American Dyslexia Association

Tag: spelling

  • GHOTIT Can Help Kids With Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Spelling

    GHOTIT Can Help Kids With Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Spelling

    Dyslexia Spelling = Phonetic Spelling + Creative Spelling

    What is Phonetic Spelling?

    When you’re dictating a word and tell your son or daughter that he should write what he hears, your child will attempt to map the sounds in the words to the sounds of the letters.

    However, English is not a phonetic language. There are a very large number of English words where there is a gap between how the word sounds and how the word is actually spelled. Not to mention, there are many times multiple correct phonetic options to a given sound (for example: k , c, ck, and qu – all sound about the same)…

    What is creative spelling?

    Given that English spelling is not phonetic, and each sound may have several spelling options, a lot of correct English spelling is dependent on the visual memory of a written word. If you have good visual memory of words, you will be able to spell a word correctly simply by writing it down, and from memory deciding if this is the correct spelling.

    But kids with dyslexia and dysgraphia have very poor and inconsistent visual memory of spelled words, and therefore, can hardly rely on their visual memory of words…. Not to mention that children with dyslexia or dysgraphia sometimes confuse the direction of letters, and though they meant to write the letter “b” actually end up writing the letter “d”…

    A child’s Creative Spelling refers to the spelling of a child who has no idea of how to spell correctly certain syllables of a word, and therefore, creatively makes them up as he writes. And each time he/she “creates” a word’s spelling, it usually ends up as a different spelling creation.

    Can a regular spell checker correct dyslexia spelling?

    English is not a phonetic language, and therefore, the “creative spelling” of a child with dyslexia or dysgraphia must be taken into account in order for a spell checker to provide value for a dyslexic child. However, the “creative” spelling of such a child is basically “noise” and therefore any computerized program, such as a regular spell checker, that tries to correct a single word at a time (and not based on the context of the sentence) is doomed to fail… That is why Microsoft spell checker many times simply fails to correct a heavily misspelled word written by a dyslexic… and the reason why dyslexic children require…

    Continue reading here: https://www.ghotit.com/ghotit-for-kids

  • Dyslexia in different languages

    Dyslexia in different languages

    French, Danish and even English can be hard for dyslexics students while Spanish, German and Italian may be easier.

    Dyslexia in different languages

    It becomes more and more evident that dyslexia, being the same to its core all over the world, also depends on how difficult the language is to learn and to read. Between languages, there are differences in the orthographic, phonological, morphemic, and inflectional structure, but what makes them harder or easier to learn is also the “opaqueness”: how possible it is to break the words up into sounds and how well those sounds match the letters and letter combinations. For example, French, Danish, and even English can be hard for dyslexic students while Spanish, German, and Italian may be easier.

    Different languages, dyslexia and spelling transparency

    Danish speakers are sometimes said to swallow their consonants, making it a bit of a challenge for learners to hear which words they are using. Looking at a Danish word on paper, you won’t necessarily know how to say it out loud. The same goes for French with its je peux (I can), il peut (he can), and un peu (a little), pronounced in the same way (x and t silent) but with different meanings. Dyslexic students, as well as English students, often struggle with the irregular spelling of the language. They often feel the need for an extensive repertoire of strategies to overcome the challenge.

    Studies are being done on dyslexia in different languages but there is still much left to discover. Such as how dyslexia looks in languages that are written in another direction, like Arabic, or in a language that doesn’t have an alphabet, such as Mandarin. Learning Chinese, you must match the meaning and sound to a specific character, which in fact results in a perhaps more complicated and severe disorder than that of English dyslexics.

    Continue reading here https://cpen.com/insights/dyslexia-in-different-languages/