How do we support students who struggle with sequencing?
Last month I discussed the topic of what dyslexia and sequencing struggles look like. This time, I’m sharing how to support these students who struggle with sequencing.
Research tells us that the brains of students with characteristics of dyslexia function differently. Specifically, there is less activity in particular areas of the brain. This lack of activity can interfere with short-term, long-term, and working memory. All of this makes it difficult to memorize sequences. Multisensory and multisituational strategies are the most beneficial way for these students to improve their sequencing skills and master abstract sequences like months of the year and days of the week.
Alphabet arcs are an excellent way to gain mastery of the sequential order of the alphabet. The student requires repeated exposure constructing the alphabet. A multisensory approach would be for the students to physically build the arc of the alphabet with miniature 3-dimensional letters. The instructor would guide the instructional focus on the beginning of the alphabet and work sequentially towards the end of the alphabet. This is an excellent time to incorporate a focus on directionality using terms like “initial and final” or “beginning and ending” or “before and after”. Application looks like daily, intentional modeling and practice with sequential language while physically placing the letters in alphabetical order until automaticity is gained. Where to start? Florida Center for Reading Research has a basic alphabet arc lesson For more information on what the instruction looks like, check out The Dyslexia Classroom’s blog post titled “Three Ways to Use Alphabet Arc”.
Place value support with manipulatives such as base ten blocks and ten-frames are key to mastery of place value for students with dyslexia. Where to start?The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity website holds a wealth of knowledge, especially for math instruction for students with characteristics of dyslexia.
Understanding the days of the week, months of the year, or the seasons within a year is a common struggle for students with dyslexia due to their abstract nature. Similar to an alphabet arc, placing the days of the week or months of year in a sequential order on a physical calendar, like this one, can be beneficial for these students. This makes the learning more engaging and meaningful for students to memorize the sequential information. Mnemonic devices and songs, such as this one, can make the learning more fun and hands on, or kinesthetic. Keep in mind that students with dyslexia can also struggle with the concepts of yesterday, tomorrow, and today. Daily, explicit practice with these terms can create the long-term understanding of abstract language. Where to start? Days of the Week, Months of the Year, and Season for Dyslexics.
What is phoneme-grapheme mapping? It’s segmenting words into their individual sounds and using manipulatives to map those sounds. After mastery of this skill, the student moves on to replacing the manipulatives with letter(s) or grapheme(s) that represent the sound. Always remember to encourage the student to check their work afterwards to ensure that the sounds are mapped in sequential order. Where to start? Check out Florida Center for Reading Research’s lesson on mapping sounds. As students move into spelling more challenging multisyllable words, I suggest inserting an initial step before mapping the individual sounds. This initial step is for students to isolate the syllables within the multisyllable word, then map the individual sounds within each syllable. Here’s another FCRR example for mapping multisyllable words. For a more thorough explanation of phoneme-grapheme mapping, check out this video from Riverside USD Early Literacy Instruction.
Finally, students with dyslexia can struggle with multi-step directions. This is typically called executive functioning. Executive functioning, as referred to by Understood.org, is a set of skills that includes working memory, which I referenced earlier in this blog post. When working towards mastering multi-step directions using pictures as visual reminders for the steps can be highly beneficial. Another strategy would include having the students repeat back the steps using sequencing words such as first, next, then, and last. Where to start? Take a look at Understood.org for more information on how to support students who struggle with following directions.
I hope you find these strategies helpful! Next time I’ll be discussing what some refer to as “sight words”. What is a “sight word" and how do we teach students to read them?
❤️🔤 -Niki
