Preventing dyslexia - What helps children in their development

Dyslexia is a disease that affects the language level of children. The disease can occur in isolation or in combination with other developmental disorders such as dyscalculia - which we will deal with in a separate article.

An estimated 5-7% of all children suffer from dyslexia. This is on average for a class size of 20-25 children, one child per class who suffer from dyslexia.

That means dyslexia is widespread and, on closer inspection, everyone has points of contact with this disease during their school days.

Even if an increased genetic component has been discussed in recent years, dyslexia must always be viewed as multifactorial.

In order to determine dyslexia beyond any doubt, a medical examination is essential. Because the earlier the disease is recognized, the sooner you can take preventive countermeasures.

It can also be observed that a large number of children who attend a secondary school also make a disproportionately large number of spelling errors. Dyslexia is not always recognized immediately. Often children are teased, lose the fun of learning or do not receive adequate help to deal better with their deficit.
That is why many children want to be given the time and the necessary peace and quiet to read aloud and not have to fear failure when reading aloud in the classroom.

Typical signs of dyslexia are:

• Content does not get stuck after reading or the child has difficulty reproducing the content
• Constantly losing the line or the word
• Individual syllables are exchanged or swallowed
• A very slow reading pace

Research tells us that the age between 12-24 months is important to promote language education in early childhood and to improve the understanding of language.

How can you counteract dyslexia?

The key word to prevent dyslexia is to create a phonological awareness - in short, it means, to put it simply, to develop an awareness or, colloquially, a "feeling" for the language.

The aim is, among other things, to break down the words into different sounds.

The learning of written language in school is mostly done through exercises that train phonological awareness.

Children who have specifically done language exercises at home with their parents usually learn to read and write more quickly.

You can also see that 2/3 of all later cases of reading and spelling disorders can already be identified in preschool age. The phonological awareness is therefore an essential indicator of this diagnosis.

So it makes sense to train as early as preschool age, especially if the child naturally has a weak talent for languages. It is precisely then that the child can build on something in school and does not have to laboriously learn everything and have the feeling of being overtaken and left behind by other students.

Tips for dyslexia

But what can I do specifically to tame the reading and spelling disorder so that the deficits are not as severe as compared to the classmates and the child has a more pleasant school time.

Most of the time, teachers do not have the opportunity to devote themselves to children with dyslexia. So it is up to the parents at home to prepare the children for school time and to provide ways and means so that the children can become self-efficacious.

Often, children with dyslexia quickly lose the desire to learn and can be teased and a vicious circle develops. It should be noted that children with dyslexia are for the most part not less intelligent, but that the areas in the brain that are responsible for language simply function differently.

It is therefore important to read together with the children. These can initially be simple books that also contain a lot of pictures.
It is therefore also important to create a feel-good atmosphere for the child. For example, a reading corner can be set up in which the child's favorite toys are placed.

Parents can also keep a kind of diary with their child. Every day, individual sentences and experiences that the child may find particularly exciting are noted there.
In addition to the sentences, you can then paint a picture together as a reward, this can represent the respective sentence.
It is important to repeat this practice regularly so that the child has a positive routine and connects positive associations with the writing process.
Through these positive experiences, the child can stay calmer even in school and cope better with the stressful situation when he has to read aloud.

We at Natureich have special educational toys in our range to playfully train the awareness and skills of your child.

Especially to train reading, you are welcome to take a look at our hidden object book:

now here click!