Frequently Asked Questions

What about dyslexia and learning a foreign language? Is it more difficult for them than for non-dyslexics?

Despite many discouraging learning a foreign language, no research concludes such an assertion. Further, most research deals with learning English as a foreign language, which is a limitation. Therefore, one cannot conclude that persons with dyslexia should not learn a foreign language. One needs to consider the Multiple Intelligence Model and the teaching techniques. Unfortunately, most foreign language teaching includes reading and writing at the early stages, which puts persons with dyslexia at a disadvantage. The diversity of bilingual settings also needs to be discussed, and first, we must distinguish at least three different scenarios:

• Submersion: the learner is schooled entirely in the target language amongst learners for which this language is their mother tongue. The teaching programme is not adapted to the linguistic needs of non-native learners, who need to learn the language of their instruction through interaction with their teacher and peers and through the lessons.
• Immersion: the learner acquires a foreign language with other learners who are in the same situation, and the teaching programme is adapted to their educational and linguistic needs;
• The learning of a mandatory additional language at school.

We should remember the many children, often newly arrived in a country, who speak their native language at home and have sometimes learnt to read and spell but whose school language is a foreign language.

The acquisition of the spoken and written language

It is very important to distinguish between oral language and written language.

At the oral language level, the dyslexic learner will have to learn a series of other names of objects in the target language to associate with the objects they already know in their first language.

Dyslexic learners do not generally have more difficulties than non-dyslexic learners. Dyslexic or not, some learners have more abilities in learning foreign languages than others. Their verbal intelligence is a strong aspect of their profile.

However, suppose the target language has phonemes or phonemic contrasts that do not exist in the dyslexic learner’s native language. In that case, they will have more difficulties learning these phonemes and contrasts, given their overall difficulties in building abstract and generalised representations of phonemes.

A classic example is Japanese speakers learning English. English has two consonants that belong to the family of liquid consonants, namely /l/and /r/. Japanese only has one liquid consonant, whose pronunciation is intermediate between the English /l/and /r/. Hence, Japanese speakers learning English will show particular difficulties distinguishing /l/from /r/ and will keep on confounding those two phonemes and graphemes both orally and when writing.

Being confronted with a written foreign language is often very problematic for dyslexic learners. To recap, one of the major characteristics of dyslexia is the difficulty in associating graphemes with their corresponding phonemes for reading and vice versa for spelling.

When confronted with the written system of a foreign language, the dyslexic learner will have to acquire a whole new set of grapheme-phoneme correspondences, amongst which many do not even exist in their native language (especially the vowels). Moreover, in many cases, some of these correspondences conflict with those with which the learner has to cope in their native language (e.g. the sound of the grapheme ‘u’ in English /u/and Italian/oo/).

Let’s consider, for example, the phoneme /ow/, which appears in the word “cloud”. Working in French, the learner will discover that this grapheme is pronounced /ou/, as in the word “trou” (meaning hole). What is more, in French, the learner will discover that the phoneme /ow/does not exist and that in English, the phoneme /ou/is spelt with two vowels which never come together in French, namely /oo/ (as in “good”). The complexity of this paragraph mirrors the classroom experience.

This example is far from unique. When exposed to the orthographic system of a foreign language, the dyslexic learner will be required to master many new correspondences -which is precisely what is very difficult for them.

Therefore, the best advice is to avoid, as much as possible, contact with the written system of the foreign language first whilst insisting on learning of the oral language.

At the oral level, all languages are equally complex. Some languages have more phonemes than others, but these differences are sufficiently negligible not to affect their acquisition.

Things are very different with written systems. Every language displays a written system, which can be more complex or less complex.

Some languages have transparent written systems: words are written as they are pronounced and pronounced as they are spelt. In these languages, the correspondence between graphemes and phonemes is bi-univocal: each grapheme always corresponds to the same phoneme, and vice versa.

Finnish, Italian, and Spanish are among the languages displaying a transparent orthographic system, and German, Maltese, and Dutch are also present.

In contrast, other languages have so-called opaque orthographic systems, such as English and, to a lesser extent, French. English is a hybrid and embodies words and spellings originating from Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and romantic languages origins, for example.

In these opaque orthographic systems, the correspondences between graphemes and phonemes are complex and multiple: the same grapheme can be pronounced differently, and the same phoneme can be written with several graphemes.

Dyslexic learners will be more able to read and write languages with transparent orthographic systems than those with opaque systems. This is true for all children, but it is even more true for dyslexic learners.

However, in real life, things need to be nuanced. It would be foolish to advise dyslexic children to learn Italian or Spanish rather than French because the former’s orthographic systems are more transparent.

A central element to consider is the learner’s motivation. Suppose a dyslexic learner wants to learn French. In that case, it is probably better to let them do so while warning them of the written difficulties they will face and foreseeing the extra help that will allow them to master the orthographic system of that language.

There is no unequivocal answer,  given the diversity of the immersion contexts. In some immersionprogrammes, learners learn to read and spell in their second language first, whilst in others, they acquire literacy in their native language first, and so on.

Another critical factor is whether one of the parents speaks the immersion language.

Dyslexic or not, some learners can learn one or several foreign languages more than others.

The dyslexic child faced with immersion language is confronted by the double difficulty of learning the vocabulary of that language and its written system. This double task is more difficult for them than for a non-dyslexic learner.

However, immersion in a transparent language, like Finnish, Spanish and Portuguese, could be beneficial in some circumstances. Indeed, Canadian researchers (Da Fontoura & Siegel, 1995) compared the reading and spelling skills of poor Portuguese-English bilingual learners to those of English monolinguals. The bilinguals were taught English but also learnt to read and spell in Portuguese for 30 minutes daily. Contrary to what was expected,  the bilinguals performed better than the monolinguals on some tasks (e.g., pseudo-word reading and spelling).

To explain these results, the researchers noted that Portuguese writing is far more transparent than English writing. They, therefore, hypothesised that reading in Portuguese could significantly help dyslexic learners develop and train in the phonological decoding procedure of reading. This can be paramount in developing all the mechanisms of word identification and comprehension of the written language. Those learners would then have transferred their phonological decoding abilities to English, thus facilitating tasks such as reading pseudowords.

Therefore, it could be possible that immersion in a more transparent orthographic system than English facilitates the development and, especially, the automatisation of the phonological recoding route to reading and, therefore, reading development in general.

In all cases, the learner must master two orthographic systems throughout this curriculum, which can prove challenging for dyslexic learners.

As already noted in the introductory note to this course. Co-occurrence of dys-profiles is more than the norm than the exception. This is why the course is embracing a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework (Boysen, 2024; CAST, 2001, 2004).

(Image from https://inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/technology-tools-for-learning/take-a-udl-approach/)

Whilst we focus on dyslexia, we would like to state that all strategies presented in this course are inclusive and beneficial for all children. This is necessary because it is a philosophy that EDA embraces and because a dyslexia profile is rarely found in isolation and is often accompanied by other learning challenges. To note, dyslexia is the most common in neuro-diverse profiles.

In the past, researchers tended to study learning difficulties in isolation. There is a growing consensus that various learning difficulties share standard features and usually do not manifest themselves in isolation. Habib (2003, 2018) termed this Constellation of DYS, or DYS-constellation. A term that now seems to be gaining ground this decade is neuro-diverse profiles. Habib (2003, 2018) pointed out that all DYS learning difficulties share two common elements:

• The frequency of their co-occurrence – the difficulty in question is nearly always associated with one or several other difficulties (co-occurrence); and
• Their independence of the learner’s global intellectual functioning.

Other studies have likewise concluded this phenomenon (e.g. Carroll et al., 2005; Monuteaux et al., 2005; Willcutt et al., 2005,2019), now also embraced by the fifth edition of the 2022). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR). (American Psychiatric Association, 2022) and International Classification of Diseases ICD-11 (World Health Organisation, 2022).

The various DYS difficulties, of which some often coexist within the same learner include:

• Speech Sound Disorders (SSD) – Motor difficulties of articulation that makes it difficult to pronounce some phonemes. It includes pronunciation difficulties such as stammering, lisping and hearing. SSD has replaced the term Dyslalia
• Dysphasia – structural and lasting challenges with oral language development
• Dysorthographia – concerns the acquisition of the rules for spelling and grammar. it is often, but not always, part of the dyslexia profile
• Dyscalculia – difficulties with numerical and mathematical skills. the terms Math/Maths Learning Disorder or Math/Maths Learning Difficulties (MLD) are also used.
• Dysgraphia – challenges with fine motor skills affecting the graphical gesture and the optimum formation of letters. Persons with dysgraphia might not have difficulties with drawing or sketching.
• Dyspraxia – difficulties executing the voluntary sequences of movements to interact with the environment (e.g., riding a bicycle, tying shoelaces, getting dressed, etc.). In other words, challenges carrying out planned actions. The term DCD (Developmental Coordination Disorder) is now preferred
• Attention Deficit (ADD)/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – persons with ADD have challenges with concentration and focus. If they are also hyperactive, then one uses the term (ADHD). Teachers need to be aware that slow processing is sometimes mistaken for ADD. The child would seem out-of-focus and not attending to what you are saying then they would actually still be processing what you said before. One therefore needs to be careful not to jump to the wrong conclusion.

In most European countries, a dyslexia profile is concluded around seven years of age. This practice arises from the concept that children develop at a different pace and that this is much more pronounced in the early years due to the fast rate of development during this early stage in life.

Notwithstanding, children’s learning and behaviour may alert us to at-risk behaviour. This at-risk behaviour is also addressed using the inclusive strategies discussed in this course. If teachers use inclusive strategies to access learning and teach literacy, children with a dyslexia profile can start benefitting before a formal diagnosis.

Dyslexia is a developmental profile characterised by a different cerebral organisation, part of a person’s profile from birth.

Research indicates that there are predictive tests which can identify at-risk children, not necessarily due to dyslexia. For example, the number of words a child enters school with is a strong predictor of academic success. This may range from 50 to 500 words. However, such a predictor cannot be generalised, as research indicates that bi- or tri-lingual children tend to start talking later than monolingual children.

Carsten Elbro and colleagues (Elbro et al., 1998; Gellert & Elbro, 2017; 2018; Poulsen, 2017) suggested three predictive tests that can be administered with kindergarten pupils for at-risk dyslexia behaviour:

(1) naming the letters of the alphabet;

(2) rapid naming of familiar objects (Rapid Automatised Naming – RAN); and

(3) meta phonological skill – the ability to represent and manipulate the sounds of the language.

You would need to use these tests according to your culture. For example, if you do not name the letters of the alphabet in your school system, then you cannot use this as a possible prediction. Further, some school systems may start school later (at age 6 rather than 4).

Thus, research findings indicate that some elements or “risk factors” allow the prediction of a potential dyslexia profile. Attention to these risk factors is essential because the sooner a risk of dyslexia is detected and the sooner intervention is made, the better the prognosis, both at the academic and emotional level. Further, using inclusive strategies discussed in this course allows for addressing learning challenges.

Main risk factors you should be attentive to include:

• dyslexia or difficulties with the written language within the family: the parents or grandparents have encountered difficulties when learning to read and write. In many cases parents/grandparents would not have been diagnosed because learning disabilities were still largely unknown when they were schooled;
• Delay or slowness to establish laterality (manual preference): the learner uses one hand, then the other, to execute the same activity and commits to laterality later than expected;
• Persistent confusions between left and right and for objects in the environment;
• Difficulties with orientation in space and time: the notion of time does not make sense to the learner, including concepts such as “before”, “after”, “yesterday”, “tomorrow”, and “next week”. Some learners also confound “morning” and “afternoon”;
• Inability to appreciate rhyme in nursery rhymes or in songs: the learner is not aware that the end of sentences finish with rhyming words;
• Difficulties following or reproducing rhythm: the learner claps or marches out of time;
• Great difficulties learning and reciting nursery rhymes, songs, or verses of poetry by rote: the learner memorises the main ideas but is unable to repeat the precise words that make up the verses;
• Difficulties in naming familiar objects rapidly – Rapid Automatised Naming (RAN) : This refers to retrieval challenges and not a problem with learning vocabulary. The learner knows the names of the objects to designate perfectly, but they have difficulty retrieving them from long-term memory. As they are speaking, learners may replace one word for another. For example, referring to a spoon as a fork or to a doctor as nurse.
• Difficulties following multiple verbal instructions given one after another (Auditory Sequential Short-term Memory (ASM): Faced with a series of verbal instructions, the learner seems lost and does not know what to do.
• Difficulties expressing the sounds of words: the child confuses sounds when pronouncing some words and may change the sequence of sounds in a word: parcark instead of carpark; disonaur for dinosaur; roombed instead of bedroom.
• A striking level of disorganisation,
• frequent loss or lapse of memory for personal objects.

Challenges concerning literacy:

• Inability to learn the names and sounds of the alphabet letters: The learner confuses the names and sounds of the letters and assigns wrong names or sounds to letters despite intensive exposure. This is relevant to school systems that teach the names and sounds of the alphabet letters.
• Inability to blend letters to read a word: the learner mixes up the sounds and pronounces them in the wrong order or omits some of them.
• Inability to easily and quickly recognise words by sight (sight word reading). This is the objective of fluent reading. Fluent readers recognise words instantly (not decode). Alphabetic systems that use decoding allow early literacy learners to amass many sight words due to their ability to decode. Children with no difficulties usually only need to come across/decode a word ten times for it to become a sight word. This is the rationale for early readers’ library books, which include the exact words repeatedly. However, children with dyslexia usually need to come across/decode words around 40 times to become part of their sight word vocabulary. Thus, children with difficulties would only have significantly fewer words they can sight-read compared to their peers.
• Children with dyslexia may recognise words like logos, pictures or drawings and can recognise them thanks to their visual memory. However, they would not have analysed these words into their constitutive letters. If one then uses a font that changes the word’s global shape (configuration), the learner can no longer identify the word.
• Difficulties writing their name.
• Mirror writing. Some studies indicate this is more prevalent when a child with dyslexia is left-handed.
• Letter reversals – Confusing b/d, p/q, n/u, t/f, h/t for example
• Sequencing – writing was instead of saw, reading forg instead of frog

A word of caution: Teachers must know that children will exhibit such behaviour in their development. For example, children learn that object orientation does not change object identification from birth. However, they come across letters that conclude in reverse (b/p/d/q) when they start school. Children will adjust to this perception of reality at different rates. It is thus important not to conclude a dyslexia profile but rather focus on the learning and behaviour you want to address. Further, children will sometimes write their names spontaneously in mirror writing. Remember that children also adjust to a two-dimensional reality when dealing with literacy.

Some children will also be much slower than others to establish manual preference. This does not mean that they will automatically have to be dyslexic. To gauge the risk of dyslexia, one must observe a combination of risk factors that frequently occur despite teachers’ corrections and training and persist over time beyond the age at which such errors should normally disappear. Notwithstanding, using inclusive strategies promoted in this course will support all children.

Dyslexia is a profile which does not go away or disappear. However, some strategies allow a person to cope if intervention is employed. Further, it is visible mainly during schooling but also affects careers, employment, and day-to-day living. Further, mental wellbeing is affected by negative school experiences. Whilst literature can indicate ambivalent results on self-esteem, research findings agree that persons with dyslexia experience low academic self-concept. Self-esteem and self-confidence are also affected, but the home and school environments help address this. Kannangara’s (2015) model from Languishing to Thriving Dyslexia offers solutions to unnecessary negative experiences:

Kannangara (2015), p. 3

Dyslexia is neurobiological and is now also referred to as a neuro-diverse profile. This means that the brain of dyslexic learners develops and functions differently from the brain of non-dyslexic learners. Nevertheless, with proper intervention, inclusive teaching techniques, and support, the dyslexic brain can activate hemispheric regions that will make reading, writing, and spelling more successful, thus gaining skills over time in these domains.

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Dyslexic adults must develop strategies to compensate for their challenges with concentration, auditory sequential short-term memory, orientation in space and time, and reading and writing fluency.

For example, modern technology may allow access to printed matter, and electronic agendas allow adults to take notes at any time so that nothing is forgotten. Programme alarms may be used to remember appointments and other engagements

Several programmes are marketed, some of which are very expensive. The literature agrees that structured multi-sensory learning is the best strategy for all learners. Therefore, one should seek professional advice from national associations or relevant professionals before investing in any marketed programme.

Whatever the age of dyslexic learners, easy inclusive strategies can be employed:

• When evaluating spelling isolated words, draw a circle around the correctly spelled words rather than crossing out the mistakes. This is more encouraging.
• When organising dictations/spelling games, modify the task for dyslexic learners. For example, if you ask the students to prepare 20 words for the next day’s dictation, ask the dyslexic learner, when starting the dictation, not to write down the 20 words but to spell the words they think they can remember. Then, divide the number of words correctly spelt not by 20 but by the number of words the learner has written. There must be a quota of words to write down for the dictation (for example, ask the learner to spell at least 10 words out of the 20).
• Teach patterns of spelling: Try to compose sentences with words that display the same phoneme.
• When correcting essays, mark spelling with caution. Essays should be marked for content, creativity, use of language, spelling, and grammar. punctuation. Students should be informed of the marking scheme. In class, some may be good at spelling but not at creativity, while others can be good at creativity but not spelling. Creating an environment that promotes human diversity can help all children’s motivation and self-esteem.
• Allow all learners to use technology for written work. Remember that you do not need to know how to spell to produce a good piece of literature. Translation your thoughts into words others may find interesting and interesting to read is a different skill than spelling
• Allow the dyslexic learner to plan their essay as they deem best. Dyslexic learners tend to like using Graphic Organisation of Information (GoI). The most popular of these seems to be Buzan’s Mind Maps (Buzan, 2002, 2006).
• Allow the use of a dictionary in all circumstances
• When you ask the dyslexic learner to “write” an essay- whether with three fingers, ten fingers or speech-to-text, encourage them to proofread their work, ideally four times:

• 1. A first time, paying attention only to the content (did I write down all the ideas I wanted to express?)
  2. A second time, paying attention only to spelling (reading the work backwards helps as they cannot predict the next word and omit checking)
  3. A third time, paying attention to grammar
  4. A last time, paying attention only to punctuation

Particularly in secondary schools, each teacher should be responsible for teaching the spelling of words that are specific to their subject.

The most important thing is not to penalise dyslexic learners for their spelling and writing mistakes. Remember that you evaluate knowledge and competence related to your subject, not spelling skills. Students are already sufficiently penalised in the English class and do not have to undergo additional penalties for the same reason in other courses.

Teachers must be cautious about using too many corrections in all subjects, including languages. It is wise to choose what you want to focus on. Parents need to be aware of this strategy and that it is done to keep learners motivated. Further, unless it is the specific choice of the child, teachers should avoid using red to correct it. Green is a better and more respectful colour to use when correcting.

Technology should also be utilised for writing tasks students submit as reading material. We must embrace the fourth human revolution and understand that technology has changed how we view writing. Writing is translating your thoughts into a language others will understand and enjoy accessing in a different time and space. This ability has nothing to do with spelling, and it needs to be embraced in school systems for all learners. Thus, teachers should accept typed assignments that students could have typed or produced using voice-activated material, even for language subjects. The 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19) has seen schools and universities increasing the use of technology and accepting typed scripts. This should be a strategy that continues after COVID-19. Such strategies should be viewed as an option, not a concession,  as much as one writes with a blue instead of a black pen.

This course discusses other strategies that benefit all students, particularly those with a dyslexia profile.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Moving-from-languishing-to-thriving-dyslexia_fig1_288073711

Kannangara (2015), p. 3

Scientific studies also evidence that dyslexic learners often show stronger abilities compared to their non-dyslexic peers in particular domains (see Section 1 of the course). However, these domains are rarely esteemed or assessed at school. Thus, teachers should explore students’ abilities to exploit them during learning processes.

Due to low ASC, students with dyslexia tend not to participate in class. If a caring learning environment is created, where correct answers are appreciated, as are incorrect answers, the student will eventually feel comfortable participating. Teachers can also make communication codes (e.g., a nod, a wink) where students can indicate that they know the answer.

Multisensory teaching means using more than just hearing and vision. Thus, multisensory includes tactile – the use of touch. This allows learners also to use the left and right brain, aiding memory. Movement memory is the strongest, and using this in teaching would help memory and retrieval. The movement would trigger retrieval.

Multisensory examples when addressing literacy include:

1. Tapping out letters.
2. Tapping out sounds.
3. Air writing.
4. Sand/salt tray writing.
5. Say sound as you write.
6. Create a picture association.
7. Teach diacritical marks for vowels, consonants, and syllables.
8. Playdough.

Multisensory learning for all subjects is also powerful. For example, maths learning must include tactile experiences, and the mathematical experience must be as close to real life as possible. For example, when teaching money, one must use actual, not plastic, coins; when teaching numeracy, objects in the environment must be used. When the concept is understood using natural objects, one can then use pictures.

Teachers must use the principle of multisensory learning across all subjects and grades. Technology is also highly valued in this pedagogy.

Such a decision needs to be made by the learners themselves. The better option is usually considered to be mainstream schooling. However, sometimes a combination of the learners’ challenges, schools’ understanding and management of their challenges, and other social issues, including being accepted or bullied, may lead families to choose to send their children to specialist schools.

Burden (2008) and Burden & Burdett (2005, 2007) concluded that students attending specialist schools felt better once they moved to such schools. This should not be taken as a generalised conclusion that all students with dyslexia should attend specialist schools. Rather, these schools are available for those with negative school experiences who need different school experiences. Such decisions should be taken on an individual basis, and one should continuously strive for inclusive schools and learning and performance strategies..

The research concludes that most dyslexic learners can learn to read and write efficiently in mainstream classrooms if teachers are trained to use multisensory strategy and are aware of dyslexia profiles. What concerns us is that this is more often not happening due to teachers’ and schools’ lack of awareness and skills. For example, Ugwuanyi et al., (2020) their results:

revealed that though the general perception was not outright rejection, there were a lot of salient negative attitudes that teachers had towards dyslexic learners being in mainstream classrooms. The teachers who participated in the study reported a very low level of training in inclusive education. Though teachers had teacher training certificates, diplomas and degrees, only one was trained in inclusive education. Even though the five other teachers had received an introductory course in inclusive education, it was not enough to foster confidence in their abilities to successfully include learners with special needs. The teachers’ way of thinking also reflected vague ideas about inclusion. For instance, their training was not enough to enable them to simultaneously offer remedial work to dyslexic learners in the very learning time alongside their peers, not separately. |(p. 41)

and recommended

• While it may be tempting for teachers to concentrate on the negative aspects of dyslexic learners, a paradigm shift to look for strengths that dyslexic learners exude and not just view them negatively is necessary. This would greatly help the learners in the development of a positive self-concept
• Since it has been ascertained that mainstream primary school teachers lack the pre-requisite training for including dyslexic learners in mainstream contexts, there is need for teachers to be subjected to in-service training on inclusive education.
• Teachers also need to receive training on how to write individualised education programmes (IEPs). The government can aid by deploying the inspectorate to run workshops on how to design IEP’s. Adequate training is also needed to enable teachers to be in a good position to make differentiated instruction. Teachers need training on how to tailor-make instruction to allow learners to grow and achieve.(p. 42)

Thus, Inclusive education for dyslexic learners is not inherently flawed. Rather, the challenges arise from insufficient teacher training, lack of knowledge, and sensitivity to diversity. To ensure that inclusive education is effective, a paradigm shift is needed where teachers focus on the strengths of dyslexic students rather than viewing them negatively. This shift is crucial in helping dyslexic learners develop a positive academic self-concept. However, mainstream primary school teachers often lack the necessary training to support dyslexic students effectively due to a lacuna in Initial teaching Training (Falzon, 2012; Fernandes et al., 2024). To address this, comprehensive in-service training on inclusive education is essential. This training should equip teachers with the skills to develop inclusive teaching strategies and, if necessary, implement Individualised Education Programs (IEPs) to tailor their instruction to meet diverse learning needs. The government can play a vital role by deploying the inspectorate to run workshops on IEP design and differentiated instruction. The development of this course for teachers highlights the importance of targeted professional development, underscoring that the problem lies not with inclusive education itself but with the need for better-prepared and sensitised educators. as Fernandes et al. 2024 noted in their abstract:

Only based on scientific knowledge, and not deep-rooted myths, can we prevent and intervene early to avoid serious consequences for the academic success of children and young people with dyslexia. We therefore believe that this work is particularly important for parents and guardians, educators, teachers, and technicians in the context of an inclusive school and education.

It is very important to distinguish reading from spelling.

Literature indicates that no one font is best for all. Research findings, however, conclude that Times New Roman is one of the worst fonts to use due to the regularity of its lines (see Publications by Arnold Wilkins). One can use several fonts, such as Arial, Calibri, Century Gothic, Comic Sans, Tahoma, and Antigua. Ideally, there should be an app which changes fonts and backgrounds at will.

For writing, the joined (cursive) script has been recognised as most suitable for dyslexic learners, especially if they display difficulties with motor control. The movement is also a spelling aid.

The significant advantage of joined script is that you do not have to lift the pen so often from the page, which makes it a fast and automatised writing system with a minimum of loss of time in trajectories and liaisons between letters.

Handwriting

Moreover, the joined script allows them to see the words as separate entities, which is beneficial for all the children in the classroom.

The chosen joined-up alphabet should be as close to the manuscript alphabet as possible and in a style that allows one to write the whole word without taking the pen/pencil off the paper.

The figures below present the alphabet Carmen Muscat, a dyslexia specialist who is also a founder member of the Malta Dyslexia Association (MDA) and the current MDA president, uses for intervention. She based this form on the following principles

• There is no unlearning from manuscript writing
• There is the least possible changes from manuscript writing
• There is the least new movements from manuscript writing

For example, the letter f does not include the usual downward forward movement you find in most joined-up forms, but the lower part of the letter has the same movement as the letters g, j, y, and z, whilst the upper movement is the same as the l. Carmen Muscat explained that in her experience, using the lower loop is easier to continue writing, and students find it easier to use the upper loop to write l and f. Further, she first teaches the student the letter e as then the upper loop is the same movement but extended to write the l and the f

The r and the s are changed to allow for writing without taking the pencil off the paper.

The sentence below uses all the letters of the alphabet. 

When teaching children, it is essential to use grey-shaded letters rather than dots so that the children learn to write in a flowing manner from the start. Some children focus on joining dots rather than learning the necessary flowing movement. It is thus better to present grey-shaded writing – for both manuscript and joined-up writing, and then children go over the grey with their pencils/crayons:

a b c d e f g

Touch typing should also be introduced from a young age, as one is teaching cursive writing. Even in the early years, this should be accompanied by touch typing, mainly due to the 21st-century context.

Regardless of the reading and writing language, similar difficulties will be observed across languages. These include additions of letters and syllables, omissions, repetitions, inversions, substitutions, sequential challenges, and reversals.

Nevertheless, the structural characteristics of the language of instruction will induce specific difficulties not observed in languages with other characteristics. For example, English-speaking dyslexic learners tend to mix up suffixing rules. Such errors are seen less in different languages like French. Further, the more transparent a language is, the less likely the presence of illegible misspellings.

To address self-esteem, one can refer to standard rather than correct spelling. Then, the errors can be referred to as non-standard spelling rather than incorrect spelling.

A widespread conception is that the compensation software developed to help dyslexic learners may be harmful because they “do the work instead of the learner”. This is not the case. Compensation software is very efficient for teaching new strategies. For example, many programmes (e.g., Microsoft 365, the Immersive Reader) have simple tools that allow learners to build Graphic Organisations of Information (GoIs), such as Buzan’s (2002, 2006). MindMap. They are also equipped with tools which help with editing. Some of them display predictive dictionaries which suggest words depending on the context of the sentence. Such a tool enriches the vocabulary of the dyslexic learner, who will learn and use words that they would otherwise not have thought of.

The use of compensation software must be encouraged as early as in primary schools. Such use can only be beneficial and prepares learners much better for secondary schooling, where compensation software is absolutely necessary to allow them to keep up with the tempo of the classroom. Such software should be available for all students to reflect the reality of the World of Work and in line with what is emphasised in 21^st-century learning, namely the 4Cs:

(image from https://www.slideserve.com/kiley/the-instructional-shifts)

Schools may have their referral system. Your first contact should always be the direct superior or the School’s Management Team (SMT). Some school systems may have inclusion coordinators (INCOs), special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs),  and school psychologists who coordinate all learning challenges, pastoral teams,  or special education needs (SEN) services. Therefore, being familiar with your school’s system is essential. Further, your local/national association would also give you further guidelines and support about whom to refer to should you suspect a dyslexia profile in any student. The parents are also a resource which should not be neglected.

You should encourage parents to consult dyslexia specialists or child/educational psychologists in your school or privately. These specialists will be able to assess the child with standardised tests and draw up a diagnosis of the learner’s difficulties to determine whether the child is dyslexic or not. Speech and Language Therapists/Pathologists (SLTs/SLPs) also assess for such a profile in some countries. The report should also include a Plan of Action and inclusive strategies that teachers and parents may use.

Teachers of early learners may need to be aware that sight word reading may camouflage a dyslexia profile as the child would be managing to read logographically (words as pictures) and coping because the number of words would be few. However, as the amount and complexity of vocabulary increases, this system would fail the child, and the difficulties would emerge later (usually when pupils are about eight years of age). Alternatively, the child may not accumulate a sight word vocabulary and try to decode every word. This leads to a lack of fluency in reading, irrespective of how transparent or opaque a language is. Significantly faster development in Maths compared to literacy development is another alarm bell of possible risk for dyslexia.

This is why EDA promotes inclusive strategies for learning – UDL.

Orthoptic professionals (orthoptists) detect, re-educate, rehabilitate and explore functional visual impairments.

Researchers estimate that about 25% of dyslexic learners display visual processing disorders. The most common terms associated with dyslexia are Visual Stress, Irlen Syndrome or Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (SSS), which refer to the same experience when letters seem moving for the learners or the script seems blurred, and the solution includes coloured glasses.

In such situations, one should be particularly attentive when the learner complains about frequent headaches, nausea, and seeing colours. noting that the letters “are dancing” on the page, that the lines of a text merge into each other, and when the contrast of black font on a white page is highly uncomfortable for the reader.

These visual processing challenges would be related to the fact that some pathways between the eyes and the brain, especially the so-called magnocellular cells, would not be optimally developed. This would impede the ability to fixate words properly to extract the necessary information from words properly. The magnocellular theory of dyslexia is supported by the impressive amount of research published by Professor John Stein and their colleagues. Larger fonts would help such learners. Prof. Arnold Wilkins also developed the colorimeter, based on the work of Helen Irlen.

Orthoptic support is necessary and often very beneficial for children with visual processing difficulties. The orthoptist will examine, among other things, ocular movement during reading and sensitivity to the various wavelengths of the different colours.

Intervention for visual processing disorders includes prism spectacles/lenses, which favour ocular fixations on words. Some learners also wear coloured spectacles/lenses, which provide the coloured background individuals prefer. A colourimeter would determine the precise background colour the learner would require. The use of spectacles/lenses is much better than coloured overlays.

Learners can be

1. Good readers and good spellers;
2. Good readers and bad spellers;
3. Bad readers and good spellers; or
4. Bad readers and bad spellers.

Some dyslexic learners display a very good visual memory, which will allow them to memorise the correct spelling of words, even if less rapidly than their non-dyslexic peers despite their difficulties with reading.

The reverse situation is also possible. Some learners show important orthographic difficulties while their reading abilities are satisfactory. These are learners who are dysorthographic without being dyslexic. This is not so common.

Most dyslexic learners present challenges with both reading and spelling, which then affect reading comprehension and writing (if using traditional writing methods).

Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that when an area of the brain is in use, blood flow to that region also increases. This technology allows research to conclude that even when dyslexic readers are as fluent as non-dyslexic readers, what is activated in the brain is different. For example dyslexic learners activate their left hemisphere less and their right hemisphere more than non-dyslexic learners. Further, activation between lobes may be less in dyslexic learners (Figure below).

Source: Understanding Dyslexia https://cognitive.com.sg/understanding-dyslexia/

The right hemisphere is just where mental imaging and visualisation in three dimensions takes place. This explains the narrative that dyslexic learners read in pictures rather than in words. For example, a dyslexic learner reading the sentence “The cow is lying in the meadow.” will be able not to visualise a cow lying in a meadow whereas a non-dyslexic learner will be able to access this semantic information and integrate it with the rest of the text without necessarily activating the mental images which correspond to the words they are reading.

The techniques of visualisation and Graphic Organisation of Information (GoIs), the most known of which are Buzan’s (2002, 2006). Mind Maps make the right hemisphere work. Hence, by using these tools, you will stimulate the cerebral regions that are already spontaneously activated by the dyslexic learners. Teaching visualisation skills significantly enhances understanding and memorisation skills for texts amongst both dyslexic and non-dyslexic learners. Traditionally, this has already been in use with the techniques of, for example sight-word reading and Look-Cover-Write-Check for spelling.

This depends on the country. However, more and more often, in universities and higher education institutions, there is a specialised service that tests to determine the needs of the dyslexic students and the adjustments to be made for evaluation. This is very important as research indicates that many university students with dyslexia become aware they have a dyslexia profile whilst at university.

In some countries, students can use assistive technology both in class and during examinations. This practice increased and became common during COVID-19 when universities switched to online teaching and assessment, which became available to all (e.g., Wiseflow, n.d.).

Students may also have more time to complete their assignments and examinations, and sometimes, they receive extra support from tutors.

Although this is what we might think because we talk more and more about dyslexia, it is unlikely to be the case. Epidemiologic studies suggest that the ratio of dyslexic people in the population remains stable (between 10-15%) across countries. Moreover, no factor would explain why we should see an increase of dyslexic learners in these last years.

Teachers and parents are more aware of dyslexia than in the past. Forty years ago, “dyslexia” was neither well-known nor discussed. More awareness has led to more intervention for dyslexic children. Of course, this is not enough, and there is still more awareness to be carried out, hence the importance of this course you are reading. To note is that neither the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) nor the ICD-11 (World Health Organisation, 2018) ever use the term dyslexia in their publications but refer to reading and writing difficulties.

The combination of scientific advancement and media awareness has made dyslexia more visible but not more frequent. Further, the traditional teaching pedagogy used to teach reading and writing is not helpful, which is why we promote Structured Multisensory Literacy Instruction (SMSLI) (Falzon, 2012).

Parents and families should take the lead in such disclosure. One may also consider the support of counsellors and other helping professionals. Ideally, one should focus on behaviour to lead to the word. For example: “All children have different abilities. You are very good in Maths but not in reading and spelling. We will help you improve your reading and spelling with special remembering ways. when children have this difficulty, the word we can use is dyslexia.” It is vital that this is first discussed with parents.

Section 3 of this course provides more detail for your consideration. Section 3 also addresses how dyslexic learners can disclose their profiles to their peers.

It is paramount that the dyslexic learner is aware of the neurobiological origin of their profile. The message is that “this is not their fault”, and more, that everyone individual has strengths and weaknesses in their profile.
It is important to develop a class atmosphere of mutual respect. This is also enhanced by inclusive teaching strategies which do not allow literacy to be a barrier to learning.