The next step in teaching phonological awareness after the child has mastered letter sounds is to read sight words. For example, simple words like 'cat','bat',mat' etc.. and once the child is able to read these sight words correctly,keep increasing the difficulty level of the words appropriate to his/her age and class.

Ask the child to write clearly the letters of the alphabet in order, starting with lower case letters and then with capital letters.
Score the number of correct letters written and also note whether the child has put any letters in the wrong order.

Where it is required to teach a child letters, always start with the lower case and once he/she has mastered all the letters in the lower case, then start with the capital letters.

Spelling nonsense words:
Present some nonsense words to the child and ask him/hher to read them. For example words like 'wat', 'ket', 'tas', 'serk','twemple','hosjer' and so on.. and see whether the child is able to pronounce them correctly. Also ask the child to spell these nonsense words. Minor errors like spelling the word 'hosjer' as 'hosger'or 'housjar' can be acceptable but not 'hasjeer' or something that sounds very much deviant from the actual sound.

Now ask the child to say some words backwards- where the first and the last letter sounds have to be swapped. For example, you say 'pat' and the child has to say 'tap'.
Try some more words like, brush and the child has to say 'shrub', pool-loop, 'pan-nap','shop-posh' etc...
Gradually increase the difficulty level by presenting some harder words such as 'eem' and the child has to say 'me', 'keal' and the child says 'leak' etc...

Rhyming words:

Present to the child a set of words like 'cat', 'mat', 'big','rat' and ask the child to identify a word that does not rhyme with the other words. Continue this activity until the child has learnt to pick up the word that does not rhyme with the words in that set.

Blends and diagraphs:

Learning This Ability!

Learning disability or learning this ability?
What I mean by this is, a child who has learning difficulties may encounter difficulty in acquiring skills related to reading, writing, spelling, math or all of these but the child may be flourishing in other areas where academic learning is not concerned.
Hence I would rather call this difficulty as "learning this ability" since it is confined to a specific problem in academic area.

In some children, we may witness problems in behavior also such as throwing temper tantrums, being violent or socially withdrawn, hitting self or others, banging head onto the wall or floor and so on..but such behavioral problems can be dealt with various behavior modification strategies with the help of a psychologist or a special educator.

In regard to my earlier statement in this post, "learning this ability", I shall discuss briefly about a few basic remedial strategies in various areas of difficulties that a child with learning disability usually has.

Remedial Techniques:

The core problem in children with learning problems is the lack of phonological awareness.
I strongly feel remedial program should start with teaching phonological processing (letter sounds and their pronounciation in words) for lack of phonological awareness leads to problems in decoding and thus resulting in poor reading.
To start with, individual letters and their sounds has to be taught.
For example; letter a says ah, letter b says ba, letter c says ka and so on...
Confusion may creep up when the child has to learn the sounnd of the letter 'k' as it sounds similar to that of the letter 'c'. So for letter 'k', we say its sound is kicking ka.

More on remedial techniques to be dealt in subsequent posts...

World of L.D - You are not alone..

It is quite natural for any parent to get upset when they learn that their child has a learning disability. And as i have already mentioned, learning disability is a hidden handicap, as it cannot be seen and understood by others like any other disability. But learning disability is not an end in itself. It is only a condition where the brain processes information related to learning in a different way.

Parents and teachers need to understand that learning disability is a condition and not a disease. There is no cure for learning disabilities but considerable improvement is definitely possible through remedial education and children with learning disabilities can be assisted to lead a successful and happy life.
There's a popular saying "If one door is closed, there is always another door open". Similarly, if a child's capacity in one area such as in academic area is limited, the child may shine in some other area.
Children with learning disabilities usually exhibit some unsual abilities as in singing, dancing, sports, drawing and painting etc..

Some of the well known examples of successful people with learning disabilities are Albert Einstein, Galileo, Thomas Edison, Mozart, John .F Kennedy,Tom Cruise,Agatha Christie, Alexander Graham Bell to name a few.
These people were not essentially labelled as learning disabled because they lived before the term came into existence and before any diagnosis was made but they have exhibited signs related to A.D.D, A.D.H.D or L.D.
These people have not only conquered their disabilities, but also the hearts of millions of people across the globe and have made an ever lasting mark in their fields.
Talking to children about the similar difficulties that these people too had will help him understand that they are not alone and will foster hope thus moving them ahead in life towards the path of achieving their future goals.

It can be very hard for parents when they discover that their child never writes in the class, never copies from the board, is always distracted and distracts other children in the class, never completes any task" and so on...
At home when they open their child's books, they are again shatterd to see red marks all over the book, incomplete tasks of the child, lots of errors in writing and poor scores in the tests.

Initially it is very natural for anyone to think that the child is not interested in studies, has no concentration, always wants to escape from school work, but it actually may be something else..

If a child persists in the same manner, get him or her assessed for various tests like testing for vision, hearing, and then assessment for "LEARNING DISABILITY".
First, if a child is not able to copy from the board or write in the book, it is crucial that he/she be tested for any visual impairment.
Or, if a child has trouble understanding what is being said or asked, it may be due to problem with hearing, hence testing for hearing should be done.
If there are no problems in both, vision and hearing and the problem still continues, then the child may be suspected for "Specific Learning Disability".
The child is assessed in various areas like reading, writing, math by a special educator/remedial educator/ psychologist and actual problem of the child is identified.
Remedial education is then carried out in the problem area by the remedial instructor.

Another important point to be remembered by all the teachers and parents is that it is quite common for children in pre-primary level to exhibit problems that children with learning disabilities usually exhibit like reversals with letters (b/d, m/n, p/q, etc), spacing between lines and several other problems related to learning problems. But these errors should not be mistaken for learning disability until the problem persists beyond class 2, irrespective of repeated correction and adequate instruction in the problem area/s.

This however, does not mean if a child exhibits any of the signs of a learning disability, it can be ignored till the age of 7 years. If a child shows any signs of learning disability, it can be an early indication of a learning problem and appropriate remediation should be carried on to correct the problem. What is to be ignored is labelling the child as learning disabled. Only if the problem exsists even after the child attains 7 years of age and if the tests indicate the prevelance of a learning problem, should the child be considered to fit in the diagnostic category of learning disabilities.

Need For Inclusive Education:

Children with learning difficulties should be taken into regular schools because, like other children these children too have I.Q ranging from average to above average. However,they have specific problems in academic areas and need some extra help or remedial education.

For this purpose, every school must have a resource room, with a trained remedial teacher to meet the needs of children with specific learning problems and slow learners.

This is the concept of inclusive education, wherein a regular school has a resource room set up within the school premises. And such schools are called "INTEGRATED SCHOOLS".

Problems of such children can be best understood when a remedial teacher and a regular school teacher work in coordination, in a way that the regular teacher can keep the remedial teacher updating the child's deficencies and developments in the academic area and the remedial teacher can keep the regular class teacher informed about the different methods that she can adapt in dealing with children with learning problems.

It is indeed a sad thing when parents and teachers tend to fail understanding children with learning disabilities and label them as"weak, dull, lazy, stubborn, mentally absent".

Behaviours of children are the outcome of elder's thoughts and actions because behaviours are learnt through imitation. The way our children behave is the outcome of our own actions.

So, if I, as a parent or a teacher, label a particular child as " weak, lazy, dull", later my children and students imitate my behaviour and single out the so called "weak, dull, lazy" child.

In a way, we are unnecessarily throwing a capable child into depression and with a feeling of being 'rejected'.

What actually is wrong with such children is not their state of being 'lazy, dull or weak', it is because of the wrong wiring in the brain due to which learning in a particular area is blockned.

Because of the 'unnecessary lables', that children with learning disabilities face, they would have reached a stage that they are rejected, not loved for what they are...

So, these children should be taught with utmost love, patience and support.

Techniques like positive reinforcement should be used for their desired behaviour with some rewards..the rewards can be anything from a star(*) in his/her book to small gifts that the child likes or just positive statements or phrases like "very good" with a pat, "thats a good job", "im very happy with your progress" etc..

When you look at the child's answers in a test, you will see that there will be hardly a few correct answers. Instead of counting the wrong responses, count the correct answers and praise the child even if there is a very little progress.

This will build up lot of confidence and positive attitude in the child.

Why the need for a resource room in a regular school?

Children with specific learning disabilities need remedial educational support while they continue attending regular school.

There are still a few regular schools that take a back seat in supporting such children with a view point that, if these children are normal, have an I.Q not less than average, then why would they have any difficulty understanding simple concepts that other children of their age group don't. And if there is a problem in understanding , it certainely means that they need some extra support and that they don't fit into a regular school.

Yes, these children definitely need some extra support... and they get this extra support and remedial education while attending to a regular school. Remedial education in a remedial center or a resource room and education in regular school go hand in hand unless there is a severe behaviour problem in the child to the extent that the child may be harmful to other children(hitting others, self abusive etc).

The point that many parents and teachers need to understand is that, a child with a learning disability does understand, but in a different way!

The child's mind says, " Iam unable to learn the way you teach me, so will you teach me the way I can learn?"(By- Unknown).

In remedial education, such children are taught in innovative ways, in which children are indulged in various activities and fun exercises so that learning takes place in a different way other than merely learning through books. It may take a little longer or several days for a child to understand, but yes, learning does take place.. with a pinch of effort and abundance of patience, a special educator can teach children with learning problems through various remedial strategies.