xpost: Dyslexia and learning a foreign language: What's been your experience?

[Sara R]

xpost from the Special Needs board:

 

I've been reading Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz. She says that foreign language learning is incredibly difficult for dyslexics, and if possible and needed, dyslexics should be able to opt out of foreign language college admission requirements.

 

My oldest daughter has not been diagnosed with dyslexia, but she's shown signs since she was at least 6 years old, and I think I'll pursue the diagnosis this year. Right now we homeschool in the morning, hitting the 3 R's intensely for 2 hours, and she goes to school at 10 a.m. (during the school year). She's made tremendous progress since we started dual enrollment in January, but I can see that reading, spelling, and orderly thinking in general will always be more difficult for her than her siblings. Her passion is animals, and her goal is to become a wildlife biologist. So she works willingly on her basic skills with me so she can meet that goal. She'll be entering 6th grade.

 

I've always envisioned learning at least some foreign language as part of a good education. It's hard to scale back, but I do see that a foreign language would be difficult for her. I also see that it's most important to do the essentials, and the essentials with a dyslexic do take more time.

 

But is doing foreign language with a dyslexic unavoidably head-explodingly hard? Is there a way to pursue it that makes it doable? Are there dyslexics that can handle Latin? Or maybe starting slowly at junior high age, and incorporating lots of review, with a relatively simple language like Spanish? I'm wondering what your experience has been in this area.

[Lux Et Veritas Academy]

I posted in Special Needs- Check there

[April in CA]

Hi Sara,

 

Have you considered sign-language as a foreign language option? My friend's son is dyslexic, and while he has made tremendous strides in reading and writing (he is now reading long novels for pleasure), academic reading still requires much effort. Sign language is working well for him and will meet his foreign language requirements for high school. In our homeschool group, we are blessed with a woman who is hard of hearing who has a master's degree in deaf education. She teaches ASL classes to homeschooled students. Our local community college also offers ASL classes. the visual nature of ASL can be a breath of fresh air for students who struggle with reading (although their is written work required in classes). If that is not an option, perhaps your child could do a conversational Spanish class. One important goal of learning a language is to be able to speak it, so perhaps you could find a Spanish speaker (or German or whatever) who could tutor your student and converse.

 

Hope something here is helpful! Learning a foreign language is hard; we are finding it challenging and we don't have the extra issue of dyslexia. Many blessings to you as you seek the best for your student!

April

[elegantlion]

My son is mildly dyslexic, he's never been diagnosed but we've been working with this issue for the last three years. We finished our first year of Latin and he did amazingly well. We used LFC and we did a lot of the work orally but it wasn't a real barrier for him. I worked alongside him, we pointed out the subtle differences between words and there was plenty of built in review in the curriculum. I truly think paying attention to subtle changes in Latin helped him progress in his reading.

 

I will admit he has a great memory and retains most of what we do orally.

 

We did try Greek this year. We were using Greek Alphabet Code cracker. He liked it in the beginning but it became a real challenge and we have all but dropped Greek.

 

I do plan on having him attempt modern foreign language down the road.

[Lori D.]

Have you considered sign-language as a foreign language option?

 

 

 

We are *seriously* considering this as our language arts option for our mildly dyslexic ("stealth dyslexia") younger DS who still struggles tremendously with writing and spelling. If he does well with this, he could actually make some decent money as an interpreter and put himself through college!! He will be 10th grade next year; I'm thinking of community college sign language classes for all of 11th and 12th grades to give him a really good shot at putting that class to good monetary use... BEST of luck as you decide! Warmly, Lori D.

[TravelingChris]

My daughter is not dyslexic but had very bad spelling problems. I decided to have her do Spanish since it is a easier language to spell than English. SHe did one year in a homeschool academy class. THen this year, we had to do it alone and what we used didn't work. I am going to have her do Rosetta Stone with the textbook I still have for grammar and then have her do SPanish for a year at CC.

[Peela]

My ds13 is dyslexic(informal diagnosis) and yes, I would say learning a foreign language is more than usually difficult for him. I have given up on French. I think if I spoke it fluently and we could integrate it better, he would pick it up aurally (he has a wonderful musical ear and learns music this way but even though he reads music he cant tell you the name of the notes), but trying to do it with books, or even Rosetta Stone, just wasn't happenning.

Latin- he has done Latin for about 3 years now and is still at beginner stage. He has done BOok 1 of Cambridge- which worked well for him- and got halfway through Book one of Latin Prep before we decided he needed to go right back to the beginning and do it more independently (I was helping him too much as we were doing it orally together and I realised he just wasnt getting- or retaining- it).

Probably too slow progress for most people, but I feel it is good for him, and I have no end goal, and dont need highschool credits or anything to show for it. He doesn't hate Latin. I notice his logical skills are kicking in. It doesnt feel like a waste of time at all- just slow progress.

[Laura R (FL)]

It has been a struggle for us. My oldest had three years of elementary Latin plus one year of root study, and HS Latin I was still quite difficult for her. The spelling of the declension endings was always a bit tricky for her, but it was the translation that tripped her up. She had to work so hard and focus so intently on the literal translation of conjugations and declensions that she missed the concept of the sentence. The varying word order of Latin was also too confusing for her.

 

I worked with her and she had an on-line instructor. When the had conversations, dd was very stiff in her translation and the teacher's comments were always, "OK, that may be literal, but how would you actually say that in English?" To give an example in Spanish, "Como se llama" translates "How are you called?" in English. She wouldn't quite 'get' that it should be translated as "What is your name." Changing from a literal to a conceptual language thought really threw her.

 

After Latin I, we switched to French using Rosetta Stone. She is doing better with it since it is auditory and a little less daunting than Latin. I didn't want to go through the sign language route because not all college programs accept it as meeting their foreign language requirements (as I'm told).

[bclerkin]

My son is dysexic and we are using Rosetta Stone Spanish. He was struggling with the readin & writing sections, so I choose the course that focuses on Speaking & Listening. He is doing much better now.