What Parents Can Do at Home
Parents play a critical role in their child’s success, from prioritizing reading at home, helping students with organization and academic tasks, and working collaboratively with teachers and staff toward the common goal of success for their child. There are many ways for parents to help, including:
Prioritize reading at home, using technology if needed. Read aloud to and with your child, and make it enjoyable. Select material that your child can read fluently, and it’s okay if they read slowly. Practice is especially important for students with dyslexia. Use audiobooks to help them access books at or beyond their grade levels. There simply is no substitute for reading to help your child build word accuracy, fluency, and vocabulary.
Recognize and celebrate your child’s strengths. Dyslexic children have amazing abilities than can be overshadowed by their reading struggles. Encourage them to use their strengths to support weaker skills, such as drawing pictures to retell stories, using song or movement to remember academic concepts, or visualizing to understand story elements.
Build vocabulary as you read together. Stop and talk about important words or parts of the story periodically, retelling important details, making predictions about what might happen next or how a character might react. Always relate new learning to something personally meaningful that your child can both store and recall more easily.
Encourage writing, even when spelling is poor. Don’t let their reading disability silence their expression. Acknowledge their ideas and help them practice writing, either manually or on a computer. Remind them to use the letter-sound concepts taught in the dyslexia program. Show them how to use a dictionary, spell-checker or text-prediction program to help with difficult-to-spell words. It is vital that they are able to write down their thoughts and analyses of what they are reading. Consider writing regularly to a family member or pen pal.
Meet your child’s teacher(s), and check in for updates on student performance. When homework or online assignments are given, make sure that your child has a regular place and routine to complete these. Make use of the tools available in online textbooks (text-to-speech, extra practice and study aids) to stay current on topics covered in class. Instill self-advocacy in your child so that both you and the teachers are aware of any struggles or concerns about class and homework. Teach organizational skills, using colors or visuals to keep up with daily and weekly assignments. Your child’s success really is a team effort!
Keep instructions simple by giving one direction at a time. Make sure he/she understands what is being asked. Dyslexics often struggle with organizing and remembering multi-step operations. Break tasks into small chunks. It can be overwhelming to look at a page full of homework and be expected to read it all at once. Use an index card or a blank sheet of paper to mask off sections so that your child only "processes" one section at a time.
Become informed about the condition, and make sure you are your child's best supporter. Their success will depend on the level of your involvement and support.