Dyslexia is a disorder that affects the ability for a person to understand words and letters. This makes learning to read difficult. A common misconception is that dyslexia is related to intellect. It has no correlation to a persons intelligence at all. 

 

What are the Tell Tale Signs of Dyslexia?

Many parents grow concerned when their child is not progressing at the same rate as their peers when it comes to learning to read. The ability to read effects so many aspects of life so the struggle to read will often pour over into other areas also. 

It is important to note that children do develop at different rates. There is a huge range of normal but if you are concerned it is always always always best to follow your gut instinct. A parent’s gut very rarely wrong when it comes to their children. A teacher is working with a number of different children and does not have the same intimate relationship with your child that your do. Children are also excellent at hiding their struggles when they want to. Whether that be copying work from others, asking for help in other ways or acting out so that the work is forgotten while their behaviour is dealt with instead. 

The following are some signs of Dyslexia (you would think they could of come up with an easier word for it right?!) that you may want to keep and eye out for in your child.

• Incredibly intelligent in many areas but struggles to read and spell at grade level. They will however be able to verbally express what they want to write very articulately. 
• Has poor test grades but would ace the test if given verbally
• Becomes emotional, upset, angry and defiant when it comes to reading or spelling
• Has physical symptoms while reading such as headaches or stomach aches. These could also stem from the anxiety reading produces for them
• Can read the same thing over and over but not retain anything they have read
• Spells words phonetically (how they sound) past an early writing level
• Messy handwriting and strange pencil grip
• Awesome memory for things they can experience such as people, locations, and experiences they have had. However their ability to retain information about facts they can’t experience is poor, for example dates, facts or information they haven’t personally experienced.
• Poor time management
• Thinks mainly in images or feelings. They have very little internal dialogue going on. 
• Consistently mix up and confuse letters. Deleting, adding, replacing and mixing up the letters in words is common. 
• Appears to struggle with their vision despite eye examinations showing nothing unusual. 
• A close relative with Dyslexia

These things can sound pretty scary right? Did you know that some people think that Dyslexia doesn’t exist? Some people think that is related to poor teaching, laziness, too much television and lack of parenting among many other reasons. 

Did you also know that Dyslexia is one of the most researched and studied learning disorders? That’s right, and not once was it ever attributed to poor parenting or laziness or too much television. Those things wont effect a child anymore than a child who doesn’t have Dyslexia. So rest assured you didn’t do anything to cause Dyslexia, it’s just one of those things that happen that you can’t help or predict. 

 

How Can Homeschooling Help? 

If you think about a typical school and how things are assessed and tested you will quickly realise how difficult that will be for a Dyslexic child. Timed and written tests are just the beginning. 

Having a homeschool education a child can have their knowledge tested verbally. You will be surprised how much they actually know that tests have not been able to show! 

They can have texts read to them without the pressure of having to read it themselves over and over with very little understanding resulting from their efforts. 

While the benefit of moving towards having a larger verbal and auditory aspect of your child’s education it is important to remember that reading and spelling are still very important skills that need to be learnt. Homeschooling will let your child work on this at their own pace. There is no pressure to perform or keep up with anyone else. Your child can celebrate his achievement of reading at a 1st grade level despite the fact that he is 3rd grade. It will take longer to learn and it wont be easy but once you remove that pressure it will make it a million times easier and a much more pleasant experience for your child. 

Confidence. Let’s talk about the confidence that you can see blooming within your child as they see them self as successful, intelligent and a down right awesome student. Dyslexic children can become disruptive in class due to frustration and embarrassment. The results of this become being put on behaviour management plans, singled out in classes, and bullying. This is by no means an absolute but it is sadly common among not only Dyslexic children but many children with learning difficulties especially if they are not picked up early in their education. 

 

Homeschool Curriculum for Dyslexia

There is no one specific curriculum for Dyslexia but I can give you some direction on how to pick out what might work best for your child out of the mountain of different homeschooling resources available to you. It is daunting when you start googling. 

The first thing I would do if you haven’t already is get on the audiobook train. Many libraries are now jumping on board and you can borrow them either on CD or via an app. An app is always my method of choice because you know how kids are with losing and breaking things. Plus if it is an app you don’t have to worry about those late fees….I currently owe $50 on one card. I am just waiting for the day when you can take a can of food and have your fees waived! 

My personal choice for audiobooks though is using Audible. You can get a subscription for around $10 a month (your first month is freeeee). With that subscription you get one free book a month. You can also purchase books whenever you want as well. There are a tonne of free books to download, usually the classics. You can also pick up lots and LOTS of books for .99c. We download and listen to them in the car, during quiet time, while doing art projects and during flights. I really want to get one of these Echoes though. I think aside from all the other cool things it does having one in the kids rooms would be great for them to be able to stream audio books without constantly taking my phone or iPads. 

Reading eggs is another great program that would be beneficial to dyslexic kids. It is a multi-sensory app that teaches early reading. It require no writing and the instructions are read out to the child. It is slow and gradual in it’s approach to reading with lots and lots of praise a long the way. My VERY reluctant reader first started to read on this program and he loved it. 

There is one program that is put up time and time again as the best reading program for Dyslexic children. That is All About Reading. The reason is that children with dyslexia need an intense reading program that is very explicit in how the reading rules are taught. (I had no idea there were actually reading rules until I started teaching reading!) Rules make reading easier to decode and read words. All About Reading teaches in a very systematic way. It is multi-sensory, which means it uses more than one sense to help the child grasp what is being taught. What I really loved about this curriculum was that after each lesson the child was successful in reading the material for the day. For example the little story they read at the end of the lesson didn’t include any words that they weren’t capable of decoding. This gave my son the confidence he needed to move on. The games are a lot of fun too (I may have spent hours colouring and laminating them all but oh my gosh so pretty!) All About Reading also separates reading and spelling (they also have a spelling curriculum too) I think this is especially important for Dyslexic kids because putting them together is just going to be overwhelming. Let’s just focus on one thing at a time. 

 

What to Look for in a Homeschool Curriculum?

Since children with Dyslexia learn better by seeing, doing and hearing looking for curriculums with a high level of audible input. Online programs could be a great way to go. You could have the computer read out the instructions for them. You may also want to look for curriculums that have a lot of hands on aspects. There are some really cool subscription boxes from Kiwi Crate which would be awesome for this. They are boxes of hands on educational activities delivered right to your door each month. They have different subjects like art/science/engineering etc and also cater for a wide variety of ages. I am particularly in love with the science and engineering one. I am thinking that will be on the list for my eldest Christmas gift. It will be the gift that keeps on giving! 

The are lots and lots of homeschooling parents who have children that are dyslexic and I am sure would be more than willing to share what they know and their experiences with you. But where do I find these awesome people you may ask? Facebook. You find them hanging out in all corners of the Facebook universe. Just search for homeschool + your area/dyslexia/your religion/your homeschool method/moms….you get the idea. 

 

There are some schools that are incredible and provide amazing resources and teaching staff for children with Dyslexia. If that is where your child is then definitely keep them there if you are both happy and thriving. That is what we all want for our kids right?! Happy, healthy kids who love to learn. If you feel like you need something more then maybe homeschooling is something you could consider.