October is Dyslexia Awareness Month 2022. It’s the perfect time to raise awareness, inform, educate and celebrate our children.
Support, praise and be present
It’s not easy growing up with dyslexia. Simple tasks are tricky and without the right support, the frustration our children feel at being unable to complete certain tasks can quickly turn to anxiety. It’s therefore vital that a child with dyslexia receives the necessary support at school and at home.
Click here for a list of must-have tools for dyslexia. Every resource listed here will help your child adapt to life with dyslexia. However, if they do show signs of anxiety, it’s really important that as parents and/or educators, we pick up the signs as quickly as possible. Here is a detailed guide on supporting your child with dyslexia-linked anxiety.
Dyslexia Awareness Month 2022: educating ourselves
The space your child learns when they have dyslexia is so important if they are to gain confidence and overcome obstacles. It’s not difficult to transform a classroom to ensure it’s dyslexia friendly. The subtle and easy-to-manage changes won’t affect any other child in the class, but could make the world of difference for your child. This guide to transforming a classroom is the perfect start for every teacher. Share it, educate yourself and help your child succeed.
It’s vital that we’re fully informed and educated about what our children need. As well as dyslexia-friendly and inclusive classrooms, your child’s teacher should also be aware of these simple techniques for teaching a child with dyslexia to help them progress through the school year. Share it with everyone involved in your child’s education.
Can you imagine not being able to focus on a page of writing? Or perhaps every time you sat down to read, the letters danced before your eyes. What about not being able to decode words or struggling with the physical aspect of writing itself. Dyslexia presents itself differently in every child and the way our children are educated is vital to their understanding, confidence and lifelong learning. Multisensory learning is one of the best ways to teach any child with dyslexia.
Why should we raise awareness?
Dyslexia affects between 5% and 10% of the entire population of the world. With numbers this high, it’s unbelievable that still so little is known about dyslexia by the very people educating our children. Dyslexia Awareness Month 2022 is the perfect time to share our knowledge.
How dyslexia aware are you? Click to find out
The better informed we are, the better we can help our children. Early detection in children will give your child earlier access to vital support resources which will help their confidence as they grow. For example, traditional phonics teaching can be really confusing for anyone with dyslexia. If you can’t hear how sounds blend together, it’s really difficult to learn phonetically. This guide to phonics and dyslexia is therefore a must-read.
Finally, it’s so important that alongside learning about the struggles our kids face, we also look at the strengths they have. Each child is unique, and every child with dyslexia possesses their own unique strengths that will shape their adult life and should be nurtured and celebrated. This article on dyslexia strengths is the perfect start.
There is absolutely no reason why your child can’t succeed at school. No reason why they won’t love to get lost in a book and no reason why they won’t love learning. They can be anything they want to be!