Teaching Alphabet to Special Learners

For some second language learners the characters of the English language look like the squiggles of an over cooked alphabet soup. If a student is dyslexic then telling the difference between a letter that points toward the right or to the left is almost impossoble to differentiate.

In many schools if a student dosen't catch the alphabet then more practice is taken until each letter is drilled in. If the students can't right the letter properly then they are given more homework to write more copies of each letter.

The problem is no matter how many times the student writes it the letter never appears as a letter but only as a drawing. Without recognition all the repetion is useless.

For developing learners recognition is more important that repetition.

My son is a second language learner and dyslexic. Mostly he sees English letters as pictures. His visual perspective is heavily focused on the center of a picture or object so it is hard to recpgnize left and right. This has made it extremely difficult for him to learn the English alphabet and simple words.

The schools just expect him to read at this point but don't give him a chance to take in the building blocks necessary to read.

I worked closely when he took dyslexi therapy with a specialist in learning the Korean language. The Korean letters were given to him in the form of pictures with a story or image he could remember. In this way he learned to read Korean.

I tried to do the same thing with English letters and got a few letters done but after 30 minutes he said, "Dad, my head is spinning."

It's hard for me to slow down but with special learners ot is necessary to slow down.

It is essential to be creative and listen and learn while teaching. I want to share some of the picures we came up with.