Practical Skills for Addressing and Combating your Child's Dyslexia

About the course:

Children start learning to read at the age of 3-4 and by the age of 6 -7, they will become quite avid and capable readers. Children learn and develop skills at their own pace, and it is common that children will find reading challenging, but will be able to overcome them with time and practice.

However, dyslexia is diagnosed when the challenges of reading become an ongoing struggle due to processing difficulties.

Children with dyslexia have trouble decoding words, which affects the way they pronounce the words too. In the long run, this will affect their reading, writing and spelling abilities. This is naturally a cause for concern on the part of parents, given the challenges that come with not being able to read and comprehend the written word as others in their age group. The implications for not addressing dyslexia can be quite daunting. However, given effective intervention and instructional strategies early on, children with dyslexia can improve their abilities and become successful adults.

Dyslexia does not go away with time. Children will require help and strategies to improve their reading skills with dedicated practice. This course aims to provide essential aid for parents to develop healthy and interactive ways to help improve the learning and coping abilities of children with dyslexia and parent-child bonding at home.

Who should attend?

Parents with dyslexic children aged 3 - 8

Key learning outcomes:

Learn how to improve learning and coping abilities for your child with dyslexia
Simple yet interactive activities to engage your child with to achieve improvement in learning to read, write and spell
Apply techniques for remaining calm and patient while treating and aiding your child

5 hours of on-demand training and instruction videos
Flexible and mobile learning mode
100% online course

Dr Chien-Hui Yang

Director and Consultant - Mindsight Inclusion

Course Syllabus

Module 1

Understanding dyslexia and how it affects your child

While most children with dyslexia are identified at 7, early signs of dyslexia can be observed in preschool years. It is important for parents to able to monitor and assess the child's development and learn about the warning signs.

In this module, you will gain more insights about dyslexia and how it can affect your child’s learning ability in academic and social-emotional development.

The framework for how dyslexia impacts your child
Learn how to identify warning signs of dyslexia in your child
Why your child seems smart but struggles with reading and math?

Module 2

Promoting reading

It is common to see children with dyslexia responding negatively to reading. This might be due to the confusion that they face when trying to associate words and meanings, resulting in a decrease in interest level. Interest level is vital when trying to engage a child.

This module will introduce activities that can promote reading by keeping the interest level high.

Activities that educates decoding skills
Activities to help your child review learned words and skills
Step-by-step demonstration of reading activities to learn through play
Understanding the benefits of activities

Module 3

Multi-sensory Learning

While the importance of exposing your child to reading is vital for improvement, we are not limited to the old fashion ways. The other senses of your child are very much helpful to the learning process. Again, this is to keep their interest level high which is crucial for absorbing information.

This module will introduce activities that educate the child by triggering their other sensors to help them build the foundation for academic learning.

Why sensory and motor learning is effective for children with Dyslexia
Different types of sensory and motor learning parents can tap on (e.g., hearing, touching, etc)
Step by step demonstration of reading activities to learn through play
Understanding the benefits of activities

Module 4

Self-Regulation Skills and Parenting Strategies

Children with dyslexia not only have difficulties in academic tasks, but they often have difficulties in organizational skills, regulating emotions and knowing what to do in social situations. Self-regulation skills have a direct impact on the child's future success and wellbeing. The social skills will determine the peer dynamics and how your child gets along with others as a child and eventually, as an adult.

This module will introduce strategies parents can use at home to help promote self-regulation skills and social skills for their children.

Why are self-regulation skills important for your child?
Common challenges in organisational skills and social skills
Proven emotional support to help your child
Step by step demonstration of home-based strategies to promote self-regulation and social skills
Understanding the benefits of activities

Module 5

Addressing Parents’ Burning Questions

Parents of children with dyslexia often have burning questions in other aspects of parenting: eg. behaviour management, helping children take risks, parent-teacher communication.

With support from her clinical work with children, Dr Yang will be addressing frequently asked questions of concerned parents. Questions may include but are not limited to:

Whether to get an official diagnosis and the consequences of either choice.
How to manage my child’s emotional frustration and outbursts?
How to help my child to keep trying even when the academic results are not improved?
How to advocate for my child at schools and collaborate with his/her teachers?