Children's University of Manchester Site

Children who have dyslexia in most cases need to 'over- learn ' knowledge taught at school . Here is a great site which I recently discovered on the internet.Its good for going over topics learnt in science.

In Turkey science is initially taught in the 4th grade. This site from Manchester University can help support childrens science learning in a fun way.

It contains excellent mini-lessons and interactive lessons. Topics include the body and medicines, energy and the environment, the earth and beyond, teeth and eating, micro organisms, and the brain and senses. It includes videos and games and has great graphics which will attract children.

Please note there are also some good literacy games to play covering subjects such as nouns, adjectives and idioms etc..


http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/

COOKING WITH YOUR KIDS

Here in this dyslexia blog article we talk about how to use cooking to teach your child....

Cooking can be a fun way to help your dyslexic child learn maths as well a good way to encourage them to read. At this festive time of year its really nice to do some baking !!

Cooking involves many educational skills such as reading and comprehension. In addition it requires counting, measuring, understanding time as well as sequencing.

You could start by getting your child to make a packet cake mix (such as the Dr Oetker Lillifee Muffin mix) which is simple for children to make by themselves.

First of all get them to read the instructions and then follow the steps to make the muffins. They hopefully will be more motivated to read if they want to make some yummy cakes or biscuits !!

Once they are able to make packet mixes successfully you could buy a simple cookbook written especially for children.

Once you have decided on a recipe from the cookbook get your child to make it.N.B you can help when and if necessary .

They could count out the number of eggs required or they could stir the mixture a certain number of times.

Let them help measure out the ingredients so they can learn about grams, kilograms and millilitres.

Cooking is an excellent a way to teach fractions. For example, you can cut a cake into 8 equal pieces and then you can explain that one piece of the cake is 1/8.

Also they can learn about time from cooking , if you ask them to work out at what time a cake needs to be taken out of the oven.

You can also make up word problems to test their maths. For example if you're making a cake, ask your child to help figure out how many eggs it will take to make 2 cakes, if it takes 3 eggs to make one cake. Ask them to work out how many sausages they would need to cook for 8 people ,if each person wants 2 sausages. Etc ..

Cooking really is educational as well as good fun for kids !!!

CHRISTMAS GAMES TO HELP LANGUAGE AND MEMORY

Here are some Christmas games to help develop language skills and improve your dyslexic child’s memory.

Christmas is a great time for having fun and playing games.In additon you can help your child to improve their language skills and memory ..

Try playing 'Father Christmas came down the chimney and brought me.....'

This game is a bit like 'My grandmother went shopping....'. You take it in turns to add a new present each time.
One person might say "Father Christmas came down the chimney and brought me a doll " and the next person must remember what Father Christmas has already brought and add something new eg "Father Christmas came down the chimney and brought me a doll and a car".
You can see you many things your child can remember !


How about playing a game of Guess What?

This will help children listen to information in sentences and use clues to help them understand.

Cut out some pictures of Christmas objects from old magazines (or you could use real objects) and arrange them on the table. . Tell the children that you are thinking about one of the things and give them some clues to help them work out which one you are talking about. Give them clues about what type of thing it is, what it is made of and what it can do. Can they guess which object you were thinking of? How many clues did it take? You can let children take a turn too to see if they can give the clues to you.

You could make up a Christmas story together ..

Choose your characters such as a snowman , Father Christmas etc and then take turns to add one sentence at a time to see where your story ends up.

Game ideas care of I CAN

http://www.ican.org.uk

DYSLEXIC NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS

Here in this dyslexia blog article are some more success stories of dyslexic people...

Molecular biologists Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn jointly won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Greider,who is dyslexic has always struggled with reading and pronouncing words. In fact still Greider wrestles with dyslexia, though for years, she didn’t know her learning disability had a name.

“You learn to overcome it,” says Greider, whose son also has dyslexia. “For me, it was a problem of self-esteem because I was put in with all the kids who needed remedial help. But I liked reading. Once I read more, it got easier.”

Still, spelling and sounding out words remained difficult, so Greider relied on her photographic memory. She got A-plusses in anatomy and chemistry, but standardized tests always tripped her up. Her GRE ( Graduate record examinations ) scores were poor and as result only two of the 10 universities she applied to accepted her. Greider calls dyslexia a different way of viewing the world. “Sometimes,” she says, “it’s an advantage.”

From :Dome magazine( John Hopkins Medical Family ) - –Judy F. Minkove

Other dyslexic Nobel winners are : Pierre Curie who won the The Nobel Prize in Physics 1903

And Archer J.P. Martin - The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1952

Dr. Archer Martin, a British biochemist won a 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering an analytical technique for separating and identifying the parts of complex mixtures. He earned his undergraduate and doctorate degrees at Cambridge. As a child, he had dyslexia and could not read properly until he was 8. Still, he fell in love with science and even built five-foot-high distillation columns in his basement similar to those used in oil refineries !!

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF DISABILITIES

The 3rd of December is the International Day of Disabilities.

Dyslexia is what we term as a hidden disability.Unlike some other disabilities dyslexia is not directly visable.

No two children with dyslexia are exactly alike.They may display different weaknesses and strengths. Dyslexia may be mild, moderate ,severe or profound.

Some dyslexic children may learn to read fairly well but experience difficulties in other activities such as writing,remembering facts,maths etc.They may develop their own strategies for coping with these difficulties in the primary school and their dyslexia may remain hidden. Teachers and parents as a result may not realise the child is dyslexic.It may only be when the child starts secondary school that it becomes apparent that the child has dyslexia, due to the heavier demands of the secondary curriculum placed on them.

24 NOVEMBER TEACHERS DAY

The 24th of November is Teachers Day in Turkey . Of course , teaching is not only a difficult job but a crucial one for Turkey’s growth and development. In Turkey teachers salary rates are low, plus class sizes can be very large – up to 50 or 60 students.

In schools throughout Turkey teachers will have between 2 to 4 dyslexic students per class.

Here are some basic strategies teachers could use to help those dyslexic students in their classes to be more successful.



1. Use multisensory techniques

2. Make lessons as visual as possible – and use manipulatives.

3. Explain clearly .

4. Give clear and short instructions.

5. Provide key word lists before teaching to help with new or
complicated vocabulary.

6. Make use of technology aids to help dyslexics to overlearn eg computer games...

7. Use larger print for worksheets and choose clear fonts.

8. Don’t ask student to read aloud – use other reading techniques.

9. Preferably explain errors in written work orally. Often a pupil doesn’t want to read teachers comments. Don’t correct all errors, highlight one or two points.

10.Give more time in tests or give less questions and same amount of time.

11.When asking questions in the classroom allow dyslexic students more time to answer as they may take longer to process information.

12. Avoid copying exercises – use handouts.

13. Teach students memory strategies – mnemonics (acrostics) etc..

14. Seat students near the front – use a “buddy” system – paired readers..

15. Reduce homework amount – give less questions.

16. Allow students time to record the homework tasks.- write homework on the board early in the lesson.

17. Most of all show understanding !! - try to be flexible



HAPPY TEACHERS DAY TO EVERYONE !!

DICTIONARIES FOR DYSLEXIC CHILDREN

If you ask dyslexic children to check spellings in a normal dictionary they find it difficult .To look up a word in a dictionary, you have to know how the word is spelt in the first place – or at least the first part of the word..

The Ace Spelling Dictionary ( David Moseley ) is great for children who cannot use an ordinary dictionary.

Using the unique index ,children need only think how a word sounds to find out how to spell it. By simply identifying the first vowel sound , the speller is instantly sent to the page where the problem word is found.

Children just need a basic knowledge of vowel sounds and to know what a syllable is .There are clear instructions at the beginning explaining how to use the book correctly. The ACE Index has a table of 16 vowel sounds and the A-Z alphabet .It contains animal cartoons which will appeal to children.

If you want to look inside this book go to amazon.com where you can see customer images of the book. Go to Google and type in “Customer images gallery for Ace Spelling”

Another useful item for dyslexic children who have trouble with spelling is the electronic Franklin spellchecker.

It has a built in phonetic spell correction. This feature allows users to type in a word the way it sounds and receive a correction list.
For example :
from "nolij" to "knowledge";from "kaufee" to "coffee" from "fizix" to "physics" and so on.

You can buy Franklin spellcheckers from Amazon.com.