Monday, October 2, 2017

 

Dyslexia Awareness Month

Nancy K. Harrison

October is Dyslexia Awareness month. For many years the word “dyslexia” was not broadly used in education. Thankfully, because of the diligence of parents and policy makers in Virginia and across the nation, the term “dyslexia” is recently being used in schools more openly.

“Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede the growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.” (Definition adopted by the Board of Directors of the International Dyslexia Association, 2002)

At New Vistas School we address the needs of students with dyslexia by providing for them a multi-sensory approach to instruction. Trained in the Orton-Gillingham approach to education, our teachers strive to implement the use of hands-on activities, and varied instructional practices. When students are able to work with the material using a variety of modalities, they are rewiring the brain to function more efficiently.

Typically, a student with dyslexia can learn the same amount of information a traditional learner can master, he just may take a little longer to do so. Sometimes a student with dyslexia may process auditorally or visually more slowly than his peers, while being capable of learning the same material. Dr. Sally Shaywitz, a leading authority on the subject of dyslexia, describes it as, “An island of weakness in a sea of strength.”

Some helpful websites on dyslexia are: www.dyslexiaida.org, www.brightsolutions.us, and www.dyslexia.yale.edu.