Dyslexia Global Magazine

More and more Malaysians are turning to homeschooling for a variety of reasons. Some parents believe homeschooling is much more holistic than sending their children to school; others have children who are learning disabled and can cope much better at home with homeschooling than at a school where they don't get the attention they need.
 
Before considering homeschooing as an option, is important for parents to be aware about laws connected to it.
 

Some guidelines:

1.

The pupil is introduced to the alphabet (preferably with wooden capital letters) and alongside this, is shown that each letter has:

* a name
* a sound
* a shape
* an individual 'feel' - ie the movement made when writing the letter and what it looks like

According to Beve Hornsby, capitals are used at the early stages of teaching the alphabet as 'they appear first developmentally and are less prone to reversals.' (1999).

What is multisensory learning? It is learning which involves as many senses as possible and research has shown that this is the most effective way to teach dyslexic pupils. This links to the pupil's learning style. According to Hickey, 'they [the pupils] use their visual, auditory, tactile, kinaesthetic and oral-kinaesthetic perceptual systems to make learning secure.' (Ott, 1997).

Reading

Like reading, handwriting is not an inherent skill and needs to be taught. Handwriting is 'a physical skill and requires a high degree of perceptual-motor co-ordination. (Snowling, 1996)(pg. 192).

For dyslexic children handwriting skills present a challenge. They can have short-term memories and poor motor skills. This means they find it difficult to remember all the rules required for creative writing and also find it difficult controling their writing implement. Some also have poor presentation, letter formation and inaccurate sizing of letters.

From the time I was little, I found maths to be a very mysterious subject and one I found extremely difficult to grasp.

In retrospect, I would say the main reason for this was its abstract nature.

When I was older I did a Montessori course which introduced me to a whole new world of numbers and maths. Each of the areas had material which was concrete, and could be manipulated in order to work out the various computations.