Questions from Helpline brought to you by Scanning Pens
Thursday 22 October 2020
Dear Helpline, my ten-year old son dislikes reading and this seemed to get worse during the school closures. He struggles to recognise many words and doesn’t seem to be able to sound them out. He becomes upset and throws the book and then asks us to read to him. We don’t know how to help him.
Firstly, it’s really good that he asks you to read to him, it shows he values and enjoys stories and books. For children who have difficulties with reading the effort required to concentrate can be exhausting leading to frustration and avoidance.
You could try paired reading with him. Let him choose something that really interests him, it could be a book, a comic or a magazine, it is important that he is keen to read together. Explain to him that you and he can read it out loud together and agree a signal he’ll use if he wants to read alone. Don’t hurry him to read alone, as long as he is reading in unison with you, he is building up his sight vocabulary as well as learning lots of new words. If he chooses to read alone and makes a mistake or struggles to sound out a word, just say the word and carry on reading together again. As his confidence and skills build you can take turns reading or use the paired reading technique again. At the end of a page or paragraph talk about the content so that he practises absorbing what he is reading.
He may like to use audio books to support his reading. This would enable him to relax and to continue to enjoy stories and all the wonderful vocabulary that he’ll be hearing.
Dear Helpline, I am writing my thesis and am finding it difficult to organise my ideas and to structure the overall content, it’s getting in a muddle.
It may help to print the document out and to lay it out on a large surface. You can separate it into labelled, numbered and/or colour coded sections while matching this to the original plan. You may need to edit the plan or adjust what you have included in the essay as you go along. It can be a big task doing this so take your time, it’ll be worth it.
You could try mind-mapping software to enable you to brainstorm, organise and plan your ideas. You can build up a colour co-ordinated mind-map linking your topics and ideas and allowing the map to become a structured visual body of knowledge.
Scanning Pens are proud to sponsor the BDA Helpline
A sponsorship from Scanning Pens will mean the BDA Helpline will now have even more direct support from a dyslexia specialist.
The Scanning Pens sponsorship will allow us to increase the capacity and expertise of the BDA Helpline further – meaning faster and more straightforward support is available and opening hours extended. We strive to quickly deliver support to the 1 in 10 people in Britain with dyslexia.
The British Dyslexia Association would like to say thank you to Scanning Pens for their kind support. It will make a massive difference to the people that need our help.
Founded over 15 years ago, Scanning Pens aims to deliver well designed technology to support individual learning. As a company they’re on a mission to break down barriers for dyslexic people, particularly around access to print based exams. In 2014 the UK exam boards allowed the use of reading pens in exams for everyone & anyone who needs extra help reading exam questions. No access arrangements required. Other exam boards internationally are now allowing the use of pen scanners in exams.
