In this third and final three part series blog post on Dyslexia, I will share information about effective instruction and intervention for working with children with Dyslexia. It is very common that as my evaluation process comes to an end that parents will ask me, “What is next now that we have a diagnosis?” The “what’s next” is the most important thing that a parent can do for their child and it is even more important than the diagnosis that they receive from me. If a child is diagnosed with Dyslexia but does not receive appropriate instruction and intervention then they will not make adequate progress and will continue to struggle.
The method of instruction that has empirical support for treating children and adults with Dyslexia is a phonics-based, systematic, explicit, and highly structured multi-sensory reading approach. This method is often described as phonics-based reading instruction, Orton Gillingham, systematic reading instruction, or the more recent name of structured literacy. Regardless of the name used, the instruction focuses on a few key areas that include:
An emphasis on phonological awareness (rhyming, tapping syllables, counting words in a spoken sentence, and segmenting phonemes (unit(s) of a sound in a word)).
Connecting sounds and letter symbols and this must be mastered from visual to auditory (reading) and auditory to visual (spelling).
Teaching the six syllable/vowel patterns so that children can easily divide/decode unfamiliar words.
Teaching morphemes, such as affixes, which can take the form of a prefix at the beginning of a root word, or as a suffix at the end of a root word. Common prefixes include un-, dis-, and ex-. Common suffixes include -able, -less, and -ism. These help a reader decode complex words.
Teaching syntax, which includes teaching grammar, sentence structure, and the mechanics of language.
Teaching semantics, which focuses on teaching a person how to gain meaning from the reading through reading comprehension strategies.
When I explain this type of reading approach to parents, they often exclaim, “Shouldn’t that be the reading instruction for all students?!?!?” As a professional trained in school psychology and as a person that was involved in helping with the implementation of Response to Intervention in one of the southeastern states, I believe that this approach to reading instruction is appropriate for general education students because it supports the reading acquisition of all students.
When an approach like this is taught in the general education classroom, a teacher may find that there will only continue to be 5 to 15 percent of his/her students that will continue to struggle and need a more intensified form of this instruction (i.e., more time and more exposure to this structured literacy instruction) and the intensity of the instruction may need to increase a third time for approximately 1 to 5 percent of those same students who were in the second tier of intervention and instructional support. As a student moves up a tier it is expected that the instruction is intensified, has extra repetition, is in an even smaller group size and the instructional time is increased. This is what is required for children who have unique reading differences.
What is also distinct and different about the structured literacy approach versus more traditional reading programs is that it is systematic and it follows a logical order. It begins with the most basic concepts of reading/literacy instruction and progresses to more difficult concepts. Additionally, each step is building upon the previously learned step and each step is presented in small increments so that the student is not overwhelmed or overloaded with information. It is also very explicit instruction and teachers are very deliberate in their instruction and the teacher does not assume that students will learn or figure out any reading concepts on their own. This means that the teacher models each skill while teaching it and then they interactively teach the skill to the student(s), while providing feedback and reinforcement/coaching as the student(s) demonstrates the newly observed and learned skill. This approach is also very assessment driven . Teachers are continuously collecting data on each individual concept taught through observation and standardized measures before moving on to another concept. Students are not introduced to a new literacy concept until they have mastered the current one and are able to do it with automaticity. The idea of automaticity is essential so that students have the ability to comprehend the reading material and they are not burdening their cognitive resources by struggling with the basic skills of reading. Finally, structured literacy understands that children with Dyslexia learn most effectively when they have the opportunity to learn the information through multiple sensory modalities. This is also called multisensory instruction. Multisensory instruction means that the material is presented in multiple ways that include seeing, saying, hearing, and manipulating information during the instructional time. The importance of multisensory instruction is that it allows an individual to utilize their strongest learning modality while also strengthening their weaker learning modalities.
To provide an illustration of this instructional approach, I have included a video of a lesson between a teacher and a student. The teacher is instructing a child with Dyslexia using the Orton Gillingham approach, which is one of the more well-known structured literacy instructional methods. In the video you will see how the teacher is using a multisensory approach to help the student and the instruction is very explicit and she provides quality positive feedback to the student prior to moving on to another skill or lesson.
If your child has received a psychoeducational evaluation and has been diagnosed with Dyslexia and you are looking for assistance with identifying a qualified instructor/tutor, I would recommend that you email info@ortonacademy.org for a list of Orton Gillingham practitioners and clinics in your community. It is important that you seek assistance for developing a plan for your child that will be most effective in meeting their unique learning needs and helping them reach their full potential. If you have any questions about this process or are seeking a psychoeducational evaluation for Dyslexia, please contact The Parent Child Practice.
