Re: Help! I have a student with Dislexia


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Posted by David L. Allen on January 13, 2001 at 14:33:41:

In Reply to: Help! I have a student with Dislexia posted by Kendall Prinz on January 12, 2001 at 17:43:28:

I have two students with dyslexia and I have found a technique that works rather well. I work with the student on breaking the music down into two segments the concrete (fingerings and note names) and the abstract (the sound of the music) The main problem with my two kids is that trying to sight read or work on music like non-dyslexia kids becomes an information overload for their brain. They can't handle the amount of information in order to process it correctly. When I am teaching new music to these kids I begin by soley working on verbally saying the note names so their eyes slow down to read only one note at a time rather than just seeing the page of music as just a bunch of shapes. I will work small segments (2-4 meas segments) with just notes before I add rhythms. When the kid can say notes in rhythm on the section we are working, then I introduce sound. I try to avoid introducing sound until the kid can nail the section with just note name and fingers. It then become much less of an effort for the kid to place the sound with the notes since the notes are already "programmed."

The process takes time - one kid caught on pretty quick and one fought with it for a while until he realized it was not a waste of time (both of these kids were in 7th grade). I hope this info helps out and feel free to email me privately for more info.


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