What is dyslexia and how it impacts reading
- Dyslexia is a neurobiological disorder that affects the areas of the brain responsible for spelling and decoding. It is a spectrum disorder, so not everyone is affected to the same degree.
- Students often have problems automatically recognizing words and accurately decoding words which results in slow, laborious reading.
- While their main disability is with word recognition, comprehension and fluency rates are also affected since the person is spending all their energy decoding words.
References
Research Advisory – Dyslexia. International Literacy Association. (n.d.). https://www.literacyworldwide.org/get-resources/position-statements
Rawe, J. (n.d.). What is dyslexia?. Understood. https://www.understood.org/en/articles/what-is-dyslexia
Recommendations for instruction
- When providing instruction and remediation for students with dyslexia, a structured literacy approach should be used that includes instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, orthography, and morphology.
- Direct, explicit, research based phonics instruction, with nothing left for students to infer, has shown positive results in helping students with dyslexia . Scaffolding and supports need to be in place and slowly removed as children with dyslexia progress.
- While it is beneficial for all children, it is very important for students with dyslexia need to have a clear scope and sequence laid out with frequent progress monitoring checks in place.
References
Austin, C., Stevens, L., Demchack, A., & Solari, E. (2023). Orton-Gillingham: Which Aspects are Supported by Research and Which Require Additional Research? The Reading League Journal, 5–13.
Research Advisory – Dyslexia. International Literacy Association. (n.d.). https://www.literacyworldwide.org/get-resources/position-statements
Spear-Swerling, L. (2022). An Introduction to Structured Literacy and Poor-Reading Profiles. In Structured Literacy Interventions: Teaching Students with Reading Difficulties, Grades K-6 (pp. 1–22). essay, Guilford Publications.
Sample Dyslexia lesson plan
Assessment data that has been gathered about Franklin shows he is having trouble in a couple different areas. One area of difficulty for him is phoneme grapheme correspondences. While he is able to decode one syllable words, he is not able to consistently represent the sounds himself when trying to write them. He is also having difficulty with understanding that vowels make more than one sound when given a vowel team. These things are impacting his fluency and comprehension as well. This intervention is appropriate for him because it is focusing on word-level skills.
I would make the following adjustments to the UFLI lesson plan to better match them to Franklin’s current needs.
- I believe the blending drill should be cut in half. Often students with dyslexia require more time to complete activities as an accommodation. However, to keep the lesson flowing and really get to the focus of the lesson, I feel that it would be beneficial to not include as many words in the drill (International Dyslexia Association, 2020).
- I would move irregular words review to before the new concept. This skill being in the middle seems to interrupt the flow of the lesson. By moving it teachers would be able to increase the amount of time students are focused on the new skill and academic engagement (Vaughn & Fletcher, 2019).
- Similarly, I would move phonemic awareness to after new concept but before word work. Again, this has to do with the flow and structure of the lesson and I don’t want them working with these phonemes and graphemes until I have introduced the long vowel sound concept to them (Vaughn & Fletcher, 2019).
The following aspects of the UFLI lesson are ones that I would continue to include because they are aspects that match Franklin’s current needs well.
- I believe that the new concept section of the lesson plan is done very well. The teacher starts by reviewing what students know about the letter a, then discusses the new sound they will learn and how the letter e helps in doing this. Then a short vowel word is displayed and tapped out. Finally, the magic e is added to the end of the word and while tapping the word out, the teacher leads the students to see the difference the e has made. The same routine is then repeated with additional examples. This direct and explicit instruction will make things clear for him (Vaughn & Fletcher, 2019).
- The articulation gesture is really good as it is written. The directions are very clear for exactly what your mouth, tongue, and voice are to do in order to make a long A sound as well as a gesture for letters that make a continuous sound. By using multisensory strategies it can help Franklin make those phoneme-grapheme connections (Austin et al., 2023).
- The word work is excellent because it is multisensory. Franklin will be taking a short vowel word and creating it with letter tiles. Then he will add the letter e on the end to change the vowel sound. The uses of manipulatives can assist with linking input from eye, ear, and voice and help them be learned and remembered (Austin et al., 2023).
With the adjustments listed above along with the components that are remaining, I believe that this would be a good lesson for Franklin to continue to work on improving his decoding skills, his fluency, and his comprehension.
References
Austin, C., Stevens, L., Demchack, A., & Solari, E. (2023). Orton-Gillingham: Which Aspects are Supported by Research and Which Require Additional Research? The Reading League Journal, 5–13.
International Dyslexia Association. (n.d.). https://dyslexiaida.org/
Vaughn, S., & Fletcher, J. M. (2021). Identifying and Teaching Students with Significant Reading Problems. American Educator, 4–11.