Common weaknesses associated with dyslexia, as well as strengths often associated are introduced, along with a few statistics that may get your attention.

Adults tend to work in jobs that emphasize what they are good at. School is the only time in life where we are expected to be good at everything. Dyslexic skills have been highly valued throughout history.

The brain’s wiring functions a bit differently in dyslexics which creates both strengths and weaknesses. The genetic component of dyslexia may be found in it’s associated strengths, as well as in the challenges in learning it causes. You can’t fix a dyslexic, because they are NOT broken!

There are at least four major categories of possible strengths that a dyslexic may have: Material Reasoning, Interconnected Thinking, Narrative Reasoning, and Dynamic Reasoning strengths.

Dyslexics with interconnected thinking strengths excel at big picture thinking, making interdisciplinary connections, higher order reasoning, and inferences.

While it may seem unlikely, many dyslexics have narrative strengths and are excellent storytellers. They also learn best through narrative, examples, and illustrations rather than isolated bits of information.

In the resources section, the linked video of a live webinar on Teaching Social Studies Through Strengths contains some great examples of how Leila Leoncavallo does an amazing job of using MIND strengths, especially the narrative strengths to bringing learning to life.

Individuals with dynamic reasoning strengths often excel in situations where relevant variables are incompletely known, changing, or incompletely known, situations that are often overwhelming for those without this strength. Others may not understand their insight based processing, but they are usually right in their conclusions.

This section summarizes the MIND strengths discussed in this section.

The section will overview the 5 key reading skills identified by the National Reading Panel as essential for reading success.

Fluency involves being able to recognize words with automaticity at a rapid enough pace to allow the focus to shift toward comprehension, rather than on figuring out the individual sounds and words.

Students with dyslexia often lag in their vocabulary development due to exposure to significantly less text. Ear reading to continue to expose dyslexics to new words and concepts while the student works on strengthening their other reading skills can help fill this gap. Ear reading is compared to finger reading to bring into question the ultimate supremacy of eye reading that most have assumed is what reading is will be addressed here as the ultimate goal is learning and gaining understanding of the information contained within text that has been written by others.

Modern technology such as text-to-speech and digital audio can help dyslexics who Ear Read better than Eye Read to have a more level playing field when it comes to building background knowledge

Dysgraphia is a challenge in getting words onto paper that is often related to dyslexia. Some suggestions for supporting students with dysgraphia are also included. To help a young dyslexic get their good ideas onto paper a parent or older sibling may need to serve as a scribe. Some dyslexics greatly benefit from a scribe in college as well. For teens and adults, speech recognition software can allow dyslexics to express their good ideas in writing without the barriers of the sometimes associated dysgraphia. Then the dyslexic can focus on refining their ideas with the words already on the page.

Writing is one of the most working memory intensive tasks we ask our brains to do. Parents are encouraged to act as scribes for dysgraphic students until they reach mid-adolescence when they should learn to use speech-to-text software.

Dyscalculia involves a difficulty with numbers and math that is associated with dyslexia in some individuals due to the same procedural processing and 2D sequential processing with symbols challenges. Individuals with procedural processing and rote memory issues need creative ways to learn math facts. And if these prove not to be effective, then calculators should be used with a focus on applying math skills, rather than on the computation itself.

Accommodations help level the playing field for those with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. Ear reading through audio books give equal access to text. Scribes and speech recognition / speech-to-text software help dysgraphics (and others who process better orally) get their good ideas into writing. Calculators and the role of copious computation practice need to be considered for those with procedural processing challenges and dyscalculia.

Orton-Gillingham phonics based approaches are the gold standard to address the phonetic processing weakness that affects 80-90% of dyslexics.

All standard Orton-Gillingham programs follow the same basic format as outlined in this lecture and accompanying PDF.

In this lecture, I share ideas to increase student engagement with the phonetic and outlaw family practice needed through word sorts and games.

The more neural pathways we can engage in the learning process, the more hooks we have to recall the information later. And, things we learn with an association to fun tend to stick better in our memories. In this lecture, I share additional ideas for multisensory practice to engage more kinesthetic and visual learners. Additionally, in the resource section, I've shared a PDF with 75 multisensory practice ideas to keep things fun and mix up the practice.

There are a number of ways a family can get Orton-Gillingham phonics based practice for their dyslexic. A parent can take training themselves, hire a tutor, use an online tutor / mentor approach, take my future class on how to do my modified OG approach, or use an online program that is Orton-Gillingham based.

A totally different approach that bypasses the phonetic weakness is found in Davis Dyslexia Correction. Students learn a mental tool to help them choose when to use their 2D and 3D thinking skills. Trigger words and their dictionary definitions are modeled in clay. And a procedure known as Sweep-Sweep Spell is used to build sight recognition.

Other approaches target the weak underlying developmental skills and cognitive functions such as memory, attention, processing speed, and sequencing that may be holding dyslexics and other students with learning struggles back.

NILD (National Institute for Learning Development) and FIE (Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment) are two educational therapies that strengthen underlying cognitive skills. Both of these therapies can have lasting and significant effects in a student's thinking skills and overall efficiency in learning. There are many links to external videos with further information about NILD and FIE in the Resources section if you wish to explore further.

Fast ForWord and Cogmed Working Memory Training are two online programs that address underlying cognitive skill weaknesses that we use at Wings to Soar Online Academy.

In this lecture, I briefly mention a number of other programs that work on underlying developmental and cognitive skill development. In the resources section for this lecture, I provided what I felt to be the most relevant links to help you start exploring any of these programs further if you choose to do so. I do NOT have personal experience with these programs and cannot personally recommend any of these programs and provide them only as options for you to further explore if you so choose.

This bonus audio lecture provides a sneak preview to my upcoming Udemy course on Spelling Success with High Frequency Phonetic Patterns that I plan to release in March 2015. I will teach high frequency spelling patterns worth learning and the words from the top 500, 1000, and 3000 that are worth spending the time to learn.

In this bonus audio lecture, I share a few examples of highly useful spelling patterns. I also demonstrate why I feel that some other patterns should be learned as "outlaw patterns" which I define as a small group of words that break the rules together, rather than as a core phonetic spelling pattern.

The top 300 words make up 65% of the words in written English, top 1000 make up 90%, top 2000 make up 95%, and the top 3000 make up 97%. I believe any dyslexic should work to learn at least the top 300 words. And I also feel that they should try to learn the words from the top 1000-3000 words that are in the highest frequency word families, and the common outlaw pattern words. Words that the individual dyslexic needs as personal high frequency words should be learned. Beyond that, use spell check and predictive text.

A variety of additional resource links are provided to help the student extend their study of the topic of dyslexia. Contact information for Wings to Soar Online Academy is provided should you wish to discuss with the instructor how Wings to Soar can provide an online Path to Success Personalized Learning Plan to help your outside-the-box dyslexic learner.