NEW Helpful Resources for Dyslexia Challenges

As mentioned in last week’s blog article, we have been attending and presenting seminars at several educational conferences over the past several weeks. Last week was no exception, as we visited and briefly presented for a third time at the Patrick Henry Downtown Academy’s Parent Symposium here in St. Louis.

Just like attendees at the previous educational conferences, interested parents and teachers at the school expressed their concerns about struggling readers, asking questions about various reading challenges that included dyslexia. Some of the young students from the school were also present. These parents and teachers (and even some of the students) told us what it’s really like for some students who struggle to read just like conference attendees over the past several weeks had mentioned. The following are some of the reading symptoms described:

1. Eyes get tired when reading for just for a few minutes.
2. Florescent lights in the classroom seem to cause a glare and make it hard to focus, much less read and understand what is read.
3. Can’t focus on the line to be read. Eyes are all over the page.
4. My child loses his place all the time when he tries to read.
5. My daughter says that the letters on the page look like they are moving or waving.

With these symptoms described to us more than a few times, we shared information about the importance of comprehensive eye exams and the value of using our Reading Focus Cards (Patent 7,565,759). At the same time, we also provided literature that included tips and strategies to help challenged readers of all ages.

Finally, we thought this might be a good time to provide these parents and teachers as well as our readers here some new resources for symptoms like those listed. The descriptions above could be possible indications of dyslexia. However, dyslexia is a reading challenge for which accommodations are not provided in student IEPs (in most states). In fact, an IEP is not even provided for students with a singular diagnosis of dyslexia (again, in most states). At the same time, dyslexia is a reading challenge that can significantly impact one's self-esteem and overall success in life. As a result, we wanted to provide the following new resources we hope will be helpful to many:

New Resources for Dyslexia and Other Reading Challenges

Teaching Resources (from TES)
(Last updated on April 19, 2013)
Over 600,672 free teaching resources for dyslexia and other learning challenges to use in your classroom and school today. TES Teaching Resources is where teachers share and download free lesson plans, classroom resources, revision guides and curriculum worksheets. Whether you are looking for SEN teaching strategies and approaches, VCOP activities, or secondary classroom activities, you can choose from 1000s of teacher resources, download them for free and adapt them to suit your classroom activities.
http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resources/

Supporting Spelling (from TES)
(Last updated on October 11, 2012)
TES provides a selection of strategies and ideas to help your students improve their spelling. The range of free resources includes lesson plans and worksheets on mnemonics, spelling guides, games and strategies helpful for supporting pupils with dyslexia and moderate learning difficulties.
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6258399

Understanding Dyslexia: Infographic---Visual diagram describing dyslexia from the WeAreTeachers Blog (Published April 03, 2013)
http://www.weareteachers.com/community/blogs/weareteachersblog/blog-wat/2013/04/03/understanding-dyslexia-infographic

Top Tips to Start Supporting Students with Dyslexia (from TES)
This colorful diagram provides teachers and parents with strategies to use immediately with children and teens challenged with dyslexia.
http://pinterest.com/pin/80150068341286459/

OpenDyslexic---A new, open-sourced font created by Abelardo Gonzalez to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. The typeface includes regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic styles. It is being updated continually and improved based on input from dyslexic users. There are no restrictions on using OpenDyslexic outside of attribution.
http://opendyslexic.org/

Reading with COLOR---What a Difference It Can Make!
(Published March 10, 2013)
http://www.focusandread.com/blog/post/3537480

For information on customizable reading tools:
www.FocusandRead.com Tools for struggling readers of all ages!
www.BrennanInnovators.com Info & support for struggling readers
314-892-3897

Image courtesy of: Brennan Innovators, LLC at http://www.focusandread.com/blog