Tips for involving parents

Although their child may have been mainstreamed into regular education classes, parents of students with dyslexia still need to be actively involved in their child's education. In McCray, Vaughn and Neal's study (2001) of middle school students with reading disabilities, many of the students they spoke with cited their parents as important figures for encouraging and supporting their reading programs at school by helping them apply reading strategies at home. In contrast, many students also spoke of impatient, intolerant parents and relatives or changes in their home lives as reasons for having low confidence in their abilities or for not reading as much as they would like to. Teachers can assist parents in guiding their student with dyslexia in several major ways (Stowe, 2000):

1. Offer suggestions for how the parent can observe his or her child, by which the parent can provide valuable information about how the student is working at home.
2. Provide names of resources that parents can utilize to learn about the child's learning style.
   
3. Give specific and practical suggestions for ways in which they can assist their child's learning at home.
   
4. Give specific ways that they can help their child with certain problem areas including homework, and social and emotional issues.