Dyslexia is a common learning disability in children. There are several types of dyslexia, all of which interfere with the acquisition of reading and writing skills. Some solutions such as Storyplay’r exist to help dyslexic children learn to read and write.
What is dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a difficulty in learning to read and spell. Often detected in the early years of primary school, dyslexia is neither an intellectual disability nor a psychiatric disorder. Nevertheless, people affected by dyslexia experience difficulties in learning to read. This is reflected in difficulty in identifying letters, syllables, and words. There is also a slowness in written language and confusion of sounds and letters.
There are 3 types of dyslexia:
– Phonological dyslexia: this is manifested by a difficulty in making the link between the grapheme and the phoneme. This is referred to as a dysfunction of the assembly pathway.
– Surface dyslexia: this is a difficulty in memorizing the image of a word. It is also referred to as a dysfunction in the addressing pathway.
– Mixed dyslexia: this is a dysfunction in the assembly and addressing pathways.
How to help dyslexic children enjoy reading?
It is difficult to enjoy reading when you are faced with difficulties in learning words. With this in mind, Storyplay’r proposes to tackle the problem in two stages. On one hand, your child will be able to benefit from audio content to familiarise themself with reading while enjoying its benefits. On the other hand, they can benefit from reading assistance.
Reading assistance
Storyplay’r provides reading assistance for young learners. These include
– Reading and pronunciation by voice synthesis: by clicking on a word or phrase, your child will be able to hear the sound of the words.
– Various display options to facilitate reading: fonts, sizes, colors, line spacing, etc.
– Voice recording: the reader becomes the narrator. The child can thus record themself while reading, and listen to themself again without stress. But it is also an opportunity for parents or siblings to record themselves and share personalized audio versions.
Read too: Which books for a dyslexic child?
Audio versions to listen to synchronized with the pages of the books
Storyplay’r has hundreds of audiobooks and stories told by storytellers. Your child will be able to listen for hours while flipping through the pages of the books. Thus, despite the difficulties associated with reading, your budding reader will be able to benefit from all the advantages of reading: development of their imagination, enrichment of their vocabulary, development of their thinking and analysis skills.
To help children while listening to the audio, Storyplay’r offers two complementary features:
– The reverse karaoke feature that highlights words as they are spoken by the storyteller in a synchronized manner.
– The flexible reading pace of the flow of the narration to make it go more smoothly.
– These two possibilities work together: when the flow is slowed down, the highlighted words remain synchronized with the audio!
Laetitia Branciard, vice-president of the French Dys Federation, emphasizes the importance of audio for dyslexic children: « When you suffer from severe dyslexia, it’s like having a wall in front of you. These people usually give up reading. The publishing of audiobooks becomes very interesting because it frees them from reading, which poses too many problems, but they remain in contact with literature. » (Article from the French Ministry of Culture Rentrée littéraire : mobilisation pour rendre les nouveautés disponibles aux lecteurs empêchés, in French).
