DYSLEXIA AT SCHOOL
Last year was a good one for me in my professional growth (luckily I met a lot of great teachers around the world on Facebook and Twitter), and in my learning (I always try to be up-to-date with my English and ... started learning French).
But one thing was rather challenging to me: I had a new student, a ten-year-old girl, 4th grade of primary school. She is dyslexic but she is a hard-working and rather intelligent girl struggling with her disability in reading, writing and spelling. I have been teaching English one-to-one for more than fifteen years but have never encountered such a problem so close before.
The girl was bullied by her classmates and treated badly by the teachers who thought her being lazy and unmotivated. Neither her class teacher nor her English teacher (both rather experienced ones) had not thought that the reason of her poor learning was dyslexia. (I wish we were taught something about it at universities.) What is more, once her class teacher ridiculed her for her poor reading before the whole class! It is incredible! The girl has already had a very low self-esteem and thinks she is stupid. Her parents were also unaware of their girl's problem and did not know how to help her. So I turned out to be the first one who revealed her disability and advised to show the girl to speech therapist and psychologist. Now the diagnosis is confirmed. I hope the situation at school will change for the best soon. Building self-confidence and friendly atmosphere are major elements of day-to-day teaching in the classroom.
Surfing the Net I found out that in some countries the rights of children with dyslexia are protected by law. But not in our country. This may seem strange, but we don't even have a law on special education for different categories of children with difficulties. Ten years ago a project was created but it is still a project. Our dyslexic children receive low quality education, it is hard for them to learn and very difficult to go to colleges or universities.
By the way, the girl is good at art and acting. I still teach her English. We are struggling together and I am trying to do my best to help her because I made a difference.
Your student is lucky to have you on her side, Larusa. I hope that, now the diagnosis is confirmed, her teachers are at least more sympathetic. Even better would be if she could have the resources she must need but I guess the chances of that happening are slim. I am sure _you_ have made a big difference!
ReplyDeleteThank you Clive for your response! I also do hope that the situation will change for the best for the girl. Her school teachers are aware of her disability now (at last!) and showed just a little surprise. I know she is going to have problems in her learning. But at least she won't be asked reading aloud or speaking in front of the class unless she wants to. It's already our little victory.
DeleteHi Larisa, great thing that you had an opportunity to work with this child. She is very luck to have you as a teacher to support her.
ReplyDeleteI work with small groups therefore I pay close attention to each student, but I don't know what would be like to work with 30+ in the same class and be expected to teach them all. I imagined I would opt for project-based to give me the opportunity to be closer to each student by breaking the big group into smaller groups. So, I suppose that is hard for teachers and at the same time that got used to things the way they are. Unfortunally. I see that all the time and it is sad. :(
My daughter has always had difficult with school and I know what it is like. But her problem is not the potential to learn whatever she has to, but how teachers insist in teaching in schools by transmiting information. So for the last couple of years I have been teaching her learning strategies to learn better. But she has double school journey. She has the time she spends at school, plus the time for the assignments they give + time to study on her own what she didn't learn at school to catch up. EXams is another problem to deal with. Despite the fact that she has been working hard to learn more, this year she will have to repeat the same grade which will be demotivating for her, but also important as she can focus on developing areas she still needs to. Because of her I have been researching about learning disabilities and difficulties. It is a wonderful area that I intend to specialize so I can help other children.
I look forward to your next post. What kind of struggles do you two go through while working in her English learning?
Dear Rose, thank you for reading my blog! I'm very sorry to hear about your daughter. All her life is just study, study and study. The same thing is with the girl I wrote about - she's doing her homework till midnight (with her mother's help), with a little exception when she attends her Art School. I am not a speech therapist but like you I have also been learning about different disabilities and do hope to help my student and maybe others, too. I'll try to write about our struggles soon.
DeleteDear Larisa,
ReplyDeleteI will echo what Clive and Rose said and what a great educator you are for supporting this lovely little girl, who is working hard against all the odds she is facing in her every day life. Unfortunately dyslexia and learning disabilities are considered taboo subjects in many countries around the world, some even labelled with the "r" word (long story...) : (
I know this could be a long shot, but maybe we educators in countries where learning disabilities are not a priority, could start petitions- movements to make them so? I know it could be difficult, but now with social media we could get it out there and support each other.
Keep up the good work, Larisa and lovely student!
My best wishes,
Vicky
Dear Vicky,
DeleteThank you for your kind words. "Taboo subject in some countries" is an interesting information, just what I'd like to know. So my country is not the only exception.
But you are right that we educators could do much supporting together. And difficult doesn't mean impossible. :)