What is dyslexia?
There are many definitions of what dyslexia is (Highland Council uses the British Psychological Society’s one) but they are all worded around the same difficulties;
Dyslexia may be defined as a difficulty in language based information. Short term memory, sequencing, directionality and co-ordination may also be affected.
It is a descriptive not diagnostic term that implies a distinct and identifiable reading disorder with a known medical cause although this is not the case. (Bishop 2010)
Things to remember about pupils with dyslexic type difficulties...
· They are developmental in nature so some pupils who coped with the early stages of language acquisition may have difficulties with higher order skills and these often don’t appear until the upper school.
· Pupils who are constantly meeting barriers to their learning can become discouraged very quickly due to a lack of initial success. Try not to assume that a pupil is inattentive or lazy- they could be working a lot harder than their classmates, but with little apparent success.
· Misbehaviour, illness, toilet breaks etc are often used as a way of coping with their difficulties that they don’t necessarily understand themselves, these are avoidance tactics!
· Although reading and writing problems are not linked to ability, able pupils may persistently underachieve because of this.
· Accept that pupils with these difficulties may require additional support within the context of a subject.
· Pupils may look for the quickest and most superficial solution- if you don’t think you will have success you won’t persevere and re-check work. This is often the pupil bringing a stressful activity to an end more quickly.
There are many definitions of what dyslexia is (Highland Council uses the British Psychological Society’s one) but they are all worded around the same difficulties;
Dyslexia may be defined as a difficulty in language based information. Short term memory, sequencing, directionality and co-ordination may also be affected.
It is a descriptive not diagnostic term that implies a distinct and identifiable reading disorder with a known medical cause although this is not the case. (Bishop 2010)
Things to remember about pupils with dyslexic type difficulties...
· They are developmental in nature so some pupils who coped with the early stages of language acquisition may have difficulties with higher order skills and these often don’t appear until the upper school.
· Pupils who are constantly meeting barriers to their learning can become discouraged very quickly due to a lack of initial success. Try not to assume that a pupil is inattentive or lazy- they could be working a lot harder than their classmates, but with little apparent success.
· Misbehaviour, illness, toilet breaks etc are often used as a way of coping with their difficulties that they don’t necessarily understand themselves, these are avoidance tactics!
· Although reading and writing problems are not linked to ability, able pupils may persistently underachieve because of this.
· Accept that pupils with these difficulties may require additional support within the context of a subject.
· Pupils may look for the quickest and most superficial solution- if you don’t think you will have success you won’t persevere and re-check work. This is often the pupil bringing a stressful activity to an end more quickly.