Dyslexia worksheets

[colapips]

Would anyone be able to recommend either printable or online activities to help my ds (5) who is dyslexic?

TIA

what exactly do you want to work on with her? What are her areas of difficulty?

He doesn't 'get' english (reading/writing), he also has a problem with visual instructions.

He has been given one sheet by the ed psych which is matching up words so for example leg, and he has to find leg in the other column.

He has poor eyesight, and also requires a blue overlay to stop words moving around.

The ed psych recommended us going back for 3 more sessions before going back to school, but we can't really afford the £40 a time this month, so wanted to try and find something similar.

I do apologise I hope this makes sense - I don't really understand it all myself.

This was his report scores:

SPM 98%
BPVS 58%

WPPSI
WAIS
Similarities Invalid
Comprehension 9
Digit span 6
Block design 18
Geometric design 17
Coding 6

WRAT 3
Reading 50%
Spelling non-starter

Bangor
Mental Arithmetic 100% dyslexia positive

Aston Index
Auditory Perception 10%
Visual Perception 5%

Here are some things that have really helped ds's and myself..

Get your ds typing, words can be learnt via patterns on the keyboard.
Use a deep edge tray and put sand in it to finger spell words in the sand.
Modelling clay, great stuff to shape I to letters to spell and read back words.
Magnetic letters, put the letters of the words you want to work on on the side in the word order... Each letter is then thrown into a bowl of water ( in order) and said out. When all the letters are in the water, go fishing and see if you can pick the letters out in the right order .

Buy two identical packs of flash cards.. Outline the shape of the words on the cards and play pairs.

Big thing is that it's fun.. And your touching the shapes of the lettters and the words :) hth

Thanks ever so much for those suggestions they sound great, going to give those a go.

Okay 5 is really young to be diagnosed as dyslexic.
If words are moving around have you had his eyes checked by a specialist optician? Or the Dyslexic Research Trust?

Does your son understand the sounds? If you say the sounds "c" "a" "t" can he work out they squeeze together to make "cat"? What about if you add "s" to "pat"? What about if you take away "l" from "flat"?

If this is okay then you can start to deal with written words. You could work with Toe by Toe or the Reading Reflex.

I would also be interested if he can do the matching with pictures, rather than words.

Okay £40 sounds about right for a specialist dyslexia teacher, but I would be surprised that any educational psychologist has time to ive this kind of ongoing help. Have you been in contact with any of the Charities: British Dyslexia Association, Dyslexia Action or Helen Arkell?

Good luck.

Here This website teaches through synthetic phonics. they have lots of free activities for you to print off and work through. I used Easyread to help my DSs learn to read. It is very good and lots of fun. If I was starting from the beginning again, I would use Phonics International as it is an all round package. Very cheap, but you do need a bit of time and commitment to work through the lessons.

My DS also needed blue overlays. We now have tinted lenses on his glasses, which are one of the best buys Ive ever bought, although they are very expensive.

Now he can consentrate longer, produce better work, read without an overlay, read from the whiteboard.

Hi there,

5 is really young for a diagnosis, but there is plenty you can do to help him.
Talking to Dyslexia Action or the British Dyslexia Association would be helpful.
Don't worry too much about the wrat 3 scores, 5 is at the very lower limit of testing on that test and he would not have had a broad sample of words to choose from and thus show his ability. It's more important to look at how he was trying to read and to 'decode'.

I would tend to assess letter recognition at that stage and to look at the high frequency words - this then gives a starting point to working on five words over a week (include one he knows already). You can play various games - putting them into a grid of 20 spaces and seeing how many he can read correctly each day (can he increase his score - they love this!). Also you could play various card games with them - the important thing is to limit the number of words/ or letters you are working with and to include ones he does know so that boosts him.

I would not recommend the use of toe by toe until around Y5, I've had great successes with it then.

Try the 'starfall' website, there's some nice interactive phonic work there.
Arsenic cup cake's multisensory ideas are spot on for what he needs. Be prepared to do lots and lots of work on the same thing - it's what he needs to embed the learning, but you can do the same words or letters in so many different ways.

You might want to investigate getting him some 'Irlens' or Harris lenses for his glasses - my son has these and he uses them to look at the computer, the whiteboard, etc. All the best. :)

Just an afterthought - I'm still concerned at a formal identification this early, but can't comment specifically as am not an ed psych.
The Bangor dyslexia screener is not recommended before the age of 7 and the writers urge caution before the ages of 7 and 8, particularly with the mathematical sections.

Mummytime - just on those 3 examples no problem with c a t
s pat - became fat/splat/spit
flat - became fit

He's been checked at the hospital re his eyesight, because he is very longsighted, and has a squint, and lazy eye. It's all going against him, poor lad.

They have confirmed that with his current glasses he can see all letters both in distance (i.e. reading board) and close up. But has trouble with convergence, of identifying the middle letters, not the ones at the end. This is where the blue overlay helps, as it keeps the letters separated.

He is not suitable for having the tint on his lenses, as he would need to have green for distance reading, blue for close up reading and clear to function in everyday. They advised it was too much for a 5 yr old to have 3 pairs of glasses, and to keep changing them, whilst looking up, down and going out to play.

They tested with the pictures rather than words.

The reason for the testing, is that according to school his mathematics supposedly is far ahead of his age, whilst is english is just below where it should be. I am severly dyspraxic, and my dd is severly dyslexic but had come up with her own coping techniques which meant although there was concern about the difference between English and Maths subjects, she wasn't seen as having a problem. Now entering her GCSE year, she still can't read/write, and everything is phonetic, but because she's learnt the key words (i.e. the picture they look like rather than reading them) she has worked out what questions want. I was concerned that her brother had the same problem, and unfortunately it appears he does.

Apologises for my manners - thank you for all your suggestions I am going to investigate them all.

All the bestwith it colapips. My eldest is dyslexic and has tinted glasses for irlens syndrome. I work with dyslexia and other sen as my day job and supportive parents like you make all the difference to a child's progress.

If you want to know more about my suggestions you could try reading "The Reading Reflex". (Actually if you can get this from the library do, as it has more ideas on how to work on these listening skills.)

However I would concentrate on getting his eyes sorted.

Good luck!