Dyslexia and ELT: How to help young learners in the classroom

Joanna Wiseman
A child sat at a desk with a pen in hand, looking up at their teacher and smiling

When you’re teaching English to young learners, you might find that there are a few students in your class who are struggling. But sometimes it can be hard to tell why. Is it because their language level is low? Or are they finding classroom work difficult because of a general cognitive difference, like dyslexia?Ìý

How to help young dyslexic learners in the classroom
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So how can you improve your understanding of dyslexia? And how can you adapt your teaching methods to soften the difficulties often faced by students with dyslexia?

How does dyslexia manifest itself in young learners?

Students often struggle with spelling, pronunciation and reading comprehension when they are learning English as a second language. It can be difficult for teachers to discern whether these problems are simply down to a low level of English, or if they are related to a cognitive disorder like dyslexia. So how can we tell?Ìý

There are some clear indicators:Ìý

  • When written work is of a lower level than speaking ability
  • Difficulty remembering sequences: days of the week, for example
  • Missing out or adding words when reading aloud

And there can be behavioral signs too. If you have a student who consistently employs work avoidance tactics like asking to go to the bathroom, or looking for a pen, this might be a signal that they are struggling in the classroom as a result of dyslexia or another neurodiversity.Ìý

The biggest signal of dyslexia is a clear difference between intelligence and written output. If you have a student that performs well in speaking tasks and listening, but their reading level is disproportionately low and their written work doesn’t reflect their language skills, then it could be indicative of dyslexia.Ìý

There is often little support available in an ELT context, but there are some easy-to-implement changes which can make a big difference to your students’ performance and results.Ìý

The classroom environmentÌý

The first step is making sure that your classroom is dyslexia-friendly. Teachers should ask themselves the following questions:Ìý

  • How well-lit is the room?Ìý
  • How organized is the room?Ìý
  • Is it obvious where you get certain information from?Ìý
  • Are keywords and vocabulary up on the walls?Ìý
  • Are lines of sight clear?Ìý

The second step to consider is how we ask students to work:

By playing to the dyslexic strengths within a team, it helps that student get the recognition for their skills and allows their peers to support them with the more standard tasks that can cause difficulty.Ìý

Marking and assessmentÌý

It can be difficult to make changes to a standardized system. The traditional method of grading students is by output. But output grading, ie. grading the work that students produce, comes with problems.Ìý

If you grade by output, students will stop trying once they’ve achieved the level they need to pass, and the dyslexic students who are struggling will get frustrated and give up. Consider grading by input instead, where you assess the thought process behind the work and the time and effort involved.Ìý

Even if your Director of Studies doesn’t support a change to the assessment system, you can still include some unofficial input grading in your classroom which will motivate all your students, not just the students with dyslexia.Ìý

The science of dyslexiaÌýÌý

It’s a truism to say that knowledge is power, yet the more you know about dyslexia as a teacher, the more you can do to mitigate its effects on your students’ learning.Ìý

There are a number of theories of what dyslexia is: there’s the hemispheric balance theory, and the temporal processing theory. These theories understand dyslexia as a developmental issue within the brain. Once we see dyslexia in this way, , and how teachers can soften the difficulties that their students have.

For young learners, try focusing on phonetical awareness. Phonemic awareness - breaking words down into the constituent sounds - is hugely helpful for dyslexic students.

Teachers should help students work on this by testing them in class. You can use games like top trumps, flashcards, matching games and mnemonics to do so.

For example, using flashcards, you can test your students' awareness of sounds: "does hippo sound like happy?" or "does cough sound like through?"

A multi-sensory approach is often useful, involving colors, rhythms, writing out big words. These are the basic principles of the Orton-Gillingham method, an approach which breaks language down into blocks so that dyslexic students can learn through building these linguistic blocks back up again.

Students can struggle with learning facts - the brain of the dyslexic needs to see the connections to make sense of it all. So when we teach in this way, we are teaching structure and connections, and students have a more profound understanding than simply remembering how a word is spelt or pronounced.

Be mindful of your languageÌý

Children and young people absorb our prejudices and stereotypes, even if they are unconscious ones. Its incredibly important to be mindful of the language you use when dealing with dyslexic students.Ìý

Avoid language such as ‘learning difficulties’, which immediately accuses people with dyslexia of struggling, of difficulty, when in fact everything is difficult if the teaching isn’t appropriate. Also try not to use medical language - a ‘cure for dyslexia’, where there is no cure, or a ‘diagnosis of dyslexia’. Don’t use the phrase ‘despite your dyslexia’.

Dyslexia is best understood as a cognitive difference that should be celebrated. With the right support, the talents and abilities of dyslexic children can really shine in the classroom - something that every teacher should be aiming for.Ìý

Further reading/resources

If you’d like to learn more about the Orton-Gillingham approach, they have a lot of on their website. For more general information about dyslexia, check out Ìýand for older teenage learners there is .Ìý

You can also download this practical guide to supporting dyslexic students in the foreign language classroom

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    3 opportunities for using mediation with young learners

    By Tim Goodier

    Mediation in the CEFR

    The addition of ‘can do’ descriptors for mediation in the CEFR Companion Volume is certainly generating a lot of discussion. The CEFR levels A1 to C2 are a reference point to organise learning, teaching and assessment, and they are used in primary and secondary programs worldwide. Teachers of young learners aligning their courses to the CEFR may wonder if they should therefore be ‘teaching’ mediation as a standard to follow. Is this really the case? And what might ‘teaching’ mediation mean?

    This short answer is that this is not the case – the CEFR is a reference work, not a curriculum. So the ‘can do’ statements for each level are an optional resource to use selectively as we see fit. This is particularly true for young learners, where ‘can do’ statements may be selected, adapted and simplified in a way that is accessible and meaningful to them. This approach is demonstrated in the many European Language Portfolios (ELPs) for young learners that were validated by the Council of Europe following the launch of the CEFR and ELP. 

    So let’s recap what is meant by mediation in the CEFR. The new scales deal with three main areas:  

    • Mediating a text: taking things you have understood and communicating them in your own words to help others understand.Ìý
    • Mediating concepts: collaborating with others to talk through ideas and solutions and reach new conclusions. Ìý
    • Mediating communication: supporting the acceptance of different cultural viewpoints.

    Focusing on mediation with young learners

    Mediation activities may involve aspects of cognitive demand, general social competencies and literacy development that are too challenging for a given target age group or level. These factors need to be carefully considered when designing tasks. However, with the proper guidance it is possible that young learners can engage in mediation activities in a simple way appropriate to age, ability and context. of the potential relevance of the new descriptors to age groups 7 to 10 and 11 to 15.

    Opportunities for mediation in the young learner classroom

    It’s fair to say that opportunities for mediation activities already regularly occur in the communicative young learner classroom. These can be identified and enhanced if we want to develop this area.  

    1. Collaboration 

    Many young learner courses adopt an enquiry-based learning approach, guiding learners to collaborate on tasks and reach conclusions through creative thinking. The CEFR provides ‘can do’ statements for collaborating in a group starting at A1: Ìý

    • Can invite others’ contributions to very simple tasks using short, simple phrases.Ìý
    • Can indicate that he/she understands and ask whether others understand.Ìý
    • Can express an idea with very simple words and ask what others think.

    Young learners at this level can build a basic repertoire of simple ‘collaborative behaviors’ with keywords and phrases connected to visual prompts e.g. posters. A routine can be set up before pair and share tasks to practice short phrases for asking what someone thinks, showing understanding, or saying you don’t understand. This can also include paralanguage, modeled by the teacher, for showing interest and offering someone else the turn to speak. 

    It is important for young learners to be clear about what is expected of them and what will happen next, so such routines can effectively scaffold collaborative enquiry-based learning tasks. 

    2. Communication 

    ‘Can do’ statements for mediating communication, such as facilitating pluricultural space, can orient objectives for learners themselves to foster understanding between different cultures. Again young learners can develop their behaviors for welcoming, listening and indicating understanding with the help of visual prompts, stories and role-model characters.

    3. Discussion of texts  

    Young learners also spend a lot of time mediating texts because they enjoy talking about stories they have listened to, watched or read. Although there is only one statement for expressing a personal response to creative texts at A1: ‘Can use simple words and phrases to say how a work made him/her feel’, this can inspire a more conscious focus on classroom phases to talk about responses to texts and stories, and equipping learners with keywords and phrases to express their reactions. In this way, as they progress towards A2 young learners can develop the confidence to talk about different aspects of the story in their own words, such as characters and their feelings. 

    Moving forward

    Clearly, it is not obligatory to focus on mediation activities with young learners – but the ‘can do’ statements are an interesting area to consider and reflect upon. There are some obvious parallels between mediation activities and 21st century skills or soft communication skills, and the CEFR ‘can do’ statements can help formulate manageable communicative learning objectives in this area. This, in turn, can inspire and orient classroom routines and tasks which prepare learners to be active communicators and social agents in the target language, developing their confidence to engage in mediation tasks as a feature of their lifelong learning pathways.