Dyslexia in K

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Teachers are responsible for educating all of their students. An effective teacher will be able to successfully instruct lessons to enhance learning for all students including children with dyslexia and other learning differences. Multisensory teaching methods are recommended for teaching children with dyslexia and other learning differences. Unfortunately, not all teachers have specific training in a multisensory method. This can pose a huge problem in the classroom if a child’s learning style isn’t addressed. Fortunately, there are vast amounts of relevant resources available to teachers to support them in the classroom.

I was a classroom teacher for 6 years. I taught many children diagnosed with learning differences and many students that weren’t diagnosed and should have been! Regardless of who was diagnosed with what, I was expected to reach all of their needs. I used as much hands-on kinesthetic and multisensory approaches I could, but had to come up with them on my own as I started teaching 15 years ago and I was hardly computer literate. I feel (hope!) I was successful but it would have been much easier had I had access to the Internet, specific lesson plans, and simply more information on different learning styles.

Today there is so much information on the Internet to aid teachers in helping students with learning differences gain knowledge. The websites posted offer an assortment of tools and information to support a teacher in the classroom. Dyslexia teacher offers hints and tips of various techniques shared by teachers who have successfully used in the classroom. The National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET) provides a list of professional resources among many other things. Education Place offers use of assorted graphic organizers. Kidspiration and Inspiration provide specific lesson plans as well as graphic organizers you can create. Lexianet is a website for teachers using phonics based literacy programs. It makes available lesson planning software and publications. The Spang Gang website is especially fun as it provides games according to standards though the site itself is a little visually overwhelming! Teachnet provides lesson plans.