Reading between the lines

Children with dyslexia have gone undetected during the pandemic but an early intervention to address reading problems can help in managing it, writes Dr Gowri Ravi Chinthalapalli

The effect of the pandemic has been felt across the globe by a cross-section of people. While to a great extent the virus has infected both young and old alike, children have been affected the most in numerous ways. They have had to face educational, psychological and physical issues due to Covid-19 and its aftermath. Awareness programmes and regular preventive measures to handle well-being related issues have had to be put on the backburner. Dyslexia, a learning issue in children, is one such condition that has not been related to schools staying closed. Most cases went undetected and unreported. However, experts believe that the time has come to drive awareness campaigns to work with the early detection of dyslexia by effectively identifying the symptoms to ensure timely treatment.

Previously, when children used to go to school, these issues were picked up better but with online classes, it is very difficult to pick up early signs. Children experiencing dyslexia will regularly experience issues with coding letters, which affects their talking and writing capacities. Early identification of such symptoms, including trouble to read, compose and express words, is significant for recuperation. Any child suspected to have a learning disability needs a comprehensive assessment by a multidisciplinary team, including clinical or educational psychologists, social workers and speech and language pathologists. For a dyslexic child the sensation of being ‘different’ can be intense when faced with the self-evident and vital need of ‘specialist’ help for his education and potentially mathematical skills. Some expert methods can be incorporated into the classroom so all children can benefit from them.

How to identify dyslexia?

The signs and symptoms become more prominent once the child starts school but parents or caretakers can also identify some early clues such as:

Early-stage before school: Late talking is one of the early signs. They will also have slow learning of new words and difficulties in forming words correctly, having problems in remembering names, colour, numbers, rhymes, etc.

Kindergarten and first grade: The symptoms become more apparent in this stage. They usually have reading and writing difficulties and cannot process or understand spoken or written words. They often complain about an inability to read and won’t want to go to school.

School-age: They take a long time to complete tasks that involve reading or writing and often avoid indulging in these activities. They find it hard to differentiate between letters and words with similar pronunciations, hesitate while finding words and answering questions and will have messy handwriting. Due to these, they perform below average than their age group.

Young adults: The signs are almost similar to those in children. Commonly seen signs and symptoms are difficulty in reading, including reading aloud, mispronouncing names or words, or problems retrieving words, trouble understanding jokes or expressions, difficulty in memorising and being bad in arithmetic.

An effective approach to tackle dyslexic kids while they are away from school would include:

Several workshops, seminars, training, outreach and sensitisation programmes should be conducted for teachers in schools.

Use different colour chalks/pens for each line if there is a lot of written information on the board, or underline every second line with a different coloured chalk/pen.

Ensure that the writing is well spaced out.

Leave the writing on the board long enough to ensure the child doesn’t rush, or that the work is not erased from the board before the child has finished copying.

Share a voice recording of the online class.

More time should be allocated for the completion of work because of the extra time a dyslexic child needs for reading, planning, rewriting and proofreading their work.

Other ways to encourage a child with dyslexia include: Listening to audiobooks as an alternative to reading or typing on the computer instead of writing or using a ruler to help kids read in a straight line, which can help keep them focused.

(The author is a consultant in child development.)