dyslexia resources
Success Starts Here
Resources for Students with Dyslexia and Other Struggling Readers
Remember: Students with Dyslexia Work Hard
- Students with dyslexia work hard all school year just to keep up with the class, sometimes working much harder than other students just to complete the same amount of work, leaving them mentally exhausted. They need some fun breaks in the summer. Just remember to spend short amounts of time practicing reading skills so they do not lose what they have already learned. Check out some of the resources below.
Read with Your Child
- Children tend to dislike doing things they feel they do not do well. For kids with dyslexia, that is reading.
- So, try to nurture their love for reading as much as possible. Encourage them to collect their own books and build their personal library. Help them pick the books they like so that you can read them together. Make reading a family activity that you all enjoy.
Word-Building Activities
- Start with shorter words that are easier to pronounce and try to make activity as fun as possible. Make it multisensory, colorful, engaging
- You can do this by writing in the sand, cutting out the letters from paper or cardboard or making them out of clay or playdough. Putting letters on pebbles, bottle tops or Legos is another thing you can do to make them more fun to combine.
- By helping your child “build” simple words, you are not only helping them learn how to spell words, but also how to recognize the similarities between how they are pronounced. With that, you are also helping with phonological awareness. Model proper pronunciation.
Activities for Working Memory
- Working memory allows us to hold on to and manipulate information that we have in our short-term memory. Kids with dyslexia usually have deficits in their working memory, which makes it hard to retain the image of letters, match them with sounds and perform the task of pronouncing or reading the word out loud.
- Activities such as riddles, solving logic problems, playing board games, listening actively to stories and retelling them, and doing a task that involves giving or following instructions (such as building, creating or cooking something) are just some of the activities that can help with boosting the capacity of your child’s working memory.
Activities for Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness is the ability to identify, think about and manipulate sounds in spoken speech. This skill is crucial for being able to read. Kids with dyslexia struggle to recognize syllables and sounds in words and to identify the words that begin with the same sound or rhyme.
The children can improve their phonological awareness through listening to and learning poems and songs, and connecting movement such as clapping with segmenting words by syllables or identifying the first and the last sound of the word.
Activities for Reading Comprehension
Learning new words does not only mean knowing how to pronounce it, but also how to use it in context. Children with dyslexia usually need more time understanding the differences between similar words, not only when they sound alike, but also when they have similar meaning.
To help them understand the word better, you can give more examples of how one word could be used. Put it more often in the context that is familiar to them. You can play a game in the car while you are driving and they are sitting in their car seat: you think of a word and start describing it, while they attempt to guess what it is. After they guess right, you can be the one guessing the word.
Resources for Parents
Fact Sheet for Parents and Great Article
https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/Dyslexia.pdf--English
https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/Dyslexia-Spanish.pdf--Spanish
How to Help a Child with Dyslexia at Home
Reading and Math Support
Reading Games
Spelling, Language Arts, Problems Solving
Comprehension
Accommodations
Texas Education Agency--Accommodations
Helpful websites and Tools
- International Dyslexia Association (IDA) (outside source)
- Parent Resources--International Dyslexia Association
- Tips for Parents With Children With Dyslexia--International Dyslexia Association
- Technology Integration for Students with Dyslexia (outside source)
- Texas Center for Learning Disabilities (outside source)
- Dyslexia Section 504, and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support: Guidance and Resources
- TEA and PBS Texas At-Home Learning
- Improving Literacy at Home--For all ages of students
- Reading Rockets articles and videos for Parents--Reading
- Reading Rockets articles--dyslexia
More Resources
What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is an unexpected difficulty in learning to read. Dyslexia takes away an individual's ability to read quickly and automatically and to retrieve spoken words easily, but it does not dampen one’s creativity and ingenuity.
Why Audiobooks?
For students with dyslexia and other learning differences that require reading intervention, leveled readers may not be enough. They help students learn to read, but they also limit their opportunities to acquire grade-level content. As a result, they often fall behind, become disengaged, and lose interest in learning.
Bookshare
Accessible online digital library with over 690,000 current titles and new titles added regularly. Student downloads text of a book directly to a computer from the webpage, or into a text-to-speech (TTS) app. The book is read by a digital voice.
Dyslexic students in Weatherford ISD have an organizational membership and are eligible for an individual membership. Individual memberships follow the student to different schools or even out of state.
Book choice encourages reading!
Learning Ally
Accessible online digital library with over 80,000 current titles and new titles added regularly. Student downloads text of a book directly to a computer from the webpage, or into a text-to-speech (TTS) app. The book is read by a human voice.
Text to speech (TTS)
Text readers – Needed to hear digital books from Bookshare. can also be used to listen to text from websites, or word processing files. Available in apps for mobile devices, as well as software.
- Dictionary.com (free App for phone) helps with pronunciation of words and spelling
- Learning Ally – (free) App created by Learning Ally for Apple or Android devices.
- Go Read – (free) App created by Bookshare for android devices.
- Bookshare WebReader – TTS for Windows, Chromebooks, and Mac computers
- PrizmoGo - (free) App for phone - turn paper text into the text to speech (hear the text)
- Speechify - (free App for phone)
- Read & Write - (free) App for Google Chrome Computer
Speech to text (STT)
Dictation apps or software for students to brainstorm, check spelling, or fully dictate with revisions and editing.
- Dragon Dictation – free app or available for purchase as software.
- Voice Dream Reader/Writer ($14.99) – Has multiple revision and editing abilities, including TTS so authors can hear their writing read back to them.
Presentations, reports, games
Give students the ability to show what they know outside of the traditional “book report.”
- Chatterpix – app to create talking pictures
- Powtoons – software to create interesting presentations and videos
- Kidspiration – create webs to show what they know or have learned
- Toondoo – software to create cartoon
- Smore – web-based site to create a newsletter that includes videos and pictures
- Weatherford ISD student email and Google apps including: Docs, Slides, and Sheets – www.weatherfordisd.com go to student email to login
Let students download games that require reading, writing, and spelling:
- Scribblenauts ($.99)
- The Opposites
- Word Solitaire
- 4 Pics 1 Word
- Spelling City
- Shadow Quiz
- Spelling Millionaire 2
- 94 Seconds
Websites
Dyslexia Help University of Michigan
http://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/
The Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity
http://dyslexia.yale.edu/Technology.html
The Academic Language Therapy Association
Scottish Rite Luke Waites Center for Dyslexia in Dallas
International Dyslexia Association, Dallas
Neuhaus Education Center
Bookshare
Dyslexic Advantage
http://community.dyslexicadvantage.org/
International Dyslexia Association
Understood - for Learning and Attention Issues
Films:
When The Chips are Down - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78bwTPUCBsE
What is Dyslexia? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zafiGBrFkRM
The Big Picture - Amazon Prime or you can check it out through the district
Mical - Film about the creator of Nessy
Books for Parents:
The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan - Ben Foss
It’s Called Dyslexia - Live and Learn Series - Jennifer Moore Mallinos
Dyslexia is My Superpower (Most of the time) - Margaret Rooke
The Dyslexic Advantage - Brock L. Eide, and Fernette F. Eide
Overcoming Dyslexia - Sally Shaywitz
Books to share with Students:
Fish in a Tree - Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Thank you, Mr. Faulker - Patricia Polacco
The Alphabet War: A story About Dyslexia - Diane Butron Robb
Knees, The Mixed-up World of a Boy with Dylexia - Vanita Oelshlager
If You’re So Smart, How Come You Can’t Spell Mississippi: - Barbara Esham
Percy Jackson and the Olympians (series) - Rick Riordan
May B. - Caroline Rose
Hank Zipzer (series for 3rd and older) - Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver
Here’s Hank (series for younger students) - Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver
Facebook Pages:
Decoding Dyslexia - Texas
Nessy (Education)
Dyslexia Spread the Word
The Dyslexia Initiative
Dyslexia Inspired
Dyslexia Support - for parents of dyslexic children
Summer Fun
Summer is here! It is the perfect time to encourage "reading/writing for fun!" Here are a few ideas~
Reading material in a different genre
Great Literacy Ideas for Fun at Home--Seed planting, etc.
Partnering with Parents for Literacy
Ideas for Helping the Dyslexic Student at Home
10 Things to Help Your Struggling Reader
Ten Things to Help Your Dyslexic Child--Yale
Dyslexia Success Stories
Click the link below to read through many different dyslexia success stories! This makes my heart full and extremely happy!
CHILDREN OF THE CODE
Children of the Code is a website that contains videos, interviews, events, and a plethora of information across a variety of topics that pertain to dyslexia and reading difficulties. Whether you are looking for the social emotional impact of dyslexia, history of our language, orthography, statistics, or would like to hear what it is like from a student perspective check out this site! You can access the site here: https://childrenofthecode.org .
Bonnie Villarreal
STEM Academy
Dyslexia Interventionist
Academy Language Teacher
Educational Diagnostician
Email: bonnie.villarreal@ectorcountyisd.org
Website: https://www.ectorcountyisd.org/STEM
Phone: (432) 552-2580