Childhood Stroke Awareness

At the age of 7 Cameron is showing signs of dyslexia.  It really makes it hard for learning to read, sound out words, write words/letters and numbers.   Cameron is at a school for children for with dyslexia.  Now they are teaching him in K-1 class in a multisensory teaching method.  In 3rd grade or sooner in his case, a program called Take Flight. 

Here is information on dyslexia.

Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty affecting a person's ability to deal with text, and often numbers as well. Dyslexia is estimated to occur in about 8% of the population. Similar to color blindness, it is a permanent disability which needs continuous support through schooling. It is often accompanied by strengths in areas such as creative work, physical co-ordination and empathy with other people.

What are the types of dyslexia?

There are two types of dyslexia. It is either brought about by early ear infections which caused temporary hearing problems (acquired dyslexia) or though congenital and developmental traits (developmental dyslexia). Its cause has not been fully established, but the effect is to create neurological anomalies in the brain. These anomalies bring about varying degrees of difficulty in learning when using words, and sometimes symbols.

What are the most common ways in which dyslexia shows itself?

Children or students who are dyslexic have phonological difficulties, that is, they find it difficult to sort out the sounds within words. This means that they have problems with reading, writing and spelling. The majority of dyslexic children have difficulty with text, memory and the sequencing processes of basic mathematics.

At what age does dyslexia become a problem?

It is when dyslexic children begin to learn using words and sometimes other symbols that it becomes a noticeable problem.

How is a dyslexic person's mind different?

If children have difficulty learning to tell the time, following instructions which involve left and right, learning the alphabet or anything which has to be remembered in sequence, they may well be right-brained. They are likely to be artistic and creative but disorganized at times.

It is suggested that many learners with dyslexia have right-brained dominance. They find that the range of subjects and the style of teaching in school do not play to their strengths and can leave them with a sense of frustration and failure.

Taken from:  http://www.dyslexia-teacher.com/t16.html

Multi-Sensory Teaching and Dyslexia:

http://www.dyslexia-teacher.com/t6.html

Dyslexia Resources:

http://www.dyslexia-teacher.com/t3.html

Take Flight Program:

Take Flight addresses the five components of effective reading instruction identified by the National Reading Panel’s research and is a comprehensive Tier III intervention for students with dyslexia.

• Phonemic Awareness – following established procedures for explicitly teaching the relationships between speech-sound production and spelling-sound patterns 
• Phonics – providing a systematic approach for single word decoding
• Fluency – using research-proven directed practice in repeated reading of words, phrases and passages to help students read newly encountered text more fluently
• Vocabulary – featuring multiple word learning strategies (definitional, structural, contextual) and explicit teaching techniques with application in text 
• Reading Comprehension – teaching students to explicitly use and articulate multiple comprehension strategies (i.e., cooperative learning, story structure, question generation and answering, summarization and comprehension monitoring)

Take Flight key findings:

• Students who complete Take Flight instruction show significant growth in all areas of reading skill. 
• Follow-up research with children who completed treatment indicates that students maintain the benefits of instruction on word reading skills and continue to improve in reading comprehension after one year. 
• Take Flight is effective when used in schools by teachers with advanced training in treating learning disorders. 
• Students with the lowest reading skills acquire the strongest gains from Take Flight instruction.

Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children and http://www.tsrhc.org/downloads/PDF/DyslexiaResearchSummary.pdf