What Activities to Help Dyslexic Child in Reading & Identifying Numbers?

Is your child facing trouble in reading? Do you feel that your otherwise intelligent child is a slow reader? Then your child may be dyslexic. If you have seen the movie "Taare Zameen Par" you must have had some idea about dyslexia.

Learning Disability is also known as a "Teaching disability". Why? You may ask. Well, because children with learning disability can often learn lot of things if from the very early stages they are taught the way they learn and not taught the way we want to teach. Your child’s learning ability is unique and no one technique works for every child.

So, you will have to first identify and check what works for your child and how he/she is grasping content best. Here I am sharing some specific helpful techniques to correctly identify followings...

• Reading
• Numbers

What Activities to Help Dyslexic Child in Reading?

Reading is a challenge for your child and very often he/she fails in this. Your child might be getting nervous and his/her anxiety levels go high the moment he/she is expected to read. The aim of any reading task for your child should be more of comprehension rather than just perfect reading.

• Try using story books with more of big colourful pictures and less of text to read
• Ensure appropriate reading level books. Lady bird series for beginners is highly recommended
• Keep highlighting important information or vocabulary while reading; it could be dates, events name of characters etc
• Read turn wise, where you read the major part and your child only has to read a little to begin with
• Whether you are reading a short story or long, always use a simple story map before and after reading to help in comprehending what is read

Note: While your child is writing details in story maps, the aim is just to imagine, remember, understand and organize information in graphic organizers. It is not to write grammatically correct sentences with correct spellings, grammar or sentence construction or neat work.

What Activities To Conquer Dyslexic Child to Remeber Numbers?

With numbers what is most important to remember is that by nature any concept related to it is vague and becomes a part of rote learning. For a numerical concept to be understood it really helps if it can be inculcated in a child’s every day routine life.

• When your child is learning counting and other concepts like missing numbers and skip counting, talk about numbers in general conversations like phone numbers, TV channels, house numbers etc
• Reinforce numbers while climbing stairs, counting grocery items, books etc
• While doing all this sometimes deliberately make errors, let learning be fun with some guessing work and competition
• Talk about different events of the day taking place during different times, for eg. Morning chores, lunch etc. Even if your child does not know how to see time right now, you can still talk about it
• Play sequencing games, dominoes, snakes and ladders and ludo
• Use math vocabulary in everyday life like how many, equal, one less etc. For eg. You can play simple games like "I gave you two apples and dadi gave you two, count and tell me how many do you have now"
• Use lot of fun reinforcing worksheets
• Focus a lot on breaking down the concept into simple steps. If possible write down the steps for every concept on a separate flash card and keep them alongside while studying

Valuable Techniques For Smooth Learning

For children with learning disability there are some techniques to handle a dyslexic child that work brilliantly if implemented regularly

1. Multisensory Methods:

   It involves use of the four senses of our body- visual, auditory, tactile and kinaesthetic. They are used to receive and process information. Use textures for tracing letters, numbers, words, spellings, doing calculations etc. You can use rice, mud, sugar, salt, dry holi colours. This has been found to be one of the most effective methods for teaching children with learning disability.

2. Graphic organizers:

   Wherever possible use simple visual graphic organizers for information, flow of events, categorizing. For eg. Flow charts, story maps, tables etc.

3. Drill:

   Drill of every concept is important. But make sure not to keep jumping from one concept to other, your child might take extra time as per his/her level to master a particular concept. Let one concept reach the mastery of at least 70-80% out of 100 before moving to the next and even if you move to the next concept to meet curriculum demands, make sure to continue re-enforcing the previous one.

4. Consistency:

   very very important to maintain consistency in every area. If you are practicing a certain technique in a certain way, do it for a longer period of time and like I said above let it reach some mastery level.

5. Rewards and Praise:

   Make rewards and praise almost a daily habit. With barriers to learning and constant failures your child will have low self-esteem and low confidence and sometimes low desire to achieve. Rewards used effectively and appropriately make a lot of difference.

Read This Also: Check Age-wise Signs & Symptoms of Dyslexia 

Do you know any child who has a learning disability? Do you know any more ways in which you can make learning fun for these children? If yes, please share your views and feedback in the comments section below.