The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento

Dyslexia in the Writing Center
59
Amun Bains
Ashly Rivas
Spring 2011
Dyslexia is the most commonly diagnosed learning disability. While all students require patience
and understanding, it is especially important to remember patience and understanding when working with
these students because their frustration levels are often at an increased level due to difficulties with tasks
that are much easier for other students. According to the-dyslexia-center.com, a website that offers a
range of articles and videos about all topics related to dyslexia, students with dyslexia often exhibit the
following characteristics:
* Difficulty in learning to speak
* Difficulty in learning letters and their sounds
* Difficulty in organizing written and spoken language
* Difficulty reading quickly enough to comprehend
* Difficulty persisting with and comprehending longer reading assignments
* Difficulty in putting things in order.
* Difficulty with spelling
* Difficulty learning a foreign language
* Concentration difficulties
* Problems remembering messages or instructions
* Poor handwriting
* Difficulty with little words
* Difficulty with time management
* Easily distracted
(http://www.the-dyslexia-center.com/symptoms-of-adult-dyslexia.htm)
The list of difficulties continues to include struggles specific to areas beyond reading and writing, but the
ones listed above are most crucial when speaking of students that you will encounter in the writing center.
Below are our first hand experiences with student writers diagnosed with dyslexia. By reading through
each of our situations, you will see that while all three students are diagnosed with the same disability,
each still requires different attention as each student is different. There is not a single way to help a
student with dyslexia, but we offer what has worked for us through our experience in the writing center.
Student 1:
On my first day as a tutor in the Writing Center, I met a student writer that would challenge me in
every way. I sat at the table and found that Brittany** is incredibly chatty and easily side-tracked,
dyslexic (this student writer chose to share this information about her disability immediately), and an
Environment Sciences major. I was very unsure of myself after the first session. I wasn’t sure if what we
did in that hour was enough to actually help her with her writing struggles. Surprisingly, Brittany found
our first session to be extremely helpful and continued to come into the center weekly. I found it very
helpful for Brittany to be so open about her learning disability. With the knowledge of her disability, I
was able to better understand where she was coming from in her writing. The most important thing to
keep in mind when working with a student with a learning disability is patience and understanding.