Additional advice for learning support staff and language teachers

Tips for teachers and support staff:

1. Meet with students regularly; focus on a small number of skills at a time.
2. Begin teaching with overarching rules and concepts where possible rather than introducing one small part at a time; many people with dyslexia have more success understanding the big picture than memorising small details in isolation.
3. Help students break down assignments (e.g. writing assignments) into parts; teach them how to develop SMART goals (see Additional Resources, below) in relation to these parts.
4. Develop checklists with the students to help them remember steps of processes.
5. Explicitly teach strategies for reading.
6. Explicitly teach all parts of the writing process including, for example, taking notes, prewriting (e.g. mind mapping) and organising paragraphs.
7. Spend time analysing new vocabulary; teach students the meaning of different word parts (e.g. bio = life, ology = study of) and how to pronounce the words; teach strategies for spelling new words.
8. Learn about and help students use technology that can support their learning (e.g. use of dictation, read aloud features and spellcheck, and other helpful software such as notetaking software).

ACTIVITY:

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Which guideline best describes the teaching strategy behind this presentation slide on apostrophe rules with possessive adjectives and pronouns?

(a) Meet with students regularly; focus on a small number of skills at a time.

(b) Develop checklists with the students to help them remember steps of processes.

(c) Begin teaching with overarching rules and concepts where possible rather than introducing one small part at a time; many people with dyslexia have more success understanding the big picture than memorising small details in isolation.

(d) Help student break down assignments (e.g. writing assignments) into parts;teach them how to develop SMART goals (FlikliTV, 2015) in relation to these parts.

Answer:

(c) Begin teaching with overarching rules and concepts where possible rather than introducing one small part at a time; many people with dyslexia have more success understanding the big picture than memorising small details in isolation.

Did you get it correct?

MORE RESOURCES

A quick video introduction to SMART goals:

FlikliTV. (2015, October 26). Achieve more by setting SMART goals.

Accessibility features of Apple and Microsoft products:

Apple. (2021). Accessibility.

Microsoft. (2021). Accessibility.