledge that can be made available to anyone who is interested. SAGAM take on this challenge!
In a ‘disabled- friendly’ community a more ordinary lifestyle for disabled individuals is made possible in many ways. Enabling access to information, treating people as individuals, providing support for the family as a whole are examples. The support should be imaginative and should be available at the right time. This should be provided by well informed, supportive and approachable staff that are flexible.
For the purposes of this article I will not expand on the ideas above. Instead I have chosen to focus on DYSLEXIA, one of the disabilities and the role that the teachers of SAGAM, our existing resources, can play in making our schools ‘dyslexia-friendly’. Dyslexia is just one of many learning difficulties but it affects severely a significant percentage of the population.
Dyslexia causes difficulties in learning to read, write and spell. Short-term memory, mathematics, concentration, personal organisation and sequencing may also be affected.
Dyslexia usually arises from a weakness in the processing of language-based information. Biological in origin, it tends to run in families, but environmental factors also contribute.
Dyslexia can occur at any level of intellectual ability. It is not the result of poor motivation, emotional disturbance, sensory impairment or lack of opportunities, but it may occur alongside any of these.
The effects of dyslexia can be largely overcome by skilled specialist teaching and the use of compensatory strategies.
The Dyslexia Institute 2002Each dyslexic's difficulties are different and vary from slight to very severe disruption of the learning process. There is no total cure but the effects of dyslexia can be alleviated by skilled specialist teaching and committed learning. On the positive side there is a hypothesis that the neurological abnormalities also give some dyslexic people visual, spatial and lateral thinking abilities that enable them to be successful in a wide range of careers. Each dyslexic person has her/his own pattern of strengths and weaknesses. Many shine in such fields as the arts, creativity, design and computing. What they need is to be identified and taught, to enable them to release their talents in wide-ranging careers.
The condition is linked to a huge range of social problems. There is a higher incidence of dyslexia in people in prisons, youngsters excluded from school and the long-term unemployed. Early intervention of dyslexic children who have behaviour problems usually improve when the right kind of teaching for reading, writing, spelling and basic mathematics is provided
Below are a few characteristics that teachers may notice in their students and these are possible pointers of dyslexia.
All ages
· Is s/he bright in some ways with a 'block' in others?
· Is there anyone else in the family with similar difficulties?
· Does s/he have difficulty carrying out three instructions in sequence?
· Was s/he late in learning to talk, or with speaking clearly?
Ages 7-11
Does s/he have particular difficulty with reading or spelling?
Does s/he put figures or letters the wrong way e.g. 15 for 51, 6 for 9, b for d, was for saw?
Does s/he read a word then fail to recognize it further down the page?
Does s/he spell a word several different ways without recognizing the correct version?
Does s/he have a poor concentration span for reading and writing?
Does s/he have difficulty understanding time and tense?
Does s/he confuse left and right?
Does s/he answer questions orally but have difficulty writing the answer?
Is s/he unusually clumsy?
Does s/he have trouble with sounds in words, e.g. poor sense of rhyme?
Ages 12 - adult
Is s/he sometimes inaccurate in reading?
Is spelling poor?
Does s/he have difficulty taking notes or copying?
Does s/he have difficulty with planning and writing essays, letters or reports?
Some common problems
You may think:
S/he's not listening
S/he may have difficulty in remembering a list of instructions.
S/he may have problems getting thoughts together coherently for story or essay writing.
S/he may have sequencing problems and may need to be taught strategies to cope/alternative ways of remembering.
S/he's lazy
S/he may have difficulty in organizing work and need specific teaching to help her/him.
S/he may be able to answer the questions orally but can't write them down.
The child may have found that the less s/he writes, the less trouble s/he gets into for making mistakes
S/he's not concentrating
S/he may have difficulty in copying accurately. This is often because s/he cannot remember chunks but needs to look at each letter, write it, then look at the board again, find the place, and so on...
S/he's careless
S/he may have very poor handwriting as s/he hasn't sufficient hand skills to control the pencil.
S/he's not checking work
S/he may spell the same word several different ways if s/he doesn't have the visual memory to know what is right or the kinesthetic memory for it to feel right as s/he is writing.
S/he doesn't look carefully
S/he may have a visual memory deficiency and therefore experience difficulty when interpreting symbols.
S/he's being awkward / impossible on purpose
S/he may be able to produce very good work one day and the next "trip up over every word". "Off days" are quite common and require extra encouragement and understanding.
Some common strengths
You may be surprised that:
S/he has a good visual eye
S/he may be able to arrange the furniture in the classroom very effectively.
S/he's very imaginative and skilful with her/his hands
S/he may be able to make the best models.
S/he's practical
S/he may be able to work the computer before the others - even perhaps repair it. S/he may be able to start the car when others have failed.
S/he's mad on sport
S/he may excel at individual sports.
S/he's got a fantastic imagination
S/he may be able to tell wonderful stories- if her/his long term memory is good.
See the chart that appears above. It is a quiz that teachers can use to alert them to the possibilities of dyslexia in an individual of any age.
“It is a lonely existence to be a child with a disability which no-one can see or understand, you exasperate your teachers, you disappoint your parents, and worst of all you know that you are not just stupid”.
Susan Hampshire
If a child cannot learn the way we teach then we must teach the way s/he can learn
In what way can the teacher make the dyslexic learner experience in class easier?
· An understanding of dyslexia as a condition would be useful.
· Evaluating existing methods of teaching and materials used in the classroom to determine how ‘dyslexia friendly’ they are is important.
· Subjects that are difficult and discouraging for the learner should be left out to a large extent.
· Teacher should suspend unremorseful or negative judgments about students, after all they are simply responding to our level of teaching skills. It is our responsibility to get through to the students to ensure a successful learning session.
· Learning is a multi-level experience therefore the most effective teaching has to be multi-sensory. The student will learn best through the use of all their senses
· The greatest percentage of what students learn is not in a lesson plan, it is in our attitude, feelings, dialogues, actions and classroom set up. It is very possible to learn something new from no information at all.
· One common tendency amongst we teachers is to teach the way that we like to be taught. This way is guaranteed to please at least one person; us. Our preferred teaching strategies will only be beneficial to us and this is not about us, it is about the learner.
· An ideal lesson will contain lots of emotion, celebration, play, humour, fantasy and imagination. Music is one example
· Appropriate communication -use language that the learner is familiar with. Remember that what has not been said is often more believable. For example you ask a student, “What is wrong?” He shrugs his shoulders and in a cracked voice says, “Nothing really…I’m okay.” You do not believe his words but you believe his non verbal message. Now reverse the situation…Our body language must be checked constantly. Our posture, eye contact, physical positioning, expressions and gestures must be thought through with a lot of care. Take notice of your voice qualities: tonality, pitch, tempo and rhythm. When you deliver your message make it short-watch the length of your sentences
· A picture presentation of words is an important. Help the learner to visualize words.
· Use colour coding to draw attention to the message.
· Repetition is vital. The challenge is to find 10 or more different ways of repeating vocabulary, concepts and sentence structures
· Whenever there is an introduction or teaching point start from a tangible point.
· When teaching vocabulary start with a general term before teaching a specific meaning. This makes comprehension and memorizing the word much easier. Generalized meaning would be words like ‘BIG’ and ‘LARGE’. These words can be broken down to have a variety of meanings for instance, ‘height, weight, width or length’ A specific meaning could be ‘tall or wide’. To put it simply ‘big’ should be taught before ‘tall’ and ‘large’ before ‘wide’
· In antonym pairs it is suggested that the (+) be taught first. On/Off. On is the positive state and off the negative state
· Pictures to teach new words should be simple. To teach the word DOG one should use a simple picture. To present one that shows a dog eating, jumping or inside a kennel could be misleading. These simple pictures are also useful when used to form sentences.
· In order to teach spellings start with the letters that are not confusable. ‘n’ ‘t’ ‘b’ ‘s’ ‘g’. This should be followed up by names and sounds. The letters ‘a’ and ‘I’ can be used to build up words like ‘bat’ ‘sat’ ‘tin’ ‘sin’ ‘bin’ ‘bit’ ‘big’. When these have been mastered the plural‘s’ can be added as soon as short sentences can be written.
· Add physical movement cues for example tapping for words or syllable gestures
· Shorten and breakdown information it is easier to remember
· PROVIDE INDIVIDUAL HELP
1 comment:
This is a great article on a subject not yet adequately researched and recognized in Africa. In the crowded and busy classrooms of Africa, learning disabilities are not recognized for what they are and the pupils are victims of daily mockery and deemed unteachable. Most children with learning disabilty drop out of school and never make it, which is a great waste. The big challenge is how to change the situation and give them a chance. Could the auther assist with some practical thoughts on this?
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