The American Dyslexia Association offers more than 1500 free worksheets on its website. The worksheets follow the AFS-method , a very successful method to help children with dyslexia and dyscalculia. If a child has dyslexia or dyscalculia, it is not enough to work on the mistakes. The child also has to learn to be attentive all the time when reading, writing, and calculating. Furthermore, it is important to train the child’s perception to improve reading, writing, and calculating skills.
The American Dyslexia Association promotes the interests of people with dyslexia and dyscalculia. It is important to inform people about these themes. Dr. Astrid Kopp-Duller, president of ADA, always stresses how important it is to help children with dyslexia and dyscalculia on a pedagogical-didactic level. Because it needs to be said time and again: THESE CHILDREN ARE NOT ILL OR DISABLED, they simply need another method to learn how to read, write, and calculate.
To reach as many people as possible, some basic information about dyslexia and dyscalculia is now available in 18 languages:
Do you know an adult, a child, a family who may be interested? Please, hand them this information. The more people are informed and the earlier children are helped, the better!
Cher? Tom Cruise? Salma Hayek? Anthony Hopkins? Jamie Oliver? Albert Einstein? Agatha Christie? Alexander Graham Bell? Robin Williams? Danny Glover? John Lennon? and Muhammad Ali?
What do these famous people all have in common? As you might have guessed from the title yes it is that they are all Dyslexic.
Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty which makes it hard for you to learn to read, write and spell correctly. We do know that developmental dyslexia is inherited, so that, thanks to our DNA, we can be born with it. Dyslexia affects around 8% to 10% of the Irish population. The National Institute of Health reports that up to 15% of the U.S. population have learning challenges.
If you have dyslexia you may have trouble with reading, writing, spelling, maths, and sometimes even music. Dyslexia can occur at any level of intelligence, and has many disguises so that teachers and parents may instead erroneously observe children lacking motivation or “not trying hard enough”.
A dyslexic brain shows very little activity in areas known to be of high importance to connecting the written form of words with their phonetic components. Thus to read, people with dyslexia must create new neurological pathways. Compensation is made by using more use of a front-brain section called Broca’s area, commonly connected with other types of language speech and processing.
How might I know if I or my child has Dyslexia?
Here are a few of the main symptoms:
• Delayed speech development
• Speech problems, such as not being able to pronounce long words properly
• Problems expressing themselves using spoken language
• Little understanding or appreciation of rhyming words
• Spelling that is unpredictable and inconsistent
• Putting letters and figures the wrong way
A Sound Solution?
Alphamusic composer John Bram Levine believes that if you can slow the brain waves down to the Alpha state, then the useless mind chatter and negative self-talk of doubt and fear may vanish, whilst the left and right brain communicate more effectively, allowing information to be more easily absorbed, processed, and remembered. Levine studied electronics, graduating with a degree in Music Composition from Sydney University, following which he learnt meditation. He challenged himself to formulate music that could induce the same Alpha brainwave state achieved during meditation. A new genre was born: ‘Alphamusic’.
Does it work?
Stewart Holmes, a dyslexic, hated studying. ‘It was all too hard and frustrating until by accident I played ‘Silence of Peace’, an Alphamusic album, whilst revising. I felt as if a curtain surrounded the words on the page, allowing me to absorb the words and meaning freely and easily. I was astonished as no other music, whether it was new age, relaxation, classical, rock, or jazz, has ever had this effect on me.
Amy Turner-Monk was determined that her dyslexia was not going to stop her from realizing her dreams, so she applied to the Open University and asked for assistance with her learning difficulties. The dyslexia assessor recommended she use Levine’s Alphamusic whilst studying. Until her discovery, Amy could only read for 10 minutes before being tired and distracted and needing to take 30 minutes to rest before continuing, ‘it all was quite draining’. ‘Using this brain wave transforming album ‘Silence of Peace’, I found I could study for more than an hour at a time without any exhaustion.’
Although such testimonials and Cambridge University studies have shown a positive link between Levine’s Alphamusic and enhanced learning, more research needs to be done in this area, to investigate if music truly could be the golden key to solving the dyslexic puzzle. Levine is interested in hearing from anyone who would be interested in engaging in such research.
For more information, please contact
John Levine
[email protected]
Free samples of Silence of Peace CD: http://www.silenceofmusic.com
Here is another “I spy…” freebie. Children simply love them. This time it is called “I spy … superheroes”. Print, color, count, and simply enjoy all the fun. At the same time, children train attention, visual perception, and fine motor skills.
Grab this freebie here: I spy … superheroes
Spring is in the air, so we thought it was about time for a new freebie. Give your children some coloring pencils and let them color and search. Then, they count how many they find of each object. Use this opportunity to talk about “more than…”, “less than…”, etc. This exercise trains attention, visual, and spatial perception, and fine motor skills – important skills for reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Grab this freebie here: I spy … spring! (ca. 3,9 MB)
Just what is dyslexia?
There are many misconceptions out there.
“Dyslexia is a type of specific learning disorder that impacts reading,” said Dr. Sheldon H. Horowitz, director of learning disability resources at the National Center for Learning Disabilities. “It is not a disease, nor is it contagious. It is not something that goes away — you don’t outgrow it — and it is not the result of watching too much TV, laziness, vision or
hearing problems, or low intelligence.
“The medical community refers to it as a disorder, and the educational community refers to it as a specific learning disability. Others are dyscalculia if the area of weakness is math, dysgraphia if the problem is writing and written expression.”
Because dyslexia is not a disease, there is not “one treatment for dyslexia. It can’t be cured, especially because dyslexia is not a medical or psychological problem,” said Livia R. Pailer-Duller, executive director of the American Dyslexia Association. “It needs to be addressed through training of the attention span, of sensory perceptions, and the practice of reading and spelling on the educational level.”
Rather, “dyslexia is a genetic disposition, which means that dyslexia is inherited,” she said. “Dyslexic individuals have different sensory perceptions. These different sensory perceptions are the reason why the attention of dyslexic people diminishes when they come in contact with letters, which in turn causes them to make errors in reading and spelling.”
What it is
There is no one profile of dyslexia, but typically, people have trouble sounding out words, blending letter sounds into words while reading, mastering the rules of spelling and grammar, and expressing what they know in written formats, Horowitz said.
“Some people with dyslexia are accurate readers at a slower pace but struggle to understand what they have read because they expend all of their mental resources figuring out what the words are and keeping track of what they are reading,” he said. “Others are slow, labored readers, but do OK with comprehension.
“People with dyslexia do not have vision problems that are causing them to struggle in reading. The problem stems from the way that printed text and the sounds of the language are processed in their brains. It’s not that their brains can’t do this processing; it’s that it is done in ways that are inefficient.”
Also, dyslexia is not intelligence-related.
“Dyslexics are not less intelligent than non-dyslexics — quite the opposite is often true,” Pailer-Duller said. “However, dyslexics often score low on intelligence tests because these tests attempt to measure intelligence by measuring sensory perceptions. But these are different in dyslexic individuals, which does not make them stupid, just that the test is inadequate.”
How to help
For people with dyslexia, “parents are absolutely critical and family support is hugely important,” Horowitz said. “Remember: dyslexia is what the child has, not who they are. They have areas of strength and interest just like everyone else, and in some cases, because they work so hard to compensate for their areas of challenge, they can be very high achievers and role models for their peers and for the general community.
Parents need to understand as much as they can about dyslexia, abandon any feelings of guilt, and help their child to become a strong and effective self-advocate.”
Schools are not required to give dyslexics extra help, but in some states, an individualized education plan is possible where dyslexic students receive help on standardized testing, Pailer-Duller said.
As an example, “a dyslexic child with reading problems can receive additional assistance for reading instructions to solve math problems.
However, dyslexic students have to do the reading portion of the standardized test themselves — without help.
So this partial help does not go a long way,” she said.
Teachers who are knowledgeable about dyslexia can do a lot within the school setting to help a dyslexic child.
“Examples are that grading focuses on content and expression, and not on spelling. Teachers should avoid calling on dyslexic children to read aloud in front of the whole class if the child is not comfortable with it,” Pailer-Duller said. “It is very important to understand that the schoolteacher can only do so much. A dyslexic child will always need additional individualized training, either with a specialist or with parents.”
Written by Melissa Erickson from Family Magazine, April 2014 issue, Gatehouse Media
Sudokus are everywhere: in almost every shop to buy, and on the internet as free printables or to play online. So why another post about Sudokus? Because it is not easy to find good Sudoku puzzles for children, and it is even less easy to find Sudokus with symbols. Worksheetworks.com, however, offers a free symbol Sudoku generator. Simply choose the symbols, how many Sudoku puzzles you want (one or four per page), choose the difficulty level, and click “create worksheet”. You get a PDF which you can save or print. Both a solution and an explanation of the solution are included.
We like symbol sudokus very much. Young children can solve them as well and are very proud of being able to do the same kind of puzzles as adults. Older children like the extra challenge of drawing the symbols – this trains creativity and visual perception. What more can you wish?
Access the Symbol Sudokus here
A cold, rainy day? Still 10 minutes to fill? Children with special educational needs? You simply cannot have enough worksheets. That’s why we offer you a file (24 pages) with animals and objects: searching, tracing, drawing, coloring, memory – all for free, of course! The exercises train attention, visual, and spatial perception.
DOWNLOAD
We hope you enjoy them!
Mazes have always fascinated humanity. Think about the Cretan Labyrinth from Greek mythology. But even today, mazes are very popular. In “The Goblet of Fire,” Harry Potter has to go through a maze to win the Triwizard Tournament. Once Harry finds the way through the maze, things turn out completely different from what was expected. But that is another story you’d better read yourself.
Children are also fascinated by mazes. Therefore, mazes are perfect for training attention and perception. Here is a good way to do mazes with your children:
Important: Take care that the mazes are not too difficult, but also not too easy.
We created some worksheets with mazes in varying levels of difficulty.
