Education for Dyslexics

Traditional or conventional teaching methods will not prove useful for Dylexics...13-14% school going students in India suffers from this disorder

The word Dyslexia comes from the Greek word "dys" (meaning poor or inadequate) and "lexis" (words or language).  Dyslexia is a learning disability, where the person has difficulty with written language, specifically with reading. One confronts problems in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and the person lacks reasoning or mathematical abilities. It is a kind of neurological based problem and can be heredity. Some of the well-known symptoms of dyslexia are:

• Difficulty in word pronunciation and perception
• Difficulty in understanding spoken language
• Difficulty in remembering known words
• Difficulty in decoding (sounding out words)
• Difficulty in encoding (spelling). A `b' becomes a `d', `m' becomes `n'. `Nice' may be spelt as `mise'
• Difficulty in Reading comprehension
• Lack of directionality (right and left or east and west)
• Bad handwriting
• Difficulty in expression of thoughts in written form
• Difficulty in mathematical computation
• Difficulty in understanding of terminology of maths
• Lack of organization

But a person who has this specific learning disability or dyslexia, has special talents. If proper encouragement, training and motivation are given, he/she can excel remarkably the field of interest. The persons with dyslexia are often  inclined towards music, arts, creative, spatial and mechanical skills. They have vivid imagination.  But they think multi-dimensionally of pictures!

A successful teaching pattern should be geared towards providing these people with right system, right teacher, right setting at right time and duration.. Traditional or conventional teaching methods cannot prove useful for them since every Dyslexic person has different and unique ways of learning. These students need to get one to one tutorials. The basic pathways for their learning are three dimensional i.e. through visual, auditory and kinaesthetic techniques.

What Parents and Teachers can do

Both the parents and the teachers need to take care of many things while chalking out a programme to teach a dyslexic child. The needs of pupil vary from each other. One size doesn’t fit into all. Focus should be on the strengths rather than on the weaknesses of such students. They should not be told to read aloud in the class as it can increase their difficulties. Proper encouragement and reinforcement can work wonders with these people. Greater stress can be given on the oral work than on the written work. Even marks should be given on the basis of their oral performances. They should be given greater practice on pronuncing words. Long words have to be broken down into smaller parts in order to make it easier for them. Vocabularies of quantities and spatial placement may create difficulty for these students. Words and phrases such as before, after, more than, less than, and between etc when used in relation to mathematical problem can pose challenges for them. But these students are able to solve word problems easily when such problems are broken down into smaller parts. They have to be given extra time to complete their assignments. Sometimes technological tools can prove advantageous too. For e.g. portable electronic dictionary can be of great help. Likewise one can use specially developed software which helps in speech recognition.

The awareness towards this kind of disability has been of recent origin in India. Thus neither do we have a clear idea about the prevalence of this problem nor do we have much statistics about these people. But it is believed that about 13-14% of the school going children suffer from this disorder. In India the mild form of dyslexia is more common than the severe one. These children are being effectively accommodated in the regular classroom by teachers. CBSE too has made amendments in the examination rules by giving 30 minutes extra time to these people for the exam. The students suffering from Dyslexia are now exempted from studying a third language. At some place there are also given a choice to opt for some vocational subject instead of studying algebra and geometry. They are also allowed to use a writer as per the board’s rules.

Thus timely diagnosis, appropriate teaching strategies, adequate educational facilities and hard work can help these people to lead a successful life. They have the potential to learn to read, write and study efficiently like everyone else.