Dyslexia
https://www.4d.org.nz/school/
Dyslexia is an alternative way of thinking – a learning preference – that affects an estimated one in ten New Zealanders, including 70,000 schoolchildren.
Understanding dyslexia means noticing what this means for everyday life – at school, home and work. It also means understanding the common signs for dyslexia and how it may present itself. Dyslexia is perhaps best thought of as a continuum of abilities and difficulties rather than a distinct category, as it occurs across a range of intellectual abilities with no clear cut-off points.
While reading and writing can be challenging for dyslexic individuals, big picture skills like problem solving, creativity, high level conceptualisation and original insights are often real strengths.
In terms of everyday life impacts, dyslexia is usually first uncovered in the classroom environment when core reading and writing skills are being taught. However, it is equally common for dyslexia to go undiagnosed, with individuals labelled as ‘slow’ or ‘struggling’ due to unexpected difficulties in acquiring these skills.
As the individual moves beyond school into the workplace, these difficulties can be compounded by reliance on written formats and requirements around everything from rapid email communication through to understanding instructions. Even in jobs that are manually oriented, processing instructions and filling in work forms can be sources of challenge and frustration.
Those with dyslexia must be supported in education and in the workplace, and this often requires specific interventions, as well as awareness and understanding. For more guidance on dealing with dyslexia in the classroom, and within the family, workplace, visit DFNZ’s 4D webspaces. This concept of 4D | For Dyslexia – which also stands for 4 Difference and 4 Diversity – extends the common perception of three dimensions to embrace a fourth dimension based on creativity. This fourth dimension is likened to a dyslexic or atypical way of thinking which can offer great creative gifts if addressed correctly.
It is important to notice how dyslexia impacts everyday life. Some of the common signs of dyslexia can include:
- Problems with labels, rhymes, sequences
- Letters or numbers reversed or confused b/d/p/q, n/u, 13/31
- Being slower to process and needing repeated exposures to retain learning
- Retrieval issues – learns something one moment, gone the next
- Large gap between oral and written capabilities
- Poor sense of direction – difficulty telling left from right
- Reluctance, embarrassment or avoidance around reading out loud
- A preference for face-to-face meetings/phone calls rather than email correspondence, and for charts/graphs over text
- Frequent misspelling of words and mixing up words which sound similar (recession/reception), in speech or written work
- Poor handwriting, punctuation and grammar
- Misunderstanding or misinterpretation of managers’ instructions
- Problems meeting deadlines, despite working hard
- Fine motor coordination may be problematic, eg. tying laces, doing up buttons
Dyslexia is best thought of as a continuum of abilities and difficulties, with no clear cut-off points, so signs and lists are not definitive. If you wish to explore dyslexia screening or a formal diagnosis of dyslexia, information on organisations which can help can be found on our solutions and assessments page, click here.
Dyslexia signs - quick links :
- Characteristics of Learning Problems / Dyslexia (SPELD NZ):Click here
- Characteristics of dyslexia in children (DFNZ 4D programme): Click here
- Indications of Dyslexia (British Dyslexia Association):
- 37 Characteristics of Dyslexia (Davis Dyslexia Association): Click here
- Free online assessment (Davis Dyslexia Association):Click here
The upside of dyslexia is the ability to perceive the world from many perspectives, allowing visual-spatial thinking and special talents and skills to flourish in fields such as the arts, design, leadership, entrepreneurship, engineering, sciences, business and technology.
UK research shows that 35% of US entrepreneurs and 20% of UK entrepreneurs are dyslexic – with Sir Richard Branson a famous example. Entrepreneurs create jobs and wealth, both of which are important to drive economies forward. For more on this research click here. Dyslexic individuals also contribute to business growth and productivity through thinking outside the square, and enlightened employers around the world are now specifically recruiting dyslexics for the creativity and alternative thinking they bring. Check out our 4D Workplace for more on this.
Famous dyslexics include actors Tom Cruise, Robin Williams, Keira Knightly, Whoopi Goldberg, supermodel Jerry Hall and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. Here in New Zealand, creative leaders like Academy Award winner Richard Taylor, motivational speaker Billy Graham, renowned hair stylist Mike Hamel and the late maverick motorcycle designer John Britten have all embraced this learning difference to become leaders in their field. Some of these successful New Zealanders have shared their stories for our Inspiring New Zealanders webpage. Click here to read more.
Please note, however, that DFNZ does not endorse or recommend any specific method, treatment, product, programme, organisations or individuals in regard to assistance for dyslexic children or adults. We encourage those seeking assistance to speak with a range of organisations, and to seek out a variety of information and opinions about what type of programme would suit them, and their family, budget and timing constraints.
Click here for a list of New Zealand’s major dyslexia service providers.
The Ministry of Education website also has some useful information about what to look for, how to get support and what you can do to help if you think your child may have dyslexia.
Click here for some comprehensive UK resource material on theories of dyslexia and suggested approaches and programmes to address it.
Straight talk for busy teachers
Debate on the precise definition of the term ‘dyslexia’ has occupied academics around the world for some years. This often seems to engender an attitude that until you can define dyslexia, you can’t begin to address it – a stalemate which international dyslexia expert Neil Mackay refers to as “paralysis by analysis”.
DFNZ’s 4D approach takes an alternative view, identifying constructive action that can be taken based on the significant body of research and experiential evidence that already exists on dyslexia. After-all, for the estimated 70,000 dyslexic schoolchildren in our Kiwi classrooms, actions speak much louder than words.
4D is built around a simple but highly effective philosophy of ‘notice and adjust’. For the classroom, the revolutionary 4D Schools programme is about noticing which students are having difficulty, and making simple adjustments to the way in which they are taught and assessed so that they can flourish. This means adopting personalised learning strategies, and accepting alternative evidence of achievement, perhaps oral and visual based rather than written. Central to this approach is recognition of dyslexia as a learning preference. Put simply, this means understanding that dyslexics think differently, and so naturally prefer to receive, process and present information in the way that makes more sense to them.
In the ‘notice and adjust’ teaching paradigm, dyslexia is defined as “A specific learning difference which is constitutional in origin and which, for a given level of ability, may cause unexpected difficulties in the acquisition of certain literacy and numeracy skills.”
Constitutional in origin refers to the fact that dyslexia has a substantive neurobiological basis. Brain research, including studies from Yale and Auckland universities, has shown that while it is common to use the ‘verbal’ left side of our brain to understand words, dyslexic people use the ‘pictorial’ right side – making them slower to process and understand language, but stronger in creative areas like problem solving, empathy and lateral thinking.
World dyslexia authority Sally Shaywitz, founder of the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity (www.dyslexia.yale.edu) is a pioneer in this area. Her laboratory was one of the first in the world to image the dyslexic brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The data obtained from several thousand children and adults, combined with fMRI data from around the world, revealed a distinctive neural signature for dyslexia, with disruption in the neural systems used for reading with a fundamental difference in the way the brain is organised.
Dyslexics tend to be top-down rather than bottom-up thinkers, meaning they learn from getting the big picture or the overall idea or meaning first, and then fill in the specific details. These observations have critical importance in terms of how information is presented to dyslexic students, and how long they are given to understand it. More on her research can be found on the 4D Edge site and in her own knol.
In defining dyslexia, we can note that difficulties with literacy and numeracy are a common feature of dyslexia. The most immediate attribute is a problem in decoding words and their meanings, when compared to their ability appropriate skills in other areas. However, this is still only one aspect of a broader spectrum of difficulties. Skills that may be affected can include auditory and information processing, planning and organising, motor skills, short-term memory and concentration. Some of these can make it especially challenging for individuals to follow instructions, turn thoughts into words and finish certain tasks on time. Dyslexia is perhaps best thought of as a continuum of abilities and difficulties, rather than a distinct category, as there are no clear cut-off points
For more information on defining and addressing dyslexia, download the latest version of our handbook for teachers click here.
To sign up for the 4D Schools programme or to join our mailing list for those that support schools click here.