Inclusion

Supporting students with dyslexia in the run-up to exams

The exam season may fill many students with dread, but for those suffering from dyslexia, it can be an overwhelming and terrifying experience. Here, David Imrie provides some practical advice on preparing your students to revise ahead of exams and helping them cope on the big day.

In the run up to and during their GCSE exams, it’s important that dyslexic students are provided with support and assistance from teachers to help them achieve their best possible grades.

About 1 in 10 students have dyslexia, with more boys affected than girls. Students with dyslexia may have difficulty reading and interpreting meaning and though words are visible, they may ‘swim’ or ‘dance’ on the page. This can have a massive impact on their attainment, but with the right support, they can equal and surpass those without a learning difficulty.

Tips for creating revision worksheets

There are a number of things you’ll need to consider when preparing revision worksheets for dyslexic students:

  • Clear instructions – Ensure that all worksheets have a clear layout, short sentences, and an uncomplicated structure without any unnecessary detail that students may find distracting.
  • Fonts and background colours – Changing the font or background colour in Microsoft Word for example can make a big difference to reading ability

‘OpenDyslexic’ is a free font that teachers can download which adds gravity and weight to the text as shown in the image below. Students that find characters invert or swim should try using this font. Of course, this may not work for everyone but you can experiment with others such as Verdana, ClearType or Arial to see which works best.

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