Children with dyslexia often have great difficulty writing full sentences. Dyslexia is a spectrum of specific learning difficulties and dyslexic children may be affected by any of the following; short term memory loss, sequencing problems, spelling difficulties, handwriting difficulties, low awareness of punctuation and lack of awareness of grammar. Any or all of these may make it hard for them to write in correct sentences. The following lesson plan is based on techniques that address these problems in a holistic way.
How to teach children to think in sentences
This is not as hard as it seems. In fact, it has been posited that human brains are hard-wired to think in sentences, since a sentence represents a complete thought. For example, a very young child may say to its mother “biscuit!” when what the child actually means is “I want a biscuit please.” They are not saying “biscuit” in order to name an object, but to convey a message. The sentence already inherently exists.
In a teaching situation, therefore, begin by getting the child or children to think of a sentence and say it aloud. Use a simple prompt such as a picture, object or word and tell them “Give me a sentence about this.” If they can’t quite say a sentence, model the process by taking what they do say and making it into a simple sentence for them. Then get them to repeat it back to you.
How to improve working memory in children with poor short term memory
In order to write a sentence, a child must be able first to think of one, and then to remember it long enough to write it down. This can be tricky for dyslexic children and other children with poor short term memories. They need to practise and develop the ability to hold a sentence in their head.
The best way to teach this is by repetition. Once the child has voiced his sentence, repeat it back to him. Then get him to repeat it back to you. Count the words in the sentence. Say them out with exaggerated emphasis so they are easier to remember. Get the child to repeat back with emphasis. This builds short term memory in the context of a working memory task. Be sure he can remember or "hold" the sentence before they start writing it.
Model how to use phonic skills to spell when writing a sentence
Next, model on a whiteboard how to write the sentence. Explicitly sound out phonetically each word as you write it, making sure to voice the phonic sounds correctly. Put a dot or line under each phoneme in the word as you do so. If it is a “sight word” (a common word not easily phonically decoded) such as “the” or “you”, just say “we know how to spell that one”, or spell it out using the letter names.
As you write, keep going back and reading aloud what you have written, pointing to each word in turn: “He...he is....he is on...he is on the...he is on the phone.” By modelling this, you are teaching the children to do the same. Don’t worry about the capital letter at the start of the sentence at this point, unless it happens to be an “I”.
Teaching sentence punctuation to dyslexic children
Once the sentence is complete, go back and change the first letter of the first word to a capital. Do this in a very exaggerated way. Rub it out furiously and make the capital huge. You want the children to remember what you did so they will do it too. Add the full stop in the same exaggerated way. Make it a big scribbled ball at the end. It’s getting the message across that counts.
Teaching independent writing skills
All through this process, don’t let the children write anything, just have them watch. Then, as soon as you’ve added the full stop, rub the whole thing out and tell them to write their sentence “as fast as you can!” This way, they are not copying the sentence, but using memory, sequencing and phonic skills to write the sentence independently.
Needless to say, praise their results, altering if appropriate and being naturally delighted if a full correct sentence is the outcome.
Teaching children with dyslexia to write in sentences
Most dyslexic children will benefit from a structured synthetic phonics programme to teach them to read, write and spell. The above strategies for full correct sentence writing can also be found in Ruth Miskin’s ReadWrite Inc, as part of a wider synthetic phonics programme which has been used successfully in many schools.
These strategies are also useful for children with ADHD, language and communication difficulties and other developmental delays.
For further help with teaching dyslexic children to read and spell, see Teaching phonic sounds, Interactive phonic games, Improving reading comprehension and Effective dyslexia teaching programmes.
Cathy Anne Smith - Hello :) I wrote for Suite 101 until March 2011 and now publish my own fiction at Poems and Short Stories to Read Online .
