| Cognitive/ Behavioral Characteristics | Strategic Environmental Accommodations |
| Dyslexic Students with Attention Deficits | |
| Distractible | Provide environmental experiences that minimize visual/ auditory distractions; modify classroom setup if need be. |
| Lack of follow through | Break tasks down into small steps; provide written step-by-step directions whenever possible; allow students to self-monitor progress by logging successes/ completed tasks; modify expectations when necessary. |
| Difficulty listening for sustained time frames | Minimize lengthy verbal exchanges; summarize whenever possible; be clear; repeat; rephrase, review to ensure understanding; encourage interactive, positive, and personally relevant exchanges for short time frames; ask the student to move to another part of the classroom, shift gears, or change activities whenever you see attention is waning. |
| Impulsive | Work on self-reflecting and self-monitoring behaviors and have students review the consequences of quick decision making; slow the individual down by using writing activities to summarize what needs to be done. |
| Disorganized in planning for school and study as well as planning activities in personal life | Develop study skills/ organizational skills, use assignment notebooks, calendars, notebooks, folders, chore charts, refrigerator reminders, bulletin board clips; encourage cooperative activities outcomes. |
| Dyslexic Students with Special Gifts and Talents | |
| Intellectually superior in reasoning ability, analytical and holistic thought, metacognitive processing, and divergent thinking | Encourage sharing of learning outcomes and demonstrations to others; develop areas of giftedness and talent by providing enrichment activities that are highly personalized to the student's interests, aptitudes, and social/ emotional/ psychological needs; provide problem-solving situations (e.g., mathematics problems, science experiments, analogies, etc.) that require divergent thinking. |
| Inquisitive to the point of being irritating at times | Encourage positive interactive dialogues with others; develop questioning strategies, work on timing and appropriateness in questioning. |
| Disorganized in planning for school and study as well as planning activities in personal life | Same as above. |
| Prefers to work on independent assignments; likes to be alone; introverted | Balance independent activities with group assignments; encourage cooperative learning activities where the individual can serve as a coach or tutor. |
Excerpted From:
Excerpt from Dyslexia and Reading Difficulties: Research and Resource Guide for Working with All Struggling Readers, by C.A. Spafford, G.S. Grosser, 2005 edition, p. 221-222.
© ______ 2005, Allyn & Bacon, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The reproduction, duplication, or distribution of this material by any means including but not limited to email and blogs is strictly prohibited without the explicit permission of the publisher.
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