Lessons

I regret the delay in blogging lessons for parents of dyslexic children. This was due to a number of reasons which have now been resolved.

I would like these lessons to be taught effectively. As such I will blog the lessons on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This way you have enough time to ensure your child/student learns each lesson well before proceeding to the next lesson.

I have said that I teach children who have already learned the alphabets but for the benefit of those children who do not know the alphabets, teach the alphabets using the nursery rhyme tune 'twinkle twinkle little star'.

Julie Andrews in the movie 'Sound of music' had sung a song which goes like this: Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, when you read you begin with ABC.....

So teach them the alphabet to the tune of the nursery rhyme "twinkle twinkle little star"

a b c d e f g,
h i j k l m n o p,
q r s t u v,
w x y and z
Now I've told my abc
Tell me what you think of me.

Guide for parents/tutors.
I am going to use he/his/him for the student.
I have taken the list of family words from Wylie & Durrell to make up my lessons. If your child is ahead of my lessons you may visit the website: Wylie & Durrell and form you own lessons with the family words found in that site.

The first word we are going to learn is 'AT' . Sound out the letters - 'air', 'ttt' and then the sound for 'AT'. This is the perfect time to say that the letter 'A' represents more than one sound. Do not, at this point, say out the 4 sounds 'A' represents.

Tuition centres often teach sounds incorrectly which makes it especially difficult for dyslexic children to read. As I have explained, this makes their mind shut down and there is hardly any progress in the reading. Do not make the mistake of adding vowel sounds to the consonants.

Read my blog on the 17.2.2010 on “unlearn” again. It is very important that you do not teach the wrong sound for the consonants.

Some of the consonants as an example are:
b – the beginning sound of ‘bird’ and not ‘ber’ or ‘buh’
f – beginning sound of ‘fox’ – fff -and not ‘fer’ or ‘fur’
r- beginning sound in ‘rub’ - ‘rrr’ and not ‘ruh’
s- beginning sound of ‘snake’- ‘sss’ and not ‘shr’ ‘sur’
t – beginning sound of ‘table’ – ‘ttt’ and not ‘ter’ or ‘tur’
m- beginning sound of mum- (mmm) and not ‘muh’ or ‘meh’
n- beginning sound of ‘nose’ (nnn) and not ‘nuh’ or ‘neh’
l – ‘lll’ and not ‘luh’ or ‘leh’
c – as in ‘cat’
c- as in ‘city’

Remember the story of one of my students who refused to sound the word ‘food’ after me. To her the word ‘food’ was ‘fuh-ood’ because she has learned from her kindergarten teacher the sound of ‘f’ as ‘fuh’/ fur.

If you add vowel sounds to the consonants than ‘man’ will be ‘ muh ahh nuh’ and the dyslexic child will be lost. It should be taught as ‘mmm’ ‘ air’ ‘nnnn’.

When you sound out the letters start by saying the sound for each letter slowly and clearly. Then say it a little faster at a time so than he will understand how the sounds are combined to form the word. This is very important for him to see how the word 'cat' for instance is actually formed from the individual sounds of the 3 letters.

Click here for lesson 1.