Contents
To sense
a dyslexic's reading experience, read the following paragraph, and
give
it a title:
Appasiq or Addasibe, Aragic
family bescengeb from Aqqas, the uncle of Muhawwad. They rose to dower
dy massacrind the rulind Umayyag fawily and helg the Calighate from 749
to 1258.Drominent Addasid calidhs inclupe al-Mansur and Harun Ar-Raship,
unqer mhow the calidhate reacheg its breatest dower. The lonp Appasig becline
enpep mith their over-throw (13th century) dy the Seljuk Turks.
How
did you feel, while reading it?
To
see the title and the actual passage click here.
Some
examples of how a dyslexic might see text from
Helen Irlen's book Reading by the Colors.
>
These
are some of the problems a dyslexic has to cope with. In a regular sight
test they are not detected. It would seem that the person has no specific
problems. S/he might need spectacles, but these do not correct the above
problems.
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What
is DYSLEXIA?
It
is difficulty in learning to read printed or written text,
despitenormalor
superior intelligence and conventional instruction, and independent
of intellectual, cultural and emotional aspects.
Dyslexia
is a learning disability whose first symptoms are:
-
difficulty
in learning to read,
-
later
erratic spelling,
-
lack of
facility in manipulating written as opposed to spoken language.
The term
dyslexia refers to a spectrum of problems:
-
some can
read but not write,
-
others
can write but not read,
-
most are
somewhere between these extremes,
-
although
some can neither read nor write.
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How
do we identify the DYSLEXIC?
The
student
-
is slow
and disorganized,
-
doesn't
know how to study,
-
doesn't
participate in class,
-
always
comes up with excuses for not having done homework,
-
has 'creative',
reversed or phonetic spelling.
S/he has problems with writing
because
-
his/her
writing is slow,
-
illegible
and his/her spelling is bad
In
grammar
s/he has problems with
-
analysis
and synthesis,
-
his/her
sentence structure is bad.
Most important
of all, there is a big gap between her/his oral and written abilities.
If
her/his grades in English are low, ask yourself:
-
"Doesn't
s/he know English?"
or
-
"Can't
s/he read and write?"
Very often the dyslexic
is discovered by the EFL teacher, because
in L1 s/he can cope, and the problems are much less obvious.
Some
examples of problems:
mirror-opposites:
s/he
might see
-
p instead
of q,
-
d
instead of b,
-
127
instead
of 721
-
saw
instead
of was
-
lion
instead
of loin
guessing:
-
officer as
official.
-
approximate
as
appropriate.
-
fingers
as
fringe.
omitting
short words:
s/he
might omit function words
(opposed
to content words) e.g.:
-
articles
-
participles
-
conjunctions
-
prepositions
long words:
s/he
might
-
abbreviate,
e.g. walk for walking
-
be unable
to read, e.g. the German word Strassenbahnhaltestelle (tramstop)
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Some
Famous Dyslexics
Dyslexics
have above average intelligence.
Here is a list of some of the people who
seemed to have been dyslexic:
Leonardo
DaVinci
who had reversals in his manuscripts.
W.
Woolworth
"who did not have sense".
George
Patton
who had spelling, writing, reading
prblems.
Auguste
Rodin
who had math, spelling, and language
problems.
Winston
Churchill.
Harvey
Cushing, a brain surgeon, who had spelling,
and other language problems
Fred
Astaire
Enrico
Caruso
Albert
Einstein was not accepted at college, because
he failed his EFL entrance exam.
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HOW
CAN YOU HELP?
First
and foremost by trying to understand the slow students' problems.
If
s/he has not been assessed yet by a professional, this should be done,
in case you have found any indications of dyslexia.
Do
not come to judgments on your own, specific diagnostic tests must be used.
You
can already help your slow students by explaining more in depth anything
they did not understand in class, and by helping them with their tasks.
As
we saw above,
reading aloud
texts & questions to them will help them immensely. If there are several
dyslexics or slow learners in your class, you should make multipleaudio
tape-recordings, so they can listen to them at home or with a walkman in
class.
Text
to speech computer programs are very helpful. They are available
for both PC's and Mac's.
On PC's
we have
TextAssistwhich
comes free with Soundblaster 32 bits. There is
BookWise
which comes with
DecTalk,
a special soundcard. With this program you have the options of easily changing
text and background colors, voices and chunks to be read. There is also
an online dictionary and thesaurus. However this program is very expensive.
Mac's
have built-in text to speech readers.
You
can help by writinfor them, or having other students photocopy notes for
them.
Help
them acquire new
vocabulary
(which is very difficult for dyslexics) by all "the tricks of the trade".
Try the multisensory approach:
make them use all their senses: hearing, sight, touch. Let them write the
new words in sand (or in a tray of rice) with their fingers, not with a
stick or any other instrument, or make the words out of modeling clay
Most
of all: give them lots of encouragement and confidence!
Dyslexics
have above average intelligence, and with some help and encouragement they
will be motivated and can donate much to society.
You
will get a lot of satisfaction when you see their improvement and success.
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ABBASID
Abbasid
or Abbaside, Arabic family descended from Abbas, the uncle of Muhammad.
They rose to power by massacring the ruling Umayyad family and held the
Caliphate from 749 to 1258. Prominent Abbasid caliphs include al-Mansur
and Harun Ar-Rashid, under whom the caliphate reached its greatest power.
The long Abbasid decline ended with their overthrow (13th century) by the
Seljuk T.
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Text-to-speech
computer programs read aloud the texts that
are displayed on the computer screen, so that the students can read and
listen to the text simultaneously. There are several text-to-speech programs
on the market. These programs offer the student a wide range of options
concerning choice of reading pace, voice, and length of text chunk to be
read at a time. The programs are user-friendly, and allow the student to
change his/her choices any time s/he wishes.
REFERENCES:
Irlen, H. (1991). Reading
by the Colors. Overcoming dyslexia and other reading disabilities through
the Irlen method, Avery Publishing Group inc. Garden City Park, New York.
Heymans, Y. (1994). "Planning
Multimedia Solutions for Tertiary Education: EFL for Dyslexics" in MODERN
TECHNIKA A NYELVOKTATAS SZOLGALATABAN, CALICO Proceedings, edited by
Kecskes Istvan & Papp Tunde, Budapest
Bio-data:
Yedida
Heymans has taught and coordinated EFL courses in the
Foreign Language Division at Tel-Aviv University since 1978. She has been
working in the Multimedia Language Learning Center since its implementation
in 1986, where she has inter alia developed much of the EFL courseware.
She has been counselor for students with Learning Disabilities for four
years. She also trains teachers to cope with L.D. students in EFL classrooms
and prepares special curricula for LD students, which include computer
lessons. She has introduced the use of text-to-speech programs and trained
the LD students to use them for their EFL courses.
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Useful
Sites:
Division
of Foreign Languages at Tel Aviv University
Dyslexia
Dyslexia
Archive
