To continue our support for the British Dyslexic Association’s (BDA) Dyslexia Awareness Week, we want to look at how teachers can help their students who are affected by the condition. When it comes to diagnosing dyslexia, teachers can be critical to this process as they are more likely to spot early signs of dyslexia in children.
Since there are 1.2 million children in the UK who have dyslexia, it’s integral that teachers have the knowledge to support students who are affected and help them develop coping strategies, so they can reach their full potential.
Offering Dyslexia Support
Dyslexia affects each person differently, so it’s important that teachers use a range of different methods to help with each student’s performance.
When planning a lesson, take into account that each exercise contains instructions that are straight to the point and omits any unnecessary detail and words.  Keep to simple, clear sentences and make sure the layout is straight forward so it’s easier for the student to follow.
By inserting diagrams and images into your exercises, this makes it easier for students to understand the instructions, especially if they don’t know every word. Again, spacing out instructions and making sure the text is broken up can help relieve eye strain and increase readability.
Try and insert different background colours and fonts, which can give weight to the text and ensure that it’s visually easier for the student to digest. At iansyst, we offer a selection of products that helps relieve visual stress, such as colour overlays that aids with the student’s reading fluency and duration.
It’s also important to look out for areas where students with dyslexia thrive. Understandably, dyslexia can affect self-esteem and is sometimes thought of as being a disadvantage in the workplace and classroom, so it’s especially important to encourage their strengths. It has been observed that children with dyslexia are creative, have strong reasoning and problem solving skills and are great team players.
If you wish to learn more on how you can help your students who are affected by the condition, we have a range of assistive technology that offers dyslexia support such as our text-to-speech software such as ClaroRead and our Texthelp Read and Write.
For more information on our products, don’t hesitate to get in touch with a member of our team on 01223 420101.