• Jul. 24, 2008
Dyslexia -Memory Strategies
If you haven't done some research on dyslexia
you may not realize that another big block for a
dylexic person is memory. Most people think of it
more as a writing issue or reading. That letters and numbers
are reversed, backwords, or missing. Which is all true but
there is more. A child with dyslexia my struggle with
remembering math facts, remembering more than one chore,
where their belongs are, the name of simple ojects or
even direction or where they are.
In the past my princess had called tissues--
Those things you wipe your nose with. She often
Reverses the names of two objects if they are similar
such as up and down, or back and forth. She has on
occation even been confused about our location.
We travel through the same area daily but one day I
assume her thoughts were on something else . When
she looked around she thought she was at a local tourist
location that we often visit. Instead we were only about
5 miles from our home. These types of things often scare
me. I worry that one day when she is old enough to drive she
will lose her baring and not know where she is.
And so we work toward helping her memory.....
Here are some techniques I have found to help
a childs memory. You wouldnt have to be dyslexic to
use any of these just a person wishing to improve on
their memory.
1. Use the first letter of the word to create
a silly rhyme,sentence or made up name.. Such as learning
the colors of the rainbow..
Roy G. BIV
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet
2. Story Strategy- Make up a silly story with
all the words you want to remember.
example..
Bird, seed, Corn, nest
The red bird sat smiling in his next
eaching seed and corn.
3. Grouping-
Group words that are similar together.
Animals, kitchen items, etc... When you try
to recall them you can think of the group they were
located in .
4. Images - Draw pictures to go with a word
to help you remember. You can also try highlighting
that particular word for awhile in your writing.
You mind will remember the color then remember
the word and its spelling.
5. Location- Do this exercise. Close your
eyes and imagine your church. Going through the
doors and any details you can remember along the
way. This one is an exercise in improving your memory.
6. List - If you have to remember a list of 10 items.
Associate the word with the number. 1 - bear
2- dog etc..
7. Visualize - Say the word, look up close your
eyes and picture the word, Write it in the air
and then write it on paper. Visualize what it means
a picture or action.
If you happen to have any other ideas
for helping improve memory please share them.
Nikki
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• Jul. 24, 2008
Cursive and Dyslexic Children
The best way to describe how a dyslexic child
views their world is to say that it is always
moving always changing. Everything is sort of
floating around for them. Can you imagine a world
where nothing stays the same and changes on you
daily. I have been doing some research on how to teach
a dyslexic child cursive. I have found in my reading that
I should have taught it to her right away. That
children with dyslexia can connect with the flow of
the letters easier than in print style. Since my child
has already gotten down the print style. I suppose
we will now have to start from scratch in learning
our cursive letters. She is going into the
6th grade and although we have been trying
for a long time now she can not get her cursive letters
down. It is probably because the old stand by of
Print that we painstaking learned is now easier for
her to accomplish, but we will prevail.
Dyslexic children have difficulties with lettering
and ordering items. Which for us often leads in
uneven handwriting. Princess also really grips her
pencil and presses down hard to keep control. This
Leads to a very slow methodical writing, Even Painfully
so. I found pencil grips on the net to help
her loosen her grip for a more free flow writing.
We are going to try these and I'll let you know
how they go for us.
It is recommended for the child to use
their pointer finger and their middle finger
to write in salt trays or sand. Using rough
items to help ingrain these movements in their minds. I
don't know why this would surprise me since
these are techniques we used in preschool classes
to get children excited about writing or forming
their numbers. Also suggested was a rough towel
or sandpaper. I am sure there are many many
more tactile experiences a child could use.
Another idea was to use paper or clay for
the child to bend and form the letters.
We will also be using the handwriting without tears
program. I am hoping with all these things
My child this year will learn cursive writing.
I'll keep you posted.
Nikki
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• May. 6, 2008
Causes of Dyslexia....
I have been doing quite a bit of rearch lately on Learning
disablilities. In particular dyslexia because it is one that
has affected my family and in a large way. I take things on a
day to day basis. This week so far has been a good one.
Why there are learning disablities seems to be unclear but
there are 4 basic sources.....
Genetics- About 50% are inherited. I find this
one true for us since my childrens father has dyslexia.
I have also noticed on his side of the family
several cases of ADHD and Add.
Prenatal- Malnutrition, toxemia, infectious disease, substance
abuse and Rh. (none of those were a factor for us. )
Birth- A long difficult delivery, premature birth,
breech birth, umbilical cord wrapped around the neck for
an extreme length of time or extremely rapid delivery.
(I wonder on this since Princess delivered very quickly.)
Neo-natal- High fever, sharp blow to head, meningitis,
lead poisoning, oxygen deprivation or severe
nutritional deficiencies.
At one point in time I thought that I had done something
wrong. If only I had read to her more or talked to her
explaining things around her. Yet, didn't I do that .
Maybe it wasn't enough? These are thoughts that sometimes
ring in my head. What have I done wrong? Every parent
knows that when a child stuggles that the parents
are to blame..... It took some time for me to realize
that none of this was my fault. The struggle I face daily
can be put into perspective by how I see it. If I look
on the bright side and see the blessings that God
has given my child, I can not deny that I would NOT
change a thing about her/him/any of them.
Are we all not good at one
thing in particular and may be not be so good at another?
These are gifts that God has given us. It
may just be that Gods gifts are harder to see
sometimes. We just aren't looking hard enough.
If I like to Sing Praises to God and you prefer
silent prayer, one over the other isn't more effective.
God will hear us both in our praises. There must
be a way then to reach a child with dyslexia. In
fact I have seen great things of late so I know it's
true. It just takes patience, love , understanding and
a different approach.
Look till you find it!!
If you are stuggling with something similar
please post I comment. Some support is always good.
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• Apr. 29, 2008
Only One Direction!?
Consider this.......
Maddy is a typical preschooler. She's a bit over-active
and has a short attention span, and sometimes moody or angry.
Perhaps she is slow at knowing her colors or forming letters but
she is very verbal , charming and very bright. In fact
her vocabulary seems to be over what a child her age may know.
Maddy then enters school and her parents expect her to do
very well. To their suprise at parent conferences the teacher says
she is not doing well. She attributes it to immaturity. That
she just needs to "grow up a little bit"
But by the 1st grad Maddy does not learn to write or read
well like the other students. Her teacher is becoming dismayed
and puts pressure on the parent to help the child preform.
By the second grade Maddy is an expert at avoiding
situations. Falling off her chair when its her turn to read or
asking to use the bathroom. The teacher complains that she is
not trying. She has the beginning of a poor self image.
By 3rd grade or sooner Maddy is acting out hitting
and pushing on the playground, being disrespectful
to the teacher and adults. By then Maddys parents
are finally asked to seek perfessional help.
Without help...........
Maddys learning and behaviour do not improve. She is
labeled willful and lazy, manipulative, spoiled, and disturbed.
She drags through middle school into high school getting
in dispite her intellegance. At worst possible senerio, drugs,
alcohol and shaddy friends provide and escape outlet
and Maddy ends up in juvenile court.
Maddy has a learning disablity. She isn't doing
well in school because she cant learn in a normal
classroom. The learning disability is not her teachers fault, its not
her parents fault, or her fault. It is due to a neurological impairment-
a weekness in the brain's ability to perform certain functions.
Maddy simply can not handle this information.
The more she senses this the more she acts out .
It is confusing to her, her parents, and peers. Some of
her talents are amazing and yet she may not
be able to handle the simpliest of tasks.
This is dyslexia...and many other forms of
learning disablities.
I am so glad that we stopped and did something
or this could have been us. Many of you that read my
blog know our story on my side bar. It is very similar to
this story above. The difference is that after 1st grade.
I pulled Princess from school and now school her at
home. Is she perfect and "all better now" because she is at home, of
course not. But we are working through any issues
that come. I can help her whenever I need to because
I am here. We are together and united in
making a change. Homeschooling is good for all children but
even better in our situation.
Is it easy for mom? No it's not but no one said
raising children was easy. You take it one task
at a time one day at a time.. We will
succeed together!
I have a lot of thoughts about this and will
be posting more soon so come back and visit.
Nikki
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• Jan. 25, 2008
Dyslexia Our Saga Continues
After giving my story I figure by
now you are wondering how things are going
with Princess. So for todays post I'll give you an
Update on how things are going.
Since I know what the issue is ,now its not as hard
to teach. I am more patient. I know this is going to
be hard work. I know that I have to show her
and show her and show her many different ways
till she gets it. I know that I have to make learning fun.
For example since the beginning of the year we
have been working on mulitplication and division.
I borrowed from a friend times tables the fun way.
Princess learned them amazingly quick with the songs
and the games but when she went to put them
to paper she couldnt apply it. So that took some
work to get her to think them and then write them on
paper. We also worked on division but she just didnt
see how it all went together. Yesteday she was
working on a division practice and the light came
on. Dont you just love that moment. The
moment of realization. She says Mom MOM!!
look Division is like mulitiplication backwords.
I get it. !! I had to laugh . Who knows how many
times it will take or when that ah ha moment
comes but when it does it is sooo worth it.
How is Barton going? Actually the Barton reading
and spelling plan for dyslexic children is going
pretty good. I found out a lot about Princess
I didnt know. The reason her reading level is
not progressing is because she was memorizing
what she was reading. If you remember
we took princess from public school after
the first grade. When I gave her the beginning
assessment she didnt know some of
her phonetic sounds. When they gave her
a nonsense word to spell she couldnt
do that because she wasnt clearly aware of her
sounds. So we are at the beginning. Learning
these sounds and spelling these nonsense words.
Learning to hear these sounds and relearning
site words. I have faith that this program will
work for her. I have some of my own ideas
and site word games to add to it to help
with spelling and hearing the sounds.
Together I know we will make it.
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• Dec. 1, 2007
Tips for Helping a Dylexic Child
spelling we use the Barton System. This has really helped her
improve. It is a bit expensive but worth it in the long run. I
suggest you go to their website--there is a lot of information
about dyslexia on there. You should then take the Tutor
screening under Tutor for Yourself; then give your child the
Student Screening to see if this is something that will be right
for him. If this is not something that might work for your child
then you might want to try the Wilson Language Training. Both
were recommended to me by a friend who works with children
with dyslexia.
You didn't mention math at all, but I know my child had
trouble with the facts, reversing the ideas around. I have
two math programs that have been working for us:
Touch Math for addition and subtraction and
Times Tables the Fun Way for multiplication.
Besides the curriculum there are a few things that have
worked for me. I write out everyday exactly what we are
doing. This helps my daughter know that after math she gets to
play, or once reading is over we will have a snack; whatever
comes next. With dyslexia comes some comprehension-
confusion and sometimes forgetfulness. So this has helped
her and kept my sanity because instead of asking me 1,000
times what we are doing today, I can just refer her to the
schedule. If we have a long list of errands, she can take it
with us and cross things off as we go. I have found less tears
because she has some kind of control over what is happening.
I also read a lot to her which is required when beginning the
Barton program. Sometimes we snuggle together and read. I
point to the words as I go. When my daughter reads, I cover
most of the text with paper so its not so overwhelming, and she
points to each word as we go. I also set a timer and she reads
for 10 minutes morning and evening; when the timer goes off
she is done. I am hoping to add 15 minutes and lengthen it as
she becomes more confident. I have also found that if my child
sees a word that 675th time, she may get it . So I created a
mini office for her, a place for her to see some of the things
stumping her.
then the next day it's gone. Keep going; it is well worth it, and
you will find the things that work for your child. I know for us
lapbooks have been a blessing, too. She has really picked up
on material through those. Seeing it, touching it, then being
able to come back and refer to it, helps a lot. Eventually it will
come.
child as he sleeps. Pray with him as he finds a new challenge.
You can do it, and so can he! Success is there. It took me a
long time to find what worked for us. It will come.
Nikki
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