Cognitive Strengths of Dyslexia
Understanding how I learn is essential, and it is equally important for teachers to recognize the unique ways in which students process information, to better support their cognitive strengths and learning needs. With my own experience of dyslexia, I wanted to explore not only the scientific research behind developmental dyslexia but also how to translate that research into practical teaching strategies.
Literature Review
Developmental Dyslexia and Cognitive Abilities is a literature review about
the impact of developmental dyslexia on
literacy, intellect, creativity, and memory in dyslexic individuals.
This review reports on research over the past ten years to help readers understand the
current connection between dyslexia and cognitive abilities.
I then adapted my findings into an explainer video that
teaches K-12 educators how to equip their dyslexic students for academic success.
I created this video to communicate the findings in my literature review to
an audience that could make the most impact from the findings,
especially since K-12 education has historically left dyslexic students behind.
Explainer Video
When drafting and revising my explainer video, I considered how the imagery and the script would interact to tell a story and inform my audience. I initially constructed a script that included all the relevant information, but I ensured that the words flowed together when read out loud. The video began with putting teachers in a relatable situation, and the video added characters (students) that the audience could sympathize with and follow through the video. When making the visuals for the video, I made sure to have my characters show emotion and have enough motion to engage the audience. I used images that pop up at strategic times to fit with the script to ensure the audio and visual portions of the video work cohesively together. I also ensured that the video began and ended by encouraging teachers to change their teaching habits to take advantage of the strengths of dyslexic students in their own classroom as a call to action.
Making an explainer video challenged me much more than I expected. I wanted to hand-draw my animation so I could have more control over the images. I ended up using Powtoon, which had very limited images available for free. This made it much harder for me to illustrate certain concepts that I would have liked to illustrate in my video. For instance, I wanted to show images and pictures to illustrate non-verbal memory, but the closest available visual Powtoon had was a camera. Powtoon also has a 3 minute video limit, so I had to go between voice memos, Garageband, Powtoon, iMovie, and YouTube to make the final product, so it is not as smooth as I would have liked it to be. If I were to make an official version of the video, I would hand draw the animation to get the movement, images, and control I imagined for the video. For that, I would need to learn about animation options and software before creating a final product.
While there is plenty of room for improvement, I took these skills forward to design my lesson plans and create resources for my students as a course assistant in the School of Engineering.
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