After working with my own dyslexic children and hundreds of other students with learning difficulties I am convinced the most important role of adults in the lives of children who learn differently, is to help them BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES, particularly if the school they attend makes them feel stupid.
Schools can destroy the confidence of dyslexic learners
Let's face it schools are designed for students that can easily
Read to learn
Write to be assessed
Recall information
Daily children compare their weaknesses with their peer's strengths, resulting in them wrongly assuming they cannot achieve academically. This alone can have a dramatic negative impact on attainment
To better understand why students who find school difficult might struggle with their mental health, I highly recommend this short but powerful video,
Without confidence, it is hard for anyone to achieve
How can adults help dyslexics be confident?
How can adults help students believe in their own strengths and abilities? In my experience of working with bright and older dyslexic students, their biggest barrier to their success is ….
THEIR LACK OF SELF-BELIEF
Dyslexic students can often feel overwhelmed, exhausted and defeated by school. This can result in them having low expectations of what they can attain. Sadly, some students give up on ever achieving academically.
When this happens, it is hard to motivate students to invest additional time and effort into learning new technologies/techniques that could help them achieve academically.
Tips to improve self-confidence?
Invest in enjoyable activities
Having a regular activity that a student enjoys and that energises them, is a welcome distraction from difficulties at school.
More importantly, as children become more proficient and even excel in their chosen activity, it will boost their confidence and self-belief and enable them to derive respect from their peers.
It is important for parents to invest in and value these activities as much as their child’s academic success.
Having a class teacher that ‘gets’ dyslexia
Parents often assume that their child’s teacher will be knowledgeable about dyslexia.
This is a HUGE generalisation, but many teachers are unaware of how little they know about dyslexia. Sadly, many educational professionals are simply not trained to accurately identify or support dyslexic learners.Obviously, training teachers is beyond the control of parents but anything you can do to respectfully inform could hugely benefit your child. Perhaps you could share with them some of the videos that I recommend and that you found particularly helpful.
Parents having a good relationship with the school is enormously important. Try not to vent at or about teachers, particularly in your child’s hearing. If a child is finding school hard, learning your teacher is incapable will not fill him/her with confidence or hope.
Personally, I always went out of my way to appreciate any extra help teachers gave to support my dyslexic children.
Understand that they are smart
Students must understand that they are bright and capable of academic success.
The earlier dyslexia is identified and students understand their learning style is ‘different’ rather than ‘inferior’, the easier this is.
The longer students compare themselves unfavourably to their peers, without understanding why, the harder this is.
Dyslexic students need to believe that they learn differently, and know that with alternative methods of learning, they can achieve, exceeding all expectations.
Help them see that technology can help them overcome their difficulties with literacy.
What I’ve seen help
I have created this video below to explain why building self-confidence is critical and to communicate what I have seen that has helped students.
Watching specific videos has encouraged my students far more than listening to anything I’ve ever said.
Encouraging videos
Many videos have been created to inform and encourage dyslexics. These can be great conversation starters.
The discussions I’ve had with students after watching these videos have been enlightening, as they have provided clues to where further support is required.
Where to find helpful videos
I've spent an inordinate amount of time watching oodles of videos to find the most helpful ones.
I've created a playlist and provided notes to help you select the most appropriate videos by sharing ones that had the most positive impact on my students from ages 6-18 years.
This will hopefully save you precious time.