Reading Comprehension, Sight Words and Spelling: How Students With Dyslexia Can Succeed in School
Children with dyslexia are often faced with difficulties in the classroom when it comes to reading. That's because dyslexia can adversely affect reading comprehension and the ability to learn sight words and spelling. Thus, it's important to understand the implications of dyslexia regarding these academic skills, so you can know what steps to take to improve it. Here are a few aspects to consider.
Dyslexia's Impact on Reading, Spelling and Sight Words
Dyslexia makes it difficult for your child to decode or sound out words and recognize them. Because of this, it makes it difficult to read fluently. Moreover, a weak phonemic awareness can help explain why children with dyslexia have trouble with spelling, which is also linked to reading deficiency. Hearing the unique distinctions among each sound of the language may be a challenge for students with dyslexia, because it may take them longer to make the connection between the sound and combination of letters than it would for other students. When students can hear and shape these sounds, they can increase their reading proficiency.
Sight words or irregular words, such as "is," "once," "the" and "a," can cause confusion for a child with dyslexia, since these type of words lack a particular pattern. Moreover, you can't easily sound out these words, since they are often one-syllable words. However, it's vital to learn sight words, because they are used on a regular basis when reading.
How to Be More Successful
To enhance reading comprehension, review the alphabetic principle. This activity helps students understand that letter combinations and letters represent sounds to improve their phonetic awareness. Consider using flash cards to improve recognition of sight words. To reinforce the pronunciation of sight words, have your child repeat the word while writing it out. Also, have your child practice reading out loud, silently, and often after being introduced to a letter-sound combination.
Brain Balance and Dyslexia
Dyslexia's effect on your child can easily carry over into the classroom by impacting the way he reads, processes sight words and spells. But by applying interventions, activities and tools that help to improve decoding and encoding sounds and words, you can help your child enhance his phonetic awareness to better recognize words and sounds that will help him be successful in school.
At Brain Balance, we believe every child can connect with success. Is your child having difficulty learning to read or spell? If so, we invite you to consider the Brain Balance Program. Our approach is a thorough and holistic one that takes the whole child into consideration when designing his or her customized program.
