As a dyslexia tutor, one of the activities that I have my dyslexic students do every session is read aloud. Typically, we do this last during a dyslexia tutoring session, because it provides reinforcement for everything that the student has been learning that day and during previous sessions.
This activity is not only valuable for dyslexia tutors, but for parents as well. To help a child with dyslexia make progress, having them read aloud to you is one of the most valuable exercises that you can do. Often, a dyslexia tutor will have reading materials that specifically reinforce the phonetic sounds and concepts that the dyslexic child is currently learning. As a parent, you can also find good reading materials to use with your child, and I discuss how to do this in previous posts.
One of the important things that dyslexia tutors do during this monitored reading time is stop the student each time they read a word incorrectly, or skip a word. You can do this as a parent as well. When you do stop a child and have them return to a word, remind them to sound the word out (as long as it’s not a sight word that doesn’t follow the rules) and apply what they have been learning in dyslexia tutoring. This may make progress rather slow, but it is one of the most valuable things you can do to help a dyslexic child. Often, children with dyslexia get so used to misreading words that give them difficulty, that their comprehension suffers greatly as a result. By stopping them when they make a mistake, you will be helping them develop good reading habits.
Peter
