Classroom Strategies

What is multi-sensory instruction?

Students with language-learning disabilities (Dyslexia) need to learn and review material by activating all sensory pathways to the brain simultaneously. This includes visual, auditory, and tactile pathways, and most importantly, the kinesthetic pathway involving the hands and muscles of the mouth. Utilizing all pathways allows students to be actively involved in their own learning.

Classroom-wide use of multi-sensory instruction:

Multi-sensory techniques can be successfully integrated into a whole class scaffolding approach; all students, regardless of learning needs, can benefit from using multiple learning pathways in the classroom as it appeals to all children’s desires to engage in active learning, allowing each student the opportunity to utilize their most dominant learning style, while simultaneously exercising their lesser-used pathways. Using multi-sensory instruction with an entire classroom allows teachers to better meet the needs of learning disabled students while appealing to the multiple learning styles of all students.

What ALL Students Remember:

Lecture 5%
Reading 10%
Audio-Visual 20%
Demonstration 30%
Discussion Group 50%
Practice by Doing 75%
Cooperative Learning 90%

Common signs of Dyslexia: According to national averages, one in five students in your classroom experience characteristics that fit into the category of a disability. Many of these disabilities are invisible to teachers unless you know what you are looking for.

Whether diagnosed with a language-learning disability or not, a student who exhibits many of the following traits will benefit from multi-sensory instruction:

Student has difficulty comprehending main ideas/inferences
Student has a higher speaking vocabulary than written vocabulary.
When speaking, student may use words incorrectly, for example student says “component” when they meant to say “opponent.”
Student exhibits a significant gap between their potential and actual achievement; the student may have great intellectual potential butconsistently underperforms in language arts (sometimes Math).
Student has difficulty with handwriting, written expression, and or spelling
Student has trouble with directionality; can follow simple directions but cannot carry out multiple directions. The student understands directions that have been given, but does not carry out properly. Student struggles with directional relationships such as left-right, up-down, over-under.
Student takes longer to complete tasks or answer questions

These discrepancies are what set language learning disabled students apart from students with other disabilities; students with Dyslexia have the potential to achieve academically, if they are given the proper learning support. Approximately 1 in 5 students are afflicted with a learning disability that affects their ability to learn traditionally.

Students with a Language Learning Disability Need . . .

Direct/ Explicit Instruction
Repetition of learned materials/ directions/ instructions
Clear/succinct instructions
Concrete models and examples
Organizational strategies
Clear expectations
Specific constructive criticism
Organized and flexible teaching style
More time/ less curriculum
To be active learners
Understand their strengths and weaknesses for a particular class
Opportunities to show off their strengths

Multi-sensory Classroom Techniques:

It can be helpful to directly teach prefixes, roots, and suffixes that deal with whatever content you are dealing with for added clarification and structure to the student’s understanding.
When introducing spelling words, show words on overhead and give each student a tray of beans, sand, or shaving cream or give each student a carpet square to “draw” the spelling word. Have the whole class say and write each letter of the word three times:
- GIRL: While writing each letter in the sand, on carpet, etc., all students say “G . . . I . . . R . . . L says GIRL.” Have students “clear” their trays and repeat the process two more times.
- After students have practiced their words this way, have them write their spelling words on paper, using the same verbal queues.
- This technique is also affective when introducing math facts.
Note cards are very helpful for memorizing facts. This helps with the visual clutter of many textbooks and is a hand-on, self-reinforcing activity.
Math can also be a spatial issue for LD students. Allowing students to write problems on graph paper can help. Lots of white space between problems also helps
For written assignments in any class the “underlining option” should be considered.

This means that all in class assignments would be considered a rough draft. This helps students who are very poor spellers communicate what they really want to write without worrying about if their spelling is correct. They simply underline words that they think are misspelled and correct them for homework using a dictionary.

Remember to respect Dyslexic students’ cognitive abilities!

Remember when teaching these students that they have normal to superior intelligence.
They have processing differences that make it very difficult to show a teacher what they know.
Be a diagnostic educator and help these students reach their full academic potential; this is extremely rewarding to both the student and the teacher.