Dylsexia is a condition which affects a person’s ability to understand and implement text and numbers. Students with dyslexia have common problems such as difficulty spelling, sounding out sounds and syllables, basic mathematics, and trouble with memory. Each person with dyslexia suffers a different degree of symptoms of the ailment. These can range from very minute to severe.

The last thing a teacher would want to do if attempting to aide a student with dyslexia would be to tell them to come up to the board or read aloud in class, or anything that would bring attention to the student’s disability. A student suffering with dyslexia may experience stomach aches, severe anxiety, or may even refuse to come to school when their condition has attention brought to it. If you have a student in your class who has dyslexia, it is important to spend extra time and attention to the student, especially in subjects such as spelling, basic math, or literacy. It takes a dyslexic person an average of twice as long to read written words, so be sure to write homework or other important details on the board very large and clear. It is very important to encourage a student with dyslexia with extra attention and praise.

Because of the increased difficulty of reading and performing basic math, many dyslexic students have very low self-esteem in the classroom. Many see themselves as “stupid” because of their inability to keep up with their classmates in these subjects. However, people with dyslexia are on average right-brained, and have good ability in the creative and abstract areas of thought. It is important to interest a student with dyslexia in the abstract or artistic areas of education, while working with them to increase their ability in literacy and mathematics. The main concerns for a teacher to remember is to not bring any attention to the class of the student’s condition, and working patiently and attentively with the student to help them with their literacy and mathematics.

If you are unsure as to the extent and severity of your student’s condition, the school psychologist may issue a comprehensive dyslexia assessment, which tests the student’s ability in reading and spelling, memory, laterality, sight and hearing difficulties, sequencing, and scanning. A word-processer can be very useful for the dyslexic student, as it allows the student to check his or her work for errors and allows them to work on the same literacy levels as the average student. This can be very beneficial for the student’s self-esteem levels. Basically, a teacher with a dyslexic student will need patience, perseverance in helping the student, and will need to work with the student on a one-on-one level to help the student without the possible humiliation from the other students.