8. How to help.

The pre-school child.

The primary school child.

Does your child need special help?

The secondary school child.

Site contents.

8. How to help.

The pre-school child.

You may suspect your child has dyslexia even before he or she starts school. Your family may have a history of reading or spelling difficulties or your child may already show some of the signs listed earlier. If so, there are things you can do at home to help.

Essentially these activities are all to do with overcoming the particular problems of a dyslexic child. But if your fears are unfounded and your child is not dyslexic, these tips won't do any harm. They will help all children with their reading and writing. It is also worth remembering that all the activities are intended to be fun.

• Spend time just talking to your child. One-to-one time with a sympathetic adult gives children space to practise listening skills and express themselves freely.
  
  
• Nursery rhymes are an excellent way of helping children understand rhythm and rhyme which are both essential for literacy. Songs are useful too, especially those which involve sequences, like 'Ten Green Bottles' or 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'.
  
  
• It helps if you can read lots of stories and poems to your child or if he or she has the chance to listen to stories read by other people — perhaps at story-telling sessions at your local library.
  
  
• Talk about stories you remember. Ask your child to tell the story back to you. The more fun you have with books and stories the better. Try to encourage the child through positive praise to concentrate for longer and longer periods.
  
  
• Listening skills and following instructions are important. Play games like 'I Spy' to encourage children to listen carefully to what they are told and to distinguish the sounds in letters. You can make the games more sophisticated as children get older.
  
  
• Memory games are helpful, both those involving listening, such as 'My Grandmother Went to Market', and vision, such as trying to remember an increasing number of objects on a tray.
  
  
• Dominoes help with numbers and matching. Use picture cards first and then move on to normal dominoes.
  
  
• Try to play lots of games which involve physical skills, such as playing with a ball, skipping, hopping and jumping. Keep these at a simple level and praise children for what they can do and for every improvement they make.

The primary school child.

Keep up all the activities you have been doing at home before your child started school. This is the stage when dyslexic difficulties should also be noticed at school and a partnership between parents and teachers is the best way forward to provide additional help.

• Do not hesitate to raise your concerns with your child's class teacher and find out what arrangements the school makes to help dyslexic children.
  
  
• Stay closely in touch with the class teacher as your child moves up the school and ask what you can do at home to help.
  
  
• Try to help your child to enjoy the content of stories and information books by reading as much as possible to your child when he or she can just relax and listen. Friends or other family members may be able to help here. Use taped stories too. Some children also enjoy recording their own ideas on tape. It may encourage your child if someone could find the time to transcribe the content.
  
  
• Computers, if appropriately used, can be helpful in developing reading, spelling and number skills. Talk to your child's teacher about the possibilities of getting access to a computer, perhaps during or after school hours. It may be worth considering borrowing or buying one.
  
  
• Some dyslexic children find day-to-day organisation difficult, so make sure that you establish good routines for getting to school. Help them select the appropriate clothes and books. Plan homework or reading practice. For example, it may be helpful to colour code books for different subjects so that they can be easily identified.
  
  
• See if your child finds it easier to read through coloured filters. Try different coloured plastic folders from a stationery shop. If your child says this helps, for example, the letters or lines stop moving around, try to find glasses with coloured lenses. Your school or optometrist may be able to help.
  
  
• Recognise that your child may be very tired after school and allow time for him or her to unwind and relax.
  
  
• Boost your child's confidence as much as you can. When necessary, and with your child's agreement, tell people what the problem is. This may be particularly important if your child is joining in group activities outside school.
  
  
• Try to praise effort and good work and avoid criticism.
  
  
• Join your local dyslexia association or other relevant organisation for information and contacts (see Finding out more).

Does your child need special help?

Dyslexia varies in its severity and persistence from one child to another. Most children can be helped within mainstream education. Only a minority of children who have severe difficulties will need to go through the process of obtaining a Statement of Special Educational Need — about 3% of the school population in all.

When a family believes a child has special educational needs of any kind, they have a right to raise the matter with the school. Schools are expected to investigate parents' concerns in the same way as teachers' concerns.

The school may already be adjusting the way it teaches a particular child. For example, it may give work at a more basic level or use teaching methods that suit the child's learning style. This is called 'differentiation' and is not considered special educational provision.

If a child is not making adequate progress despite differentiation, the school may agree to provide help at the levels of School Action or School Action Plus. Most dyslexic children will receive this level of help.

In a small percentage of cases this help will not be enough, and the local education authority (LEA) will need to make a statutory assessment and draw up a Statement for the child.

Until recently all special educational help came under a five stage process and you may find your school still uses stages 1 to 3 to describe extra help at School Action and School Action Plus. Children do not have to start at School Action and work up — they should start with the level of help which meets their needs. The help can go up or down depending on their progress.

Parents have the right to ask the LEA for a statutory assessment (formerly stage 4) and a statement (formerly stage 5) if they feel school help is not enough.

If parents feel they are not getting a sympathetic response from their child's school they should contact their LEA themselves. The Advisory Centre of Education or the British Dyslexia Association can advise on how to take matters further. See Organisations for details.

School Action.

The school will collect information about the child and speak with parents. If they decide that a child needs more support, they will decide what help to give and usually record this in an individual education plan (IEP). At this level the child will get help that is extra or different from the help that the school usually provides. The child's progress should be checked regularly and parents kept fully informed.

School Action Plus.

If your child is making little or no progress in specific areas despite the help at School Action, external specialists, such as an educational psychologist and advisory teachers, will be consulted and may assess your child. They should, with your child's teachers, look at different ways of supporting your child. The specialists will advise on a new IEP with new targets and help.

They may decide with the school's special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) to request further advice from external professionals, but this shouldn't hold up the extra help.

Statutory assessment.

Some children will continue to have difficulties despite the school's best efforts and may show significant cause for concern. This should trigger a request to the LEA for a statutory assessment. This is a more detailed process than any assessments under School Action and will involve a number of professionals, including an educational psychologist, the child's headteacher, and contributions from medical and social services where appropriate.

The LEA will ask the school for details of the help they have provided so far and will want to look at the child's individual education plans. They will ask parents for their views of the child's difficulties. In many cases they will only agree to undertake a statutory assessment if they feel that the school has done everything it can within its resources and/or there is a need to learn more about the child's difficulties in order to determine what help is needed.

Parents have the right of appeal if the LEA decides not to assess whether they or the school made the request. If the LEA decides to assess it will use the reports from the professionals and parents to decide whether to write a Statement.

Parents can appeal if the LEA decides not to draw up a Statement.

Statements.

If the LEA decides a Statement is necessary, they will describe all the child's needs and spell out the provision to match those needs. A Statement is a legal document so the educational help it sets out must legally be given by the school.

It is important, therefore, that the wording in the Statement is very specific about the help so there is no room for doubt. As well as saying a child what type of extra the child will receive, the Statement should normally say how much help and when it will be given. If parents are unhappy with the LEA's view of the child's needs or help as set out in the Statement, or think it is unclear, they can appeal.

The secondary school child.

When a child transfers to secondary school the curriculum is divided more clearly into subject lessons. It now becomes clear what dyslexic pupils can do well and what is difficult. The basic skills are important for most subjects, but those which involve creative, technical, problem-solving and reasoning skills often allow many dyslexic children to shine.

Many secondary schools will continue to provide the support a dyslexic child needs with reading and writing and encourage excellence in other areas. But parents still need to keep in close contact with school and provide support at home.

The checklist below may provide a few useful points for parents to bear in mind as their children progress through school and generally become more independent. Older students may also like to take an active part in getting help and use these lists to talk things over with their parents and teachers.

• Dyslexic students are under constant pressure and may find life more tiring than their peers. Regular mealtimes and reasonably early nights during the week may make school life easier. It can be useful to discuss these points openly and sympathetically with young people.
  
  
• A quiet place to work is particularly important for dyslexic students. Schools sometimes have homework clubs or other facilities for pupils who find it hard to work at home.
  
  
• Children will need particular help with study skills and preparation for tests and examinations. Schools can usually offer specific help with these skills, such as checking over work, finding key points in a text, making notes and dealing with spelling problems.
  
  
• Schools should also have a policy on marking the work of dyslexic children which takes account of their difficulties with spelling and handwriting.
  
  
• Specialist words (for instance, in science) may cause particular problems. Staff should be aware of these difficulties and provide lists of specialist vocabulary for dyslexic children.
  
  
• New technology, such as word-processors and spellcheckers, can make a crucial difference to dyslexic children. Talk to staff about opportunities to use school computers. It may also be well worth considering borrowing or buying one.
  
  
• Discuss with the school whether some of the following methods could be used for class tests and end-of-year examinations:
  
  
  • questions read aloud and answered orally
    
    
  • questions read aloud for a written answer
    
    
  • questions recorded on a tape recorder with headphones
    
    
  • answers dictated on to a dictaphone or tape recorder
    
    
  • questions recorded on a speech-reactive computer programme, and the answers typed.

Contents of this site.

1. Introduction.

2. What is dyslexia?

3. Who is dyslexic?

4. Scientific findings.

5. Dyslexia and the education system.

6. How to recognise dyslexia in children.

7. Dyslexia in adults.

8. How to help.

9. External tests and examinations.

10. The way forward.

11. Finding out more.

12. Credits.