All About Dyslexia

[Mrs Brainy]

ngl2010:

My niece is suspected to have dylexia. She lives in Hong Kong and attends local school there. There isn't much article on how to teach Chinese characters to dyslexics. Can anybody share tips on how to help her?


Also, she is very prone to forgetting things. How to help improve the condition?

Thank you in advance.

There isn't much research on how to help dyslexics in Chinese. Chinese is even more difficult than English for them. They have to struggle with recognising Chinese characters and ultimately they have to give up learning Chinese. That's what happened to my son. His Chinese results had been dropping, so I had to apply exemption from Chinese for him.

My son has the same problem too. He will come back home with missing pencil, sharpener, etc. He does not even remember where he left them.

[ammonite]

I find that kids with poor vision processing skills have difficulties with Chinese characters. But at the same time, dyslexic children are supposed to be creative and imaginative. What I have attempted is to try to go back to the hieroglyphic roots of the characters to help my child remember the words and to distinguish similarities through this illustrative method. This is quite slow and effort intensive, but it works for my son. If he attempts to learn the words by just looking, he will be lost. We spend a lot of time on the radicals - their formation and meaning - and I encourage him to think of Chinese characters as his beloved lego. I always tell him Chinese is very easy, logical and imaginative, that he can build many things out of a few basic parts. And in doing so, he is able to learn more complex characters easily.


To improve the proportion of his characters, I will tell him that the word should look tall and strong like a warrior, not short and squat like a hobbit under a heavy load. Somehow by giving him these images, he is able to adjust the words intuitively.

I do find the si wu kuai du set useful for him as it includes little listening exercises and reading exercises. At the same time, we watch chinese shows and we read a short chinese story every night. It was a slow start, but he has improved in learning speed, reading accuracy, and ability to understand passages.

[JonC]

ammonite:

... si wu kuai du ...

You mean 四五快读?

[ammonite]

Ya, that. I had to redo my kid’s Chinese from basics after he could finally crack English. We started redoing in P2.

[Luanee]

My 5yo+ girl curves her ‘g’ and ‘s’ the wrong way sometimes. And she writes twenty as 02. Are these symptons of dsylexia ? Or is it normal for her age?


I see that most dyslexic kids are identified at primary school levels. Any way of identifying them earlier??

[shiryan]

You may refer to http://www.das.org.sg/about-dyslexia for more information.


My son who is 10 yr old this year had been diagnosed with Dyslexia when he is 5 years old.

[windie]

Does anyone have experience w DAS International, specifically their Math classes? Any feedback is appreciated.

[Luanee]

shiryan:

You may refer to http://www.das.org.sg/about-dyslexia for more information.


My son who is 10 yr old this year had been diagnosed with Dyslexia when he is 5 years old.

Yeah thanks I have dropped them a email. I dunno if I am over anxious or not coz I suspected my dd1 was dyslexic too at around this age but she turned out alright. Hope my dd2 will turn out likewise.

[sembgal]

Look at page 2 RESOURCED SCHOOLS FOR DYSLEXIA SUPPORT

http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/2006/files/pr20060619-annex-a.pdf

[3boysdad]

sembgal:

Look at page 2 RESOURCED SCHOOLS FOR DYSLEXIA SUPPORT

http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/2006/files/pr20060619-annex-a.pdf

umm this is a 2006 list. I'm sure the number of schools on the list has expanded.