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Structuring Written content for dyslexics

How can you easily structure any written content

Did you know W. B. Yeats is one of the most famous poets of all time, winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923, but few people know about his personal struggle with dyslexia.
I want to continue telling you about my personal struggle and how I achieving success with dyslexia.

My daughter at 7 was and still is a prolific reader. And she reads books above her age group. Well she has an advanced vocabulary too, partly because of this and also she liked to talk "at" adults. She is dyslexic.

I was struggling with her daughter to help her complete her homework about a year ago. It was to complete a nocturnal animals report.

She had read 6 books and could tell me all about the animals in detail. But she did not know where to start. It seems strange to me that kids are not shown how to plan and make the homework.

And of course without structure, she began to fail.

Homework

When I brought the subject up of how was the homework coming a week later, she changed the subject and talked about how she hates school. How they have her on the Lexxic program, "which is for dummies".

I have sat with her and the online program is pretty unforgiving. Especially for dyslexics with a short term memory. One mistake takes you back to repeat the sequence again for spelling, pronunciation, grammar and phonics. (could this help with long term memory, or put up obstacles - perhaps it could just have a mandatory refresher section)

This happens even if you have 95% of the series right. You then have to work back up to the problem.

That aside I agreed with her analysis. and then showed the results from the previous subjects. "It says here, that you have passed 50% of the whole course!", "I think if you keep going and not worry about these learning gaps, you will do as well as you have done before."

Her response was, "OKAY!"

"So lets try the Nocturnal homework?"

The homework was in her head. I unapologetically asked her to write it. Tears began and immediate frustration.

The Lexxi was rewriting her rules of English, but no one was showing her the structure for basic written work. In most cases this is assumed.
It about 15mins after she began to calm down. I approached it again.

Document overview

"In writing we have 3 parts.
  1. Introduction
  2. Body
  3. Summary

In the body we will talk about three subjects usually. What are the animals?
Owl, Hedgehog and Badger
  1. Introduction
  2. Body
    1. Owl
    2. Hedgehog
    3. Badger
  3. Summary

What do know about each animal? Tell me three things about the owl.
They live in barns and trees. They eat mice and small animals. They are sometimes killed by humans.
    1. Each animal has.
      1. Habits
      2. Favourite Foods
      3. Predators
I let her write a the title and the fill out what she knew. It was a sentence for each thing.

Introduction

In the introduction, we just put what the report is about.
This report is about three Nocturnal animals. These are the hedgehog, badger and the Owl. You will find out about their habits, favourite foods and predators.

Summary

In the Summary, we just put what we want the person to know.
She wrote, "I had fun reading and researching Nocturnal animals. I hope you have too."

What I want you to know

In 30 minutes, including tantrum. I had shown her how to structure an essay. Even a basic one. You might have a better way. But I was wondering why I hadn't learned this at school as well. If this time was taken with others, how many lives could we change before the emotional rot sets in.
I had made it my mission to show her how she wasn't a dummy. "I already know this," she said. I wanted to help her. Many teachers are resigned that they cannot help everyone. And without the time and the tools how can they.
Surely in a year, a teacher could spend 30mins per struggling pupil. Apparently only 5% of the class should be dyslexic.
But with the reaction of
So with her "Nocturnal animals", homework I tried by first making diagrams of the topics, it didn't help because she didn't have an architectural degree.
What are we teaching Dyslexics? Often it is that spelling is more important than ideas and research. Remember that we were still learning to spell, in Shakespeare’s time.
It literally took no time at all to show her this. So why isn't it taught. I hope to help you overcome your writing blocks.
Since then she has started poetry and been the only person in her class to be put forward for a borough competition.

Good luck. Please comment. 



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