TEACHER GUIDE TO MUSIC AND DYSLEXIA - Rhinegold Publishing

• Use mnemonics – student to make them up? (‘Father Charles…’ is particularly goodas it works backwards and can be used for keys and sharps and flats).• Use charts/symbols/colour (for e.g. circle of 5ths/keys). Student decides what works.• Consider using terms ‘whole note’, ‘half note’ etc rather than ‘semibreve’, etc – they canbe more logical and help with understanding time signatures (4/4 = 4 quarter notes). Butstick to one system – don’t muddle them.• Learning specific information (e.g. foreign terms) –• Say aloud; write out; split word up in a way that works for the student; use colour;any strategy – however ‘wacky’ – that works for the student• Write out notation, clefs etc. lots of times. Use a portable whiteboard.• Don’t penalise for untidy work (note exam board special considerations).• Student/teacher: break (exam) instructions into steps; number them; cross them off.• Consider whether the student has ‘visual stress’ (swirling/blurring of information; seeingthe spaces in between words as ‘streams’ etc):• If so, try coloured overlays – important to find preferred colour (see end foravailability) or/and suggest student has a specialist optometrist test which maylead to prescription of tinted glasses. See BDA website: ‘Eyes and dyslexia’.Some final thoughtsAll students, both dyslexic and non-dyslexic, have strengths. As teachers we need to seekout these strengths and use this information to aid learning. Working with dyslexic studentsis a wonderful opportunity to develop creativity in your teaching while also gaining a greaterunderstanding of how all your students learn. It is a great privilege to work with dyslexicstudents.MUSIC AND DYSLEXIA GUIDE 15