Dyslexia Awareness: Strategies for Elementary Educators

This blog post, authored by Heggerty literacy specialist Lori Jurjovec, an experienced educator and certified Orton Gillingham instructor, dives into the critical topic of dyslexia and its impact on elementary education. Lori’s background in both classroom teaching and private tutoring enriches the discussion, providing practical insights and strategies for educators to support students across the dyslexia spectrum.

• Defining Dyslexia
• Early Signs of Dyslexia: What to Look For
• Why Early Dyslexia Intervention is Key
• Resources to Support Dyslexic Individuals

Defining Dyslexia: How Elementary Educators Can Help Students Succeed

According to the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, dyslexia is the most common neurocognitive disorder, affecting between 80% and 90% of people who have learning disabilities.  With percentages like this, it is undeniable that dyslexic learners are present in every classroom around the world. This fact alone should be motivation for all of us to:

1. Understand what dyslexia is (and isn’t).
2. Know the common characteristics and warning signs of dyslexia.
3. Be equipped with the knowledge to provide strong instructional environments to support dyslexic individuals.

Some of the greatest misconceptions about dyslexia are that it is correlated to intelligence or effort.  When individuals struggle to read fluently or spell accurately they are often labeled as lazy or not as intelligent as their peers.  Through the use of fMRI’s (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scientists and researchers have been able to study the brain activity patterns of skilled and unskilled readers for decades. The data provided through this research has been able to unequivocally rule out a connection between dyslexia and a person’s cognitive abilities.  Contrary, what science and research has repeatedly shown us is that dyslexia is neurobiological in origin.  Meaning, it is a brain-based learning difference and involves different circuitry or wiring in how our brain makes sense of language. 

Free Webinar: To learn more about how you can support dyslexic learners at school or home, check out our recent webinar Defining Dyslexia: How Elementary Educators Can Help Students Succeed.

The term “neurodiversity,”  first surfaced in the mid 1990’s under the work of Australian sociologist Judy Singer. Although primarily a social justice movement, the term has emerged as a descriptor to highlight the complexity and uniqueness of the human brain, and how that diversity or circuitry of the brain impacts the way in which we all process information and make sense of the world around us.  Recognizing dyslexia as a brain-based learning difference and not as a disability, can help reduce the stigma and social-emotional impact a dyslexia diagnosis can have on an individual.  Alternatively, we should also understand and recognize the strengths that lie within this alternative wiring of the brain.  Although dyslexia makes reading and writing more difficult, this neurodiversity of the brain allows for interconnected thinking, amazing creativity, and exceptional spatial reasoning. 

Albert Einstein, Leonardo DaVinci, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Ludwig Van Beethoven, and Muhammad Ali- many of the brightest and most creative minds of our lifetime have been those individuals with dyslexia. 

In reflecting on the dyslexic individuals I have worked with, there have been incredible artists who have gone on to study at the top art schools in the nation, collegiate athletes, gifted musicians, students with amazing oral vocabularies and sophisticated senses of humor that challenged my thinking in new ways.  These are all gifts and talents that are likely attributed to that neurodiversity and the ability to see the world around them in a different way.  These gifts need to be celebrated and as teachers, we have an opportunity to build empathy within our classroom communities when we take time to share information like this.  Think about what that can do for the self-esteem of a child who is well aware that they aren’t reading like those around them.  

To help educators and parents better understand the challenges presented by dyslexia, we can turn to The International Dyslexia Association and the definition of dyslexia they provided in 2002,

“Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.”

The International Dyslexia Association (2002)

At its core, we know that dyslexia is a breakdown in the phonological component of language.  This means individuals with dyslexia experience difficulty in manipulating the sounds of our language.  Dyslexia is not a breakdown within the visual system.  Dyslexic individuals do not see words backward or transposed and no amount of vision therapy or training will improve the symptoms of dyslexia. 

Free Lesson Videos: To watch an example of a Heggerty explicit and systematic phonemic awareness daily lesson video, visit our YouTube page.

Early Signs of Dyslexia:  What to Look For

Dyslexia is familial. Therefore, we can have that awareness on our radar from the earliest of years. If a family history of dyslexia or struggling with literacy is present, especially if that person is a parent or sibling, there is a 25-50% chance that another family member will experience difficulty.  According to the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, the signs of dyslexia can appear as early as preschool. Here’s what to look for during the preschool years through the primary grades:

During the preschool years, pay particular attention to your child’s ability to engage in rhyming activities and build alphabet knowledge.  Do they experience difficulty with:

•  Recognizing and producing rhyming words?
•  Learning and reciting nursery rhymes or chants?
•  Learning letter names and sounds?

We can also tune into speech related issues.  All speech issues do not indicate dyslexia, but there is overlap in students with speech and language disorders who also struggle with reading. We want to take note of speech related difficulties that include:

• Letter and sound confusion 
• Word retrieval problems, i.e. saying “lotion” for “ocean.”  

If these issues are present in combination with difficulties with rhyme and alphabet knowledge, we want to have a heightened awareness and work together as a teacher and parent team to offer high quality instruction that can support the acquisition of these skills.  

As we move into kindergarten and first grade, students are acquiring the alphabetic principle and beginning to work with reading and writing. We can begin to also look for clues within a child’s decoding and spelling abilities, paying close attention to the following types of errors:

• Errors that have no connection to the sounds or letters given.  
• Guessing based on looking at a first sound, context, or picture clues.  
• Lack of awareness that words can come apart and be sounded out.  

Finally, we want to pay attention to how students feel about reading and how they view themselves as readers.  Do they complain about how hard reading is?  Oftentimes, we see students who are eager and excited to go to school and learn to read, only to find out that they just can’t seem to figure it out.  We may now hear them say, “I don’t like school,” “reading is hard,”  or “I’m a bad reader.” Statements like these are a plea for help. As early as possible, we need to take these cues and intervene with direct, targeted instruction that helps students make sense of the alphabetic code.  It is critical that we do not adopt a “wait and see” mentality.

Why Early Dyslexia Intervention is Key

I often reflect on my time as a classroom teacher and wish so desperately that I had known more about what dyslexia truly is and what signs to be on the lookout for because early intervention is KEY for dyslexic individuals.   Those same fMRI studies that show us what is happening in our brains when we perform reading tasks, also show us that when dyslexic individuals are provided direct, explicit, systematic instruction in the foundational skills of reading, new neural networks and more efficient pathways to support literacy can be created.  We can literally “rewire” that inefficient circuitry that exists.

“Genetics will predispose a child to dyslexia or word level reading problems, BUT the environment determines how severely the child will experience dyslexia.  Instruction is the most important environmental factor.”   

Dr. Patricia Mathes

Dyslexia operates on a continuum and a student’s instructional environment can dramatically affect their predisposition and the severity of symptoms that they will experience from dyslexia. 

Dyslexia is a breakdown within the phonologic module of language.  As teachers, we need to ensure that our instructional environments are designed to include systematic, explicit phonological awareness instruction from the earliest years of school. We also want to pay attention to offering more individualized support to students who need it.  As parents, we can also support our children’s phonological awareness through various games and activities at home.  As the model below from Shaywitz illustrates, if phonological awareness instruction is not provided in a direct, systematic way, we will see the gap begin to widen for these students and literacy difficulties will spill into many other ancillary language systems.  If a phonological weakness is present, it interferes with a student’s ability to decode. If the student can’t decode and lift a word from the page, background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension are all going to be impacted.

Blog Post: You can read more about phonological awareness and phonemic awareness in this blog post: What are Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness?

As I reflect on the students I have had in my classroom or worked with privately over the years, I have seen this breakdown first hand.  In the early years of my career, when students struggled with decoding or fluency, I would meet them where they were with a leveled book.  I would encourage parents to read as much as possible within this level with their child at home.  Often, I would suggest providing more outside support focusing on fluency, vocabulary building, and comprehension.  While these areas of literacy instruction are incredibly important, my instruction lacked a systematic focus on supporting foundational skills that worked to address the core deficit.  My undergraduate and graduate level work did not prepare me to recognize or support this need in my students.  Therefore, most often I would see small gains in fluency and decoding and often a widening gap across other areas of language comprehension as content increased in difficulty. 

I know that the burden and stress of literacy struggles took a heavy emotional toll on many students, and I still think about that often.  I have found myself googling the names of students from 15 – 20 years ago, wanting to ensure that they were living successful lives.  I know that many students dealt with unnecessary stress and trauma that all could have been prevented or alleviated if I had understood their learning difference and knew how to support them.  

Free Download: Heggerty Bridge the Gap Intervention Curriculum lesson sample- an intervention curriculum focused on developing phonemic awareness skills for all learners. Bridge the Gap is a series of systematic phonemic awareness intervention lessons for students in 2nd grade and above. The lessons can be used in small groups or with individual students who struggle to decode words automatically.  

Through my own continued research and training, I have worked to help many dyslexic learners overcome struggles with literacy. I have worked with young children through completely illiterate adults. My oldest student was a man who went almost 60 years, without ever being able to read.   With each of these students, systematic and explicit instruction in the foundational skills of literacy was the key to their success.

If you are looking to learn more about dyslexia, I highly recommend the book, Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz. This book truly serves as a road map for all things dyslexia.  The information shared will help you make sense of the reading brain and, specifically, the brain of those who struggle with literacy.  If you are a teacher, tutor, or parent, you will connect and maybe see your child or a student in the anecdotal stories shared.  You will know that you aren’t alone, and feel hope and empowerment as you acquire the tools to help.  

Heggerty: Learn more about our curriculum, download free resources & shop for our curriculum on our website.

Resources to Support Dyslexic Individuals

To all of the teachers and parents out there working so hard every day to make a difference in the life of a child, thank you!  I’d like to leave you with this famous quote, by the one and only Maya Angelou that I hold dear;

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

Maya Angelou

In the Classroom:

• Classroom Teacher Handbook for Dyslexia
• Emily Hanford’s At a Loss for Words  and  Sold a Story podcast

Children’s Books to Empower and Build Empathy:

• Dyslexia Legends Alphabet by Beck Feiner and Robin Feiner
• Thank you, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco
• Finding my Superpower:  A book for dyslexia thinkers by Sarah Prestidge