Homework Help for Your Child with Dyslexia

By Karen Pranikoff, Director of Admission and Development, Triad Academy at Summit School

Tackling homework at the end of the day often can be a frustrating experience for parents and children. It’s an even harder assignment when your child has dyslexia. When you’re tired and patience is running thin, it’s helpful to fall back on a consistent routine to remove the emotional component and make getting homework done more positive for everyone.

Here are some helpful hints for helping your child with planning for and completing homework.

• Set up a designated area.
• Look over your child’s assignments, pulling together needed books and worksheets.
• Decide the order of work with your child.
• Have your child estimate how long it will take to do one piece of homework.
• Set the timer according to your child’s estimate.
• Provide a break at the end of that time.
• Use an index card and/or a pencil to help your child keep his place on the page while he’s reading. This is called tracking.
• If your child makes more than 5 mistakes per page of reading, then the material is too difficult for him/her to read orally. It is important to let your child’s teachers know so they may adjust the reading assignment accordingly.
• Sign off on each homework item.
• If your child is working in controlled readers at school, then he/she may need for you to read the science, social studies, and math written problems for him/her.
• Check with your child’s teacher to see if he or she may need to dictate writing assignments.
• Make a routine of packing all homework materials the night before.
• If your child is involved in extracurricular activities, create together a checklist for them to check off for items needed for the next day’s event(s).
• Depending on the age of the child and their level of dyslexia, audiobooks might be an advisable path to help the student feel independent.
• Consider making a monthly or weekly calendar for your child with upcoming events. Encourage them to add tests and project dates on the calendar. Color coding is helpful.
• Routine and schedules are helpful and will need guidance at first.
• If homework has taken more than 2 hours of work, write a note to the teacher indicating what has happened and ask if you can finish the work the next evening. (This tends to apply to middle-school and up.)

As a parent, your job is to create a quiet and comfortable environment for doing homework. Taking time over the weekend to prepare for the week ahead can make all the difference in reducing the stress level for you and your child.

You should be there to answer questions and listen to your child read aloud. However, you should not be doing the actual assignments for your child. A teacher will want to know if the homework is too difficult or requires too much time so it can be adjusted to meet your child’s academic needs.

To better understand how a dyslexic brain processes speech and written language, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zafiGBrFkRM&vl=en. Another wonderful resource is The Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity: http://dyslexia.yale.edu/.

Children with dyslexia learn differently. Triad Academy at Summit School is a nationally accredited Orton-Gillingham program committed to helping students overcome the challenges of print-based reading and written language difficulties. We are one of two schools in North Carolina and one of fifteen in the United States, that is accredited as both a training and instructional center by the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators. Applications for Fall 2020 are open as well as applications to our summer program, Camp Pathfinder.

For information, call or email Karen Pranikoff at kpranikoff@summitmail.org or 336-722-2777, ext 1508.

• Sponsored by Summit School

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