We found this great infographic on Understanding Dyslexia over at weareteachers.com. If you want to know more on how to help children with dyslexia, read our Apple iBook Dyslexia? Dyscalculia?
Tag: teacher
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Picture chaos
Over at openclipart.org we have seen a nice pinguin which has been waiting for an appearance in our worksheets for a while. The pinguin with all its disguises is perfect for today’s freebie Picture chaos. The pictures are mixed up and children have to put the numbers in the correct order. The pinguins are also added as a template for children who have great difficulties with this kind of exercise. You can use the templates as cards for memory. These exercises train attention and visual and spatial perception – important skills for reading, writing and calculating.
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Free Reading
FreeReading is a free, high-quality, open-source reading program addressing literacy development for grades K-3. Leveraging the collective wisdom of researchers, teachers, reading coaches, and other education and industry professionals, FreeReading provides a high-quality, cost-effective alternative to static materials. By establishing a foundation of hundreds of research-based lessons and materials that users can download and use for free, FreeReading has created the framework for intervention programs supporting K-6 literacy. The collective wisdom within FreeReading is invaluable and can be more beneficial than any one reading program.
We are very fond of the decodable passages, because these can also be used when working with dyslexic children. Many decodable stories included in commercial reading programs are redundant and lack the authenticity of a real reading experience. We have tried to create stories that are more authentic as well as being 100% decodable. That means you can discuss the meaning of the story after reading it, building your students’ comprehension skills. These stories are also more cognitively demanding and use slightly more sophisticated language than typical decodable stories. This is an opportunity to better develop your students’ oral language skills. In some cases, it will require repeated readings of a passage for students to understand it fully.
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I am dyslexic
In our schools there are still far too many children whose dyslexia or dyscalculia is not recognized. The children are seen as stupid, lazy, unwilling to learn, difficult, etc. Watch this wonderful video in which a young woman talks about her dyslexia. She used to think she was just too stupid until she discovered, at age of 18 that she is dyslexic. This happens to many people! That’s why it’s so important that parents and teachers know about the signs of dyslexia and take these signs seriously. A lot of people think, the dyslexia will just disappear. Well, it does not!
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Handwriting Worksheet Wizard
With the ESL Writing Wizard you can easily make worksheets for handwriting practice. You can change the font (print or cursive), the size and line patterns. With a few clicks you can create one-word worksheets or multi-word worksheets. The Writing Wizard is a free resource for teachers and (homeschooling) moms and dads. Access the ESL wizard here.
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Logical: Snowman
Logicals are an excellent way to practice reading and listening skills. A logical is a riddle that is solved by logical reasoning. Accurate reading or listening is very important. Today’s freebie includes two logicals with snowmen: the first one is pretty easy, the second one is a little trickier. Ask the children to read the text carefully or to listen carefully, so they can find out who built which snowman when and where. Have fun!
Also check out these logicals:
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Drawing lines
“Drawing lines” offers many possibilities to train children’s skills that are important for reading, writing and arithmetics: attention, hand-eye-coordination, visual and spatial perception. The children are counting, they have to decide whether to draw up, down, to the right, to the left, etc. This may look simple, but for some children this is a real challenge.
You get 5 sheets with 4 exercises each. The children have to continue the lines in the same way. They can do this freehand or use a ruler. There are also two empty templates.
For children who have real difficulties with this kind of exercise, it might be a good idea to laminate the pages and give the children an overhead marker. This works like magic, because with an overhead marker children are no longer afraid to make mistakes. They can easily wipe them away.
Extra tip: If you have an ipad or tablet, open the file in an app that allows PDF-annotation. The children can do the exercise directly on the ipad/tablet. There is no child who refuses to do the exercise then!