Literacy for ALL
New Dyslexia Content Pages in Goalbook Toolkit
The newest content pages that have been added to Goalbook Toolkit were designed to help teachers encourage students with dyslexia to independently apply best-practice and multi-sensory reading strategies to various academic tasks. The content pages prioritize helping children support themselves when given a reading, writing, or language-based task, to the point that they are able to identify their own needs and preferences and tackle the task using methods that they’ve been taught in the classroom.
Content pages in Goalbook Toolkit cover age-groups and grade-levels spanning from birth to Pre-K and grades K-12. They cover the following content areas: Reading, Writing, Math, Behavior & SEL, Pre-Kindergarten (3–5), English Learners, Autism, Speech & Language, Transition, Alternative Academic & Life Skills, Occupational Therapy, Success Skills, Deaf/Hard of Hearing, Adapted Physical Education, and Blind/Visual Impairment.
And now, there is an entire content block dedicated to dyslexia instruction.
We are always intentional about implementing the most effective research into all of our content and our dyslexia content is no different. For this content, we used the UDL framework, leading research, and we hired consultants who specialize in dyslexia to help us create the highest quality specialized content.
Designing a Highly Specialized Content Page
The team creating these pages focused its attention on creating content that addresses multiple means of engagement and variability in methods of reading instruction. They used the Matrix of Multisensory Structured Language Programs created by The International Dyslexia Association to analyze the structure and components of instruction detailed within the goal text. This level of detail was to ensure that the content reflected a diversity of these hallmarks of the best practices in language instruction for students with dyslexia.
Some of the best practices that can be found on these new content page include the following:
- Using concrete visual models to teach the sonic composition of words: Elkonin Boxes
- Teaching students to manipulate words on the page through coding and/or annotation: Syllable Segmentation, Vowel Coding
Self Reliance and Multi-Sensory Reading Strategies
Strategies within the content pages are explicitly oriented toward cultivating autonomy in all of the most critical areas of a more structured approach to literacy instruction:
- Phonology
- Sound-Symbol Association
- Syllable Instruction
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Semantics
The new content pages help teachers start with the most basic concepts and elements of reading and progress methodically to more complex ones. They help teachers create measurable goals that allow them to deliberately teach and track important concepts like manipulating sounds, identifying irregular words, or choosing various decoding strategies. Not only do they serve as a reminder to teachers that we cannot assume that students with dyslexia will naturally deduce these concepts on their own, but they help students make actual progress towards long-lasting reading success.
Dyslexia content pages are different from other content pages in that the strategies and goal text account for the neurological differences associated with dyslexia but they are the same as other content pages. The goals and strategies are beneficial for a broad range of students in need of support with foundational reading skills. The content page above is a great example of this: Use a Strategy to Reference the Text; this page offers teachers multiple instructional strategies that empower students to make reading decisions on their own. It includes note-taking tools, various adaptations to the text, and variability in modes of expression so that the mechanical aspects of the text do not become an insurmountable barrier to accessing the content.
Our goal with any and all of the content in Goalbook Toolkit is simple—we want to empower educators to help all of their students succeed. That is the case with these new content pages. Success for students who struggle with dyslexia looks like empowering them to independently use strategies that allow them to access content in unique ways.
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