Diagnostic and Prescriptive Teaching Models
Using a diagnostic and prescriptive teaching model– the process of determining a student’s strengths and weaknesses and then applying appropriate strategies to meet his or her individualized needs– can be a particularly effective methodology to support students with dyslexia.
Looking at specific frameworks can help teachers diagnose and prescribe a course of action for their students. An important framework for determining a course of remediation was developed by Louisa Moats. She asserts that whether a student needs remediation in math, reading, or writing, or all three areas, noted educational researcher and author Louisa Moats (2008) outlines that the teaching of any of these skill sets should be:
- Explicit: As mentioned above, explicitly teaching even the most basic language skills is essential in teaching students with dyslexia (p. 58).
- Systematic: Moats (2008) says that it’s important to teach the “entire system of speech sounds, spelling patterns, sentence structures, text genres, and language conventions are taught rather than a few bits of information here and there as topics happen to arise” (p. 58). This is important so that students can see the big picture of how language is structured from reading to writing.
- Cumulative: It is also important to continue to review how one skill builds on the other (p. 58).
- Multisensory: This means to approach learning through engaging more senses than just listening and speaking. This can help students with dyslexia learn information as it can often tap into their strengths and can help them visualize concepts that they may struggle to master. For example, a student can spell words in sand or can have their attention called to how their mouth moves and where their tongue is placed when saying letters (Moats, 2008, p. 58).
- Sequential and incremental: This means to break instruction down into manageable steps and to follow a specific “scope and sequence of skills to ensure coverage of all essential concepts for reading and writing” (Moats, 2008, p. 58).
- Data-driven: This means that what the teacher teaches and how quickly they cover skills should be determined by “the results of progress monitoring assessments” (Moats, 2008, p. 59).
References:
Moats, L. C., & Dakin, K. E. (2008). Basic Facts About Dyslexia and Other Reading Problems. Baltimore, MD: International Dyslexia Association.