What Students with Dyslexia Face in Their Academic Lives and How Music Can Be Their Ally

Dyslexia is a complex set of processing differences that primarily affect students' reading and spelling skills, making aspects of learning difficult.

We have crafted this blog to help parents and teachers better understand this learning difficulty. Here, we will examine the common learning struggles faced by students with dyslexia and explore how music can help them attain literary success.

Common Struggles Faced by Students with Dyslexia

General Issues

The learning process can be difficult for students with dyslexia and they may develop stress and anxiety, especially as they struggle to read, write and perform any other academic tasks. This can lead to a lack of confidence and low self-esteem, which affects how they interact socially and their motivation to learn.

Dyslexic students can also struggle with time management and organisation due to their unique learning style. This can hinder their development of essential study skills.

Reading

Students with dyslexia are sometimes slow at reading, which causes various difficulties in their academic life. They might be overwhelmed with information and therefore struggle to find relevant books or resources in a library. The slow reading pace can also lead to frustration as it hinders comprehension, making extracting critical details from text challenging.

Dyslexic students often have weak working memory and concentration, making it difficult for them to retain information and requiring them to reread constantly, which can be exhausting. Tracking issues are also common in dyslexic students; as a result, they might skip or repeat lines, making comprehension even more difficult.

Any kind of visual stress can make these reading difficulties even worse for dyslexic students.

Lectures and Note-taking

Understanding lectures can be difficult for dyslexic students, as they find it challenging to process sounds and speech. They might have slow or illegible handwriting, which makes note-taking a time-consuming and frustrating experience.

Due to their inability to focus and process verbal information quickly, taking notes while listening to lectures can also be overwhelming for them, especially when combined with handwriting difficulties. This can lead to inaccurate or incomplete notes.

Moreover, dyslexic students have difficulty recalling lecture information due to short-term memory challenges, making it even more difficult to capture key points.

Coursework and Assignments

Students with dyslexia face significant challenges when it comes to coursework and assignments. Researching topics can be daunting for them due to their reading difficulties, which can slow them down and make it difficult to extract information. They also find it difficult to identify and correct errors, making proofreading a struggle.

Dyslexic students often find writing assignments challenging. They might need help with spelling, grammar, punctuation, and organising their thoughts. They also struggle with planning and structuring their work, leading to incomplete assignments.

Mathematics

Students with dyslexia can struggle with maths for several reasons, some of which are listed below:

1.  They find it hard to understand the complex language in maths problems due to reading difficulties.
2. They tend to get stuck on previous answers or methods (perseveration), which can lead to errors in problem-solving.
3. They might get confused with mathematical symbols or misplace decimal points, as dyslexic students find it difficult to focus or register information, leading to significant errors.
4. Some also find extracting information from charts, graphs, or diagrams very challenging due to the difficulty of understanding information.
5. Their difficulties with information processing and calculation can also lead to mistakes in complex problems.

Exams

Exam preparation and performance can be particularly challenging for students with dyslexia. The difficulties they face with reading, remembering, concentration and organisation can make revision challenging. These issues can worsen with the pressure of the exam hall. As a result, reading and understanding exam questions can take longer than usual and structuring complex answers becomes a struggle.

Time constraints and exam pressure can also trigger anxiety in dyslexic students, which might lead to illegible handwriting for example, and makes proofreading even more difficult.

Remember, these are the common difficulties faced by dyslexic students. However, since dyslexia exists on a continuum, experience of dyslexia will vary from student to student.

Music for Literary Attainment in Students with Dyslexia

Though the struggles for students with this learning difference can sometimes seem overwhelming, the good news is there's still hope! Recent studies suggest that music can be a powerful tool for students with dyslexia. But how exactly does it work? Let’s find out.

Music engages multiple brain regions, including those responsible for language processing and auditory skills. Actively engaging with music can strengthen these cognitive functions in students with dyslexia, positively impacting their reading and spelling abilities. This makes music tuition a highly effective approach for them.

In Music Dyslexia tuition, we work with students and help them develop musical skills while also focusing on improving their language processing, auditory skills and overall well-being. Through engaging in various musical activities, such as singing, playing instruments and listening to music, students with dyslexia can become better and better at understanding & processing information, which ultimately leads to improved recall ability, concentration and self-confidence.

Music therapy can provide a safe and supportive space for students with dyslexia to explore their creativity and express themselves freely. This can help boost their motivation and reduce anxiety and stress. By tapping into the power of music, students can overcome challenges, develop new skills, and unlock their full potential.

Eight Ways Music Can Help Students with Dyslexia:

Enhanced Cognitive Abilities: Music tuition allows students to think creatively and find innovative solutions, strengthening their cognitive abilities like memory, attention, and problem-solving and setting them up for academic success.

Improved Phonological Awareness: Learning music requires recognising and producing different pitches and rhythms, which can help students with dyslexia develop a better understanding of the sounds (phonological awareness), making it easier for them to decode words, spell accurately and understand the structure of language.

Enhanced Auditory Processing: Music involves listening to and producing sounds, which can help students develop better auditory discrimination and processing skills. This can be particularly beneficial for dyslexic students struggling to understand spoken language or follow directions.

Improved Temporal Processing: Music training can help students develop a better sense of rhythm and tempo, helping them develop a better sense of timing and coordination. This allows students with learning difficulties to read consistently and understand the text's rhythm.

Increased Motivation and Engagement: Music can be a fun and engaging activity that can boost motivation and improve self-confidence in students with dyslexia.

Improved Self-Expression: Music offers students a creative outlet and helps them express themselves positively. This can be particularly beneficial for dyslexic students who often struggle to express themselves verbally or in writing.

Enhanced Social Skills: Music requires collaboration in a musical setting, which can help students with dyslexia develop critical social skills, such as teamwork, communication and cooperation.

Reduced Anxiety and Stress: Music has been shown to have a calming and relaxing effect on the brain. This can be particularly helpful for dyslexic students as anxiety or stress are common among them due to academic challenges.

Conclusion

While dyslexia can present significant challenges for students, music offers a promising solution for attaining literacy. Through learning music, students with dyslexia can develop skills essential for reading and writing and have a successful academic career.

For the Best Dyslexia Tuition in the UK, Choose Music Dyslexia

At Music Dyslexia, we have experienced Specialist Teacher and Specific Learning Differences Assessors with master’s degree in Education and over ten years of experience working with Special Educational Needs.

We assess teens and students with dyslexia and provide music tuition to help them overcome learning challenges. For more information regarding our approach, get in touch with us today!