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The New Zealand Dyslexia Handbook (2nd edition)

A guide to understanding dyslexia in children and youth, with strategies for assessing and teaching reading and spelling.

In today’s digital world, reading and writing are more important than ever. Students are reading and writing text on smartphones, tablets, and laptops as well as in school for hours every day. Yet many of these students will have dyslexia—between 5% and 20%, depending on the school—and they will struggle to enter this new digital world because they cannot read and write well.
This handbook is not a course of instruction. Its goal is to give the teacher a handy reference manual to help students with dyslexia, and other students with severe reading and writing difficulties, to read and write well.
At the heart of the handbook is the belief that the teacher is the most important factor in whether or not a student will succeed at school.

New chapters in the 2nd edition

In this second edition, there are new chapters on the dyslexia-friendly school, dyslexia in adulthood, and the use of technology to assist students with dyslexia. All other chapters have been reviewed, and the appendices have many new features to assist in screening and teaching.

Cracking the code—new videos to accompany the handbook

The new edition has more than a dozen new short video lessons that use cartoon-type characters to explain how to teach literacy skills that students with dyslexia very much need to learn. There is a really nice video on the Story of English, showing how English writing is like an archaeological site with different layers of words as a result of the many invasions of England—the Anglo-Saxons, the Romans, the French, and finally the scientific “invasion” of technical words, mostly from Greek.
The YouTube videos are different from those used in the first edition in that they use cartoon characters and are not only for the teacher to view but for students as well, to help them understand how to read and spell English words. The videos follow the principle of show, not tell. They show how English writing works. The videos cover in a visual way the ideas covered in the book chapters—they follow the scope and sequence of teaching how to read and spell words

Dr Sue Dymock is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Waikato. Tom Nicholson is Professor Emeritus at Massey University. The authors started their careers in classroom teaching. They have worked in university settings for many years, especially in teacher training programmes. As part of their university work—but mainly out of a passion to help students—they have offered after-school literacy programmes for students with difficulties. Sue directs the long-running University of Waikato Reading Centre, funded by donations from community, business, and individuals.

 

Cracking the code - full video playlist on YouTube