About Dyslexia - a learning difference.
By Jane Gaudie
The last twelve years of running Chiltern Tutorial School has been a sharp learning curve for myself and all the teachers at the school.
Over a hundred children have passed through the school, each child has brought a different personality and learning difference.
Many children possess a kinaesthetic learning style, they have a need to move, squirm, wriggle, touch and fiddle in order to stimulate their listening and learning. Others learn through visual channels, they love colour pictures, cartoons, patterns, television and visualisation. Some will learn through listening, they will often be staring out of a window but will in actual fact be listening. They learn through the medium of story tapes, songs, poems, talking and repetition.
School can be a very painful experience for many children. Continually being asked to perform tasks that are likely to end in failure is extremely demoralising and upsetting. Due to our school system in this country, with children beginning to learn to read at five or six, children learn failure at a very early age. (In many countries the children do not start formal education until they are seven.) In many cases children sometimes arrive at Chiltern physically and emotionally deflated. Within weeks of them being in an environment that understands their differences, they appear more confident, they are happy to have a try and realise that making mistakes is part of the learning experience.
Dyslexic and dyspraxic pupils often possess many attributes and talents that are not always celebrated in an academic school environment. While excelling at drawing, painting, singing, acting, juggling, skiing, Taikwondo, judo, lego, and model making, children often consider themselves worthless because these abilities are not associated with the traditional way that success in school is measured.
Many dyslexic children do not follow the traditional pathways through education. Many do not learn to read until 10, spelling often evolves by 14.
However, it is worth remembering it is not how you start the race, it is how you finish it that matters.
Therefore we need to focus on our dyslexic children’s abilities and to help them follow their learning styles. Providing them with games, talking books, trips and visits, sport and active conversation about topics in a range of subject areas. This will enable them to develop an impressive range of alternative strategies to compensate for any learning differences.
|
