10 strategies to help your child cope with dyslexia

At the present time, dyslexia has become very common in children. This may represent a challenge for any family. Dyslexia encompasses difficulty in reading and word-recognition skills. For this reason, parents can support their children in order to help them manage this challenge.

I would like to share some useful strategies and perspectives that can be done in the home:

1. If your child is diagnosed with dyslexia, your support will be crucial in order to begin identifying resources that will help him or her.
2. It is a good idea to talk with your child about his or her difficulty so that they feel loved and supported. Kind and loving words can help develop self-esteem and confidence.
3. Begin exploring to see if different strategies such as games with color-coded words can help your child recognize words.
4. Since your son or daughter is very familiar with the objects in the home (such as chairs, tables, TV, toys, etc.) you can label these items in order to help him or her recognize the letters of these words. It may be a great idea to begin learning word recognition for these “familiar” objects before trying to learn word recognition for abstract objects or ideas.
5. Another good strategy is helping your child visualize the words before trying to sound them out.
6. There are several fun games such as Scrabble or word searches that can help your child recognize new and familiar words.
7. Since learning words can be tricky, it is a good idea to not only help your child learn the structure of each syllable, but also learn how to separate words while writing them. This can be done by showing a “finger space” between each written word or helping your child practice separating the typed words with the space bar on the keyboard.
8. Before you start any reading activity, you can show pictures in order to stimulate the child’s comprehension and support his reading skills. This may be essential especially if the story talks about abstract or hypothetical topics.
9. If your child enjoys listening to music, you can provide him or her with the lyrics of any favorite song to help him learn the words and their spelling. Music may help stimulate word recognition since it is involving more than one sense.
10. Hands-on activities are also ideal to foster your child’s fine motor skills, as well as improving his or her pencil grip and handwriting abilities.

These strategies can easily be practiced in the home, and they will help your child feel confident in coping with their reading challenge. Parents, you are not alone. You can involve teachers and other professionals in creating a support team for your child. Here are some other tips on dealing with dyslexia.

Published in Vida sana by Millerlandy Medina on November 6, 2013 Translated and adapted by Anders Peterson from the original article “Ayuda a tu hijo a superar la dislexia con 10 actividades” by Millerlandy Medina

Anders Peterson es profesor de lengua española en la Universidad de Arizona. Él reside en Tucson con su esposa e hijos y es traductor e intérprete independiente.