What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a learning difference that presents primarily through an individual experiencing reading difficulties and often also impacts spelling and handwriting. Dyslexia is surprisingly common, present in 1 out of every 10 students. Dyslexia is not correlated with intelligence or motivation, rather it relates solely to weakness in the area of phonological processing in the brain. While the exact cause of dyslexia is unknown, research has shown genetic correlation. Usually, students with dyslexia have a close family member who is also dyslexic.

Psychologists often use the term Specific Learning Disability in reading, rather than diagnosing dyslexia by name, but the terms usually have the same meaning, particularly when difficulties in decoding and reading fluency are listed.

The good news is, that with phonics instruction, dyslexic students build new neural pathways in the brain to allow them to read. If you are wondering if your child has dyslexia, visit this free screener from the International Dyslexia Association to learn more.

Finally an Approach that Works

Dyslexia is successfully treated through carefully sequenced, multi-sensory phonics instruction. Phonic instruction makes the hidden rules of language visible so that students understand how to crack the code of reading, without relying heavily on memorization or guessing based on context clues as is commonly done in other reading programs. A phonics based approach allows students to use their cognitive strengths to reason through words and makes language patterns apparent when it is not otherwise intuitive. In short, phonic instruction builds new neural connections in the brain so that students are able to confidently tackle unfamiliar words.

However, not all phonics instructional systems are effective for all dyslexic students. Our methodology differs from other phonics programs in its opportunities for tailoring lessons to student needs, multi-sensory approach, and high level of content mastery. These factors make all the difference in facilitating student achievement.

Customization

Engaged Minds phonics materials provide a framework that our tutors use to customize lessons for each student. In many other phonics programs, when students get stuck on a skill, they must repeat the same lesson over and over until they achieve a passing score. This can lead to lost time, frustration, and discouragement. In contrast, the customization process of our methodology allows lessons to be designed to target those tricky spots and bring in new supports until the new concept is understood. This builds student confidence and increases success.

Multi-Sensory

We distinguishes ourself from other phonics programs through use of multi-sensory materials to help students learn through a combination of tactile sensation, auditory, and visual cues. For example, as students learn new letters they trace them in sand, saying the letter name, key word, and sound. This improves their memory of the new letter by combining touch, sound, and sight. A student struggling to distinguish sh from ch will practice tracing sh on a sheep skin, while saying “sh, ship, /sh/” and tracing ch on a bag of chips, while saying “ch, chin, /ch/.” Visual aids, such as a model ship to cue “sh” or a Mr. Potato head doll to cue “ch,” can be used to prompt error repair and improve memory. 

Content Mastery

With the Engaged Minds Phonics approach, phonics skills are taught sequentially and practiced until mastery. That way, when new skills are introduced, the student’s cognitive processes are freed up to focus solely on the new information. Students using other programs often are ushered on to new material before new content is fully engrained, which leads to errors and confusion as new skills are added too soon. With a solid foundation, kids are able to read accurately and will not rely on guesswork.

Experience Success

If your child has been discouraged with other reading programs, I urge you to try Engaged Minds Phonics. With time and practice, your child will become an accurate and fluent reader!

Highlights from an Engaged Minds

Phonics Lesson Teaching Blends

This lesson starts with phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness focuses on the auditory part of words, which is prerequisite to reading and spelling. In this exercise, the student is using color coded poppers to change the /l/ in glad to /r/ making the word grad.

The student reviews individual letters and sounds and traces them on a multi-sensory surface. The use of texture enhances memory.

The lesson objective is introduced using manipulatives. Here, the concept of blends, as letters that glide together, but can be pulled apart, is introduced using unifix cubes.

The concept of blends is practiced by sounding out nonsense words. The use of nonsense words guard against rote memorization and ensure the phonics skill is fully understood.

The concept of blends is practiced by highlighting and reading a word list that features initial blends.

After practicing blends in words, the student progresses to reading sentences in decodable texts that feature blends.

After spelling words that have blends in isolation, students write sentences using blends.

Here, a child is checking their sentence for correct spacing. Editing procedures are taught as part of sentence dictation.

The lesson ends with the game, Tic-Tac-Toe, to solidify skills and celebrate success!