A dyslexic child may experience extreme frustration. This could lead to challenging behaviour or emotional withdrawal. Such reactions are upsetting for everyone and can make learning even more difficult.
Dyslexia disorder is a learning disability. This means that it affects the reading and writing skills that an individual use to learn. Particularly, dyslexia makes it challenging to match letters to the sounds of individual letters and letter combinations.
A child with dyslexia might be aware of not keeping up with other children and think their work is inadequate: this makes going to school extremely stressful.
When helping your dyslexic child at home, it is quite difficult not to make home feel just like school. Likely, your child won’t like having to spend their free time on something they find so difficult. One-to-one interaction, with a parent or instructor, can be helpful as long as the child is willing to participate and believes it is helping him in learning effective strategies
If your child is having dyslexia disorder, you can help him in managing their condition. Here’s how you can support a child with dyslexia when they are outside of school.
Reading with your child
Make reading special and effective. Read together every day. This action will enhance closeness and create strong bonding, which will support your dyslexic child’s ability to learn over time.
This shared learning experience fosters growth and development in tandem with enhanced reading skills. In addition, it will encourage children to read on their own and help them develop a sense of safety while learning.
Parents can help a child with dyslexia break down assignments into small manageable chunks. You might separate the questions on a worksheet by drawing circles around different groups. If on Monday the classroom task is a long list of 10 to 15 spelling words or a time table to be learned by next week, encourage your dyslexic child to complete a little bit each day.
Teach sight words to your child
Sight words are words that are used in writing and books. They are named as sight words because recognizing them on sight is important for developing reading skills. Sight words include is, the, are, been and could.
For a dyslexic child, sight words can be hard to recognize. But since sight words appear so often, they need to learn these challenging words.
Children with dyslexia can use sight words as effective building blocks to enhance their fluency in reading. That’s why it is important to add sight words into your children’s learning program.
Repetition is important
Repeat and Repeat…Yes repeating and analyzing skills can help your dyslexic child. This is generally done in the form of a repeated reading strategy. Repeated reading is an effective strategy for children with dyslexia. The repeated reading technique involves the reading of same passage multiple times to enhance reading fluency. Studies show that repeated reading technique enhances reading fluency in children with reading difficulties.
Design an inviting space to study
Offering an exceptional, comfortable, and supportive environment is effective for learning, particularly for children with dyslexia disorder.
As each child learns at their own pace, this also requires patience on the part of parents. By doing so, you will create a comfortable environment that encourages your dyslexic child to learn in a way that best suits him.
Make a calendar to help them keep track of their work or progress.
Visual tools like a calendar are a great way to keep track of your dyslexic child’s work or progress. This can assist in both improvements and challenges in context. It can help them engage with their own learning pace.
Using a calendar provides your dyslexic child visual clues, which can inform the child how to think about the process of their learning. This can be done by showing tasks and activities related to learning on the calendar.
When small achievements are visually expressed on the calendar, it can be very motivating for your dyslexic child. Similarly, when challenges are presented visually, it can assist a child in better understanding what they need to work on priority.
Sound Sleep
Sound sleep is important for your child with dyslexia to ensure proper development and learning. However, a dyslexic child is at a higher risk for sleep disorders.
Poor sleep can negatively affect your child’s learning processes. So it is essential to ensure they get enough sleep. This can be achieved by:
- creating a sleep schedule
- creating a soothing environment for sleep
- avoiding gadgets before bed
- following a proper sleep routine
Praise their efforts and celebrate their achievements
Reading struggles caused by dyslexia disorder can negatively affect a child’s confidence. For example, a dyslexic child’s sense of not measuring up to their peers to perform as expected can be discouraging.
On the other hand, motivation and praise can have a positive effect on your dyslexic child’s learning ability. Therefore, whenever you can, praise their accomplishments and efforts rather than focusing on their struggles. Celebrate their achievements, no matter how small they may be.
Working with an Orton Gillingham tutor is important if your child has dyslexia. Orton Gillingham tutors use effective techniques to help dyslexic children get a better understanding and grip on new words as well as their unique sounds. One of the main benefits of Orton Gillingham tutoring is a personalized learning plan that is custom-made to meet the unique needs of the struggling readers and children with learning difficulties.
Final thoughts
If your child has dyslexia you can make a real difference. Successful people with dyslexia disorder stated their success is mainly due to the practical and emotional support they received from their parents.
Have fun with your dyslexic child at home or playing word games and making unique rhymes, reading together and talking about what you are doing. Always remember to praise and motivate your dyslexic child, even if they guess wrong. Also, a professional Orton Gillingham tutor can help a child with dyslexia in exceptional ways that will help them academically as well as emotionally. Orton Gillingham tutors work with children to establish effective reading habits, build practical reading strategies, enhance their vocabularies, and create the strong reading foundation necessary for a lifetime of success.
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