If your kids have dyslexia, and English is not their first language, you might worry they are at a disadvantage when your expat life begins. But there are plenty of reading exercises you can try together.
Obstacle course
According to Hannah Sekunde, an integrative learning therapist at Worthelden, “English is one of the least phonetically accurate languages, which means that even the first stages of learning written language are riddled with obstacles. This understandably causes insecurity and frustration for [expat] children with dyslexia.”
Flash reading
So how can you ease this burden and bolster their confidence? A good exercise to start with is flash reading: “Recognising difficult words as a whole is trained, which means they no longer have to be laboriously read. This method helps with reading speed and thereby also improves word, sentence and text comprehension.” (Note: flash reading exercises can be created on the Worthelden website and adapted to an individual’s learning level.)
Tandem reading
“Learning phonics is not very effective for children with dyslexia,” writes Sekunde. “It is complex and has to be learned laboriously. The tandem reading strategy often works better when learning correct pronunciation. Texts are repeated in tandem until the child feels confident enough to try it alone. Learning takes place through observation and imitation.”
Other variants
Other variants include: ‘simultaneous reading’ – use your fingers to follow the words when your kid is reading aloud. If a mistake happens – let your finger rest on the word, start again together and continue reading; Echo reading – the child reads with a delay and imitates the intonation, reading speed, pronunciation, etc. of the experienced reader; and Cloze reading – an experienced reader reads aloud, child follows silently; the trained reader stops at any point and the child takes over reading until the trained reader gives a signal and takes over again (at the beginning, only individual words can be left out).
Praise is key!
“Children with dyslexia should learn a maximum of 10 words per day. More important than the amount of words is regular, daily practice with lots of repetitions,” writes Sekunde. “It is [also] important to focus on accumulated successes in order to counteract experiences of failure and the resulting frustration. Praise is key, not highlighting mistakes!”
This article was originally published for the thousands of expat partners that Global Connection supports around the globe. It is reproduced here in its original form. The article is based on a post written (in German) by Hannah Sekunde for BDAE
