It is time for reading practice at the primary school where Jonas Myklebust is a pupil. The little boy runs his index finger along the sentences in the book like the other pupils. But unlike the others, he has no use for doing so. And when the teacher reads the reading homework for the next day out loud in the classroom, Jonas pays close attention. Word for word he repeated the text to his parents at home. Jonas doesn’t read, he memorizes. Common to cover Between three and six percent of children and young people have dyslexia, according to the state special education service Statped. Recently, news told the story of Storm, who did not get help with reading difficulties until the 7th grade. According to Statped, it is common for pupils with reading difficulties to use various strategies that can cover up challenges with reading. – Some pupils may try to remember the sentences in a text rather than reading it themselves, for example when the teacher reads a text aloud before the pupils are to read it, explains Eli Hekland. She is a senior adviser at Statped. Pupils who are unsure of letters, sounds or what they do when they read will be able to guess words based on the context, such as pictures in the text or what they know about the topic. For example, they can try to think whether the word looks like a word they know, or read the beginning of the word and guess the rest. – These are strategies that will be able to mask a reading difficulty, especially in the first years of primary school and especially if the student has a large vocabulary to guess from, says Hekland. Regular mapping of reading and writing will nevertheless reveal that the student has not acquired basic reading skills. Got to the right word – It was absolutely incredible. It was verbatim, says father Geir Thomas Myklebust. Many years later, he remembers well how his son flawlessly handed in the reading homework. If the parents wanted to test Jonas on a single word in the text, he would have learned another method. By going through the text in his head and counting words until he came to the same word as the parents pointed to in the book, he was able to say the right answer. Even the 18-year-old is not entirely sure if he understood that what he was doing was not reading. As the texts got longer, it became more difficult for Jonas to stick to his method. Jonas was diagnosed with dyslexia and had extra help with reading at primary school. Beyond secondary school, things loosened up even more, and at the end of primary school he felt he had good control over reading. HAS PAID FOR HIS STRESS: The work of learning to read has given Jonas Myklebust good learning strategies in other areas as well. Photo: Benedikte Grov / news Girls are good at hiding reading difficulties Dyslexia Norway also confirms that it is common for children with dyslexia to develop methods to compensate for the difficulty. – Girls in particular are good at “hiding” their difficulties, says Kathrine Ruud Elster, editor of Dyslexia Norway. As a result, many fewer girls are diagnosed with reading and writing difficulties. Has worked systematically Jonas has now completed two years of electrical engineering at secondary school. The 18-year-old has an apprenticeship as an electrician on an oil platform in the North Sea. He and two other applicants competed against over 200 other applicants for the positions. When the dyslexia was discovered, the teachers said that Jonas had to work hard at the start, but that it would become easier for him as time went on. He took those words with him both in junior high school and in secondary school. – I have the experience that if I can’t get it done, I just have to work a little on it and I will get it done. And he adds: – People with dyslexia have different difficulties and strengths and methods. That is why it is important to have teachers who see, understand and make arrangements for each individual student to do as well as possible, he says. Today, Jonas thinks he has something left for him to work hard on learning to read.
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Jonas could perform the entire reading exercise – without reading – news Vestland
