Dyslexia Explored with Darius Namdaran

Topic: Strategies for helping students with dyslexia

Date published: 1/26/23

Listen to the full podcast here

In this podcast, Dr. Levy discusses dyslexia with Darius Namdaram and strategies that can help students with dyslexia build stronger reading comprehension skills.

Students with dyslexia typically struggle with reading and writing. They have trouble accurately sounding out words and often look at the beginning sound and “guess” at the rest of the word when reading. They also tend to struggle with spelling and expressing their thoughts on paper effectively when writing (despite having wonderful ideas!). Furthermore, while students with dyslexia often have strong auditory comprehension skills, because they exert so much energy trying to decode words, they may miss out on the “big picture” of what they are reading, negatively affecting their reading comprehension.

Learning to visualize information that they read and form web diagrams can help students with dyslexia develop stronger reading comprehension skills. When reading a passage about a rainstorm, for example, they may try to visualize the events happening in the story and benefit from prompting questions, like “What time of day was it?“, Who was in the story and how were they feeling?” or “What season was it?”. Once they have formed a visual image of the information they read, they can create a web diagram.

The student’s web diagram should have the topic written inside a bubble in the center of the page, like “the big rainstorm” and branching out of the middle web, they should add bubbles with supporting details written in them, like “when it occurred,” “who was affected”, and “how long it lasted.” Students can then add additional branches to the supporting details bubbles with more information describing each supporting detail. They can also add pictures, symbols, and colors to add creativity. The more colorful and creative, the better! Read more about strategies for developing your child’s reading skills at How to Improve Your Dyslexic Child’s Reading Skills – EBL Coaching.

Students with dyslexia are often very bright and have great imaginations. Learning this visualization strategy can help them develop stronger reading comprehension skills.

Learn more at Reading & Dyslexia | LD OnLine.

Dear Dr. Levy, My son received an excellent report card. I can’t say enough good things about his EBL tutor. She has done a tremendous job helping him improve his reading and writing skills. Most importantly, she is wise and kind. She is always patient with him. Because of his tutor, my son writes with much more ease.

– Parent

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