The course is available at NPTEL (Representational image)
As educational institutes move online amid the lockdown caused by coronavirus outbreak, the transition is more difficult for children with special needs. The Madras Dyslexia Association and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras are jointly providing free-of-cost courses to teachers on providing support to children with special needs during this time.
The courses are targeted towards parents, teachers and caregivers of primary school children (classes 1-5) and professionals such as occupational therapists, counsellors and speech pathologists. It contains simple methods of identifying and re-mediating young children with dyslexia.
“The multiple-intelligence approach in these methods not only makes learning more effective, but also hones innate talents of children with dyslexia. Within a classroom, these methods enhance the learning of the entire class and hence they do not have to be administered selectively. The infrastructure required (at trainee’s end) for this program is minimal — a computer with speakers and an average Internet connection,” the institute said in a release.
The course is hosted on NPTEL web portal, onlinecourses.nptel.ac.in. The ongoing course aims to help mainstream teachers and parents who teach children at the primary school level.
“Children with dyslexia are educable. Structured multi-sensory teaching, done in the way the child learns, is the best way forward to enable these children to bridge the gap between their potential and their actual performance,” the MDA said. They are also developing the course in Tamil.