In this article I will explain 17 Activities for children with dyslexia Which will serve to overcome difficulties and improve performance.
Dyslexia is a learning disorder related to literacy. It is within the specific learning difficulties (AED).
Subjects who present this difficulty have problems accessing the lexicon and may have problems in phonological, auditory or visual processing.
A person with dyslexia Presents a cognitive development within the normality or can be superior to the average, and also do not suffer sensory alterations and have acceded to the literacy in a habitual way; However, they present problems of access to the lexicon.
Evaluation and intervention in dyslexia
The purpose of the evaluation is to identify the Subject with dyslexia . It might seem simple; However, it is a complex task that requires taking into account numerous factors to make it accurate.
The main areas or neuropsychological problems (visoauditiva perception, laterality, psychomotricity??) and that are related to the problems that these subjects present in the literacy must be evaluated, on the one hand.
On the other hand, we must analyze the psycholinguistic competences that the subject has, the processes that are involved in reading: the phonological level, the syntactic, the semantic??
Finally, designing and planning strategies and activities that help the subject with dyslexia to overcome their difficulties should be the ultimate goal of professionals who are responsible for intervening with these subjects.
When intervening in dyslexia, you must take into account not only its limitations but also the possibilities and potentialities that it has to promote them to the maximum.
17 activities for children with dyslexia
1. Knowledge of one's own body
Dyslexic children may have psychomotor problems, such as in the body schema.
To work the corporal scheme involves working so that they know their own body and then the other.
Any activity that involves naming one's own body can help them. It can be done on paper activities with the silhouette of a boy or girl to name the parts or in a more experiential way from the body itself (in a mirror) or that of his partner.
The spatial notions of the body and the other are worked. It can work the location of the body parts and also the location of objects with respect to the body itself.
Another idea to work the body is to cut a silhouette so that the child must assemble the puzzle to compose the complete human body.
2. Activities of spatio-temporal orientation
Children with dyslexia also present problems of spatio-temporal orientation, so they should be taught spatial notions as up-down, front-back?? As well as temporary ones, such as before-after, late-night.
It should be done in graphic association but also in a dynamic way.
This makes it difficult for children with dyslexia to locate the letters and structure them in space.
For example, to work the spatial orientation you can take different objects and ask the child to put it in front, back, left, right?? You can work with your own body (put it on top of the table, down, left??).
On paper can also be worked on spatial notions. An exercise can be to make the image of a child and several dogs, one on each side. The dogs looking at the front and the person in the middle. The person can vary from position (it will be front, back, side to side).
A child is asked to paint the dogs on the child's left and the ones on the child's right in the blue.
To work the temporal orientation, for example, an activity that can be developed are the vignettes. Put a messy story and ask the child to, through the vignettes, order the story.
3. Reading and comprehension of texts and stories
Another of the things that can be done is the understanding of stories. From these can be carried out many different activities.
As you read a story with the child with dyslexia, you can comment on what is happening, you can also ask what you think will happen next in the story or ask you things that have happened previously in the story.
In addition, once you have read it, you can design different activities:
- Draw relevant ideas from the text
- Make a different end
You can also set short stories and ask specific things (what animal comes out in the story, what the character tells his friend, what color was the house??).
Another way to work understanding, even if it is not from stories, is to establish images of products, packaging of toys, perfumes?? Anything you can think of but have written material.
Through this, for example with a package of cookies (or your photo), you can ask what ingredients have, how many grams it has, what brand belongs, etc.
You can also make different bullets where some of the boxes contain information that does not fit the comic.
You should ask the child what the vignette is that does not correspond in history because it is meaningless. In this way, you must understand the text to understand correctly.
4. Crossword puzzles, letter soups, board games with letters
To work phonological awareness any of these letter games can help us.
We can create crossword puzzles for children, letter soups or even play Scrabble style games to create words, look for them in the text, etc.
5. Lateralization activities
Children with dyslexia also present motor problems, laterality. Work must be done to identify lateral dominance.
You can also work the lateral securing. For that, you can perform strength exercises (lift a bucket with the part of the body you want to secure, hold a book, a box??
And also precision activities such as screwing and unscrewing nuts, a button, laces?? For the body areas that must be secured.
You can do activities like: with the left hand touch the right foot, stand in front of a mirror and split your body in two with duct tape, touch with the right hand only the right area of your body (eye, cheek, shoulder?? ).
6. Exercises to spell words
We can work the spelling of words. We can say a word and learn to spell it (pointing words on a page, picking up a magazine, with street signs, the name of a book??).
It is important to work the sound in addition to the name of the letter. If we read"sol", we will work with the child: la?? s?? (Ssssss), la?? (Oooooo), la?? l?? (III).
7. Activities with rhymes and riddles
Activities with rhymes are very beneficial for Children with autism . For example, they can be encouraged to find two words that rhyme, to pair with their name and those of their friends or family.
Or we can help them and encourage them to create simple guesswork.
8. Working with phonemes
To work the phonemes can work different activities. We can work the segmentation, replace them, omit them??.
For example, activities to work on how to segment the phonemes would be to ask the child to make all the sounds of a word, for example,"table": m-e-s-a. And so with different words. While making the sound, let's name the letter.
You can also work the replacement, so we ask you to replace the?? s?? (And we make the sound?? ssss??) by another different sound. For example, instead of"CaStillo", you can say"CaRtillo".
In how many phonemes, we can also ask him to omit it. Thus, if we ask you to do it with the letter S, instead of"caStillo", it will say"caillo".
To work the phonemes we can also ask you to find the sound just like it is in different words. For example, in?? home? And?? school?? Or in?? water??? And will not catch.
9. Work with syllable segmentation
It is important to work syllables with children with dyslexia to work syllabic awareness. Different exercises can be developed for this.
It is possible to work the segmentation of syllables, where we work with the child the division of these. For example, we ask you not to say how many syllables has the word?? chocolate??: cho-co-la-te.
In addition, we can also work on the substitution of syllables through words, where we ask the child how a certain word would remain if we change one of the syllables.
For example, we say, are we going to replace the first syllable of the word milk??. The child will first segment the word?? le-che?? And then think how to replace it, for example? Te-che??.
With the syllables you can also work the omission, for which we will ask you to omit a syllable that we mark. To do this, you must first do the segmentation and then omit it.
For example, we tell you to skip the second syllable of the word"bottle", and you have to say"bo-X-lla".
We can also do the opposite, put words where a syllable is missing and it is he who has to complete the word looking for something that finds meaning.
10. Localization and identification activities
To work visual reception, visual decoding, which is the reference to the ability to understand or interpret symbols (an example are written words).
Examples can be made where the child should locate the similarities and differences between two words, for example by finding where the difference is.
Other exercises that can be performed to work visual reception and that are adequate when the problem is in this area can be identify objects by associating letter-sound, identify colors, numbers, geometric shapes.
And these activities can be done both on paper and experiencing them.
11. Meanings and synonyms in reading
You can also work synonyms from reading. You can set a text with some underlined words and ask the child what the word means.
This will allow you to deepen understanding, so you can explain with your words the meaning of the concept and look for synonyms or antonyms to better understand it.
12. Invented words or absurd phrases
Another fun activity that can be done with children with dyslexia is"invented words".
Is it that you create columns of pairs of words, for example: house / sasa, lion / teon, caramol / snail?? And ask the child to choose which of the two words is invented.
To work the auditory reception can also be performed activities to identify absurd phrases.
13. I see the word I see in words
It's about playing the traditional game of?? Veo-Veo??. We can work through the beginning of words - a word that begins with A??, but also through syllables, such as indicating the child?? a word that starts with sal-?? Or a word that begins with?? mu -??.
You can also work with the last syllable, for example, a word that ends in?? che? (car).
You can also work without the"I-Veo", so that although it is not present around you, you can present different syllables and the child to invent different words that can begin (or end up like this).
For example, we propose?? sal-?? And he can complete it with all the words that come to mind: jump, salmon, jump?? Or vice versa, they end in?? - te??: tomato, chocolate.??
14. Sort syllables
The exercises to order syllables consist in presenting in a folio the child words disordered by syllables:? Te-to-ma??, for example, being the child who has to put next to the correct word.
We can then indicate that you create a sentence where the word is included.
An alternative would be to give him the floor with the hole for him to complete.
15. Working on word strings
Another of the exercises is the game of the chain of words. To do this, we will start with a word, for example,?? tomato?? And the child with dyslexia should say another word that ends with the last syllable, for example? Phone??, and the next one continues from phone with another word, for example: note, heel, longaniza, shoe.??
16. Recognition of correct forms of words
Another activity that can be done, although it also depends on the child's age, is to recognize the correct way of words and sentences.
This implies knowing how to differentiate the singular from the plural, verbal, masculine and feminine, adjectives, and suffixes.
Activities can be adapted to the child's level. We can establish a list of words to be told if they are female or male words; We can establish the synonyms and tell him to tell us how it would be in the plural, etc.
17. Work by semantic field
To work verbal expression, which allows the child to communicate their ideas, we must strengthen the verbal descriptions, offer visual and verbal suggestions to stimulate him.
For this, in addition to the descriptions that imply their experience, we can help them through the classifications of objects by semantic fields.
Thus, we can make cards for semantic fields?? the beach??,?? the school???, for example, and go adding all the words that we happen to us of each semantic field.
Then we can mix them with other tabs that do not belong to these semantic fields so that the child can classify them.
And what other activities for children with dyslexia do you know?
References
- Ministry of Education. Manual of assistance to students with specific educational support needs derived from specific learning difficulties: dyslexia.
- Iglesias, M. T. Students with dyslexia: strategies for educators.
- Website of the Dyslexia and Family Association. Extracted from: http://www.disfam.org/dislexia/.
- Dyslexia PTYAL activities website.
- Rivas, R. M. and Fernández, P. (2000). Dyslexia, dysortography and dysgraphia. Pyramid, solar eyes collection.