In brief: how can teachers better support students with SLD?
Start from prevention, observation, and calibrated tasks: SLD requires better tools, not lower expectations.
Use maps, keywords, images, and study routines to make structure and relationships visible.
Protect self-esteem, emotions, and participation: a strategy works when the student can actually use it.
Teaching students with Specific Learning Disorders does not mean preparing a separate version of school for them. It means designing better instruction: clearer tasks, more visible structure, compensatory tools used with purpose, and materials that do not force students to spend all their energy on decoding.
Many strategies created for students with SLD also support the rest of the class: students who struggle to organize study, lose the thread during a long explanation, or need images, examples, and keywords to remember.
This guide turns the Decalogo per Insegnanti by the Italian Dyslexia Association into practical teaching actions for lessons, study, assessment, and review. AID Decalogo per Insegnanti
Why SLD strategies help the whole class
In Italy, Law 170/2010 recognizes Specific Learning Disorders in school contexts and points to educational and teaching support measures. Legge 170/2010
The guidelines connected to Ministerial Decree 5669/2011 explain the role of compensatory tools, dispensatory measures, and teaching personalization for students with SLD. DM 5669/2011 and SLD guidelines
In practice, the goal is not to add tools randomly. A map, table, or summary works only when it responds to a real barrier: slow reading, lexical retrieval, working memory load, organization of oral explanation, or test anxiety.
This is where inclusion becomes ordinary instructional design. CAST's UDL Guidelines encourage educators to offer multiple ways to access information, participate, and show what they know. In class, that means combining text, voice, images, maps, examples, and cooperative activities, without turning every adaptation into an isolated path. CAST UDL Guidelines
For a deeper article on maps, individualized plans, and educational needs, read concept maps for SLD and SEN.
The 10 strategies to bring into lesson design
1. Start from prevention, not emergency
Prevention begins early, especially with oral language activities: rhymes, syllables, initial and final sounds, and word transformations. These activities are not classroom diagnosis. They help teachers observe signals, strengthen phonological skills, and reduce the risk that a difficulty becomes stable frustration.
In primary and secondary school, the same logic still helps. Before a test or a new lesson, ask which barriers you can anticipate. Is the task readable? Are the steps explicit? Does the student know which tools to use? Is the time consistent with the task?
2. Train skills with targeted exercises
The AID guide highlights the importance of specific, gradual exercises. In daily teaching, this means avoiding two extremes: leaving the student alone in front of the difficulty, or always replacing the task with something easier.
It is more useful to create micro-exercises with visible goals: recognizing syllables, working on word families, consolidating subject vocabulary, separating definition from example, and revisiting a rule with a short repeated routine. Practice works when the student understands which skill is being trained.
3. Calibrate tasks around what the student can show
Calibrating a task does not mean reducing its value. It means separating the competence you want to assess from the barrier that may hide it.
If the goal is text comprehension, you can reduce the weight of reading aloud. If the goal is historical reasoning, you can allow a keyword outline. If the goal is oral explanation, you can use a map to support order, sequence, and vocabulary.
4. Turn keywords and vocabulary into visual anchors
Many students with SLD struggle to retrieve words and information quickly from memory. Keywords help, but only when they are well chosen. An effective keyword is short, stable, recognizable, and connected to an image, example, or map branch.
In a science lesson, for example, you can separate "definition", "process", "example", and "consequence". In history, you can distinguish "cause", "event", "effect", and "source". In literature, you can keep author, context, works, themes, and style separate.
5. Teach a study method, not only content
For a student with SLD, study method is a central compensatory tool. It is not enough to hand out a finished map. Students need to learn how to read it, update it, use it for review, and turn it into an oral outline.
A simple method can have four steps:
- Identify the title and the main branches.
- Highlight three keywords for each branch.
- Add an example or a check question.
- Use the map to explain the topic without reading everything.
This workflow also helps when teachers start from PDFs, slides, or handouts. In from PDFs and slides to a mind map, you can find a more detailed process for turning linear material into visual support.
6. Use maps, tables, and visual channels without overload
Maps help because they make structure visible. When they become too dense, they move the problem from reading the text to reading the map.
A good map for students with SLD has few levels, keywords that match classroom language, colors with stable meaning, and branches that remain readable on paper and on screen. Kiuwo can be used to generate a first structure from a text, handout, or audio file; the decisive step remains the teacher's review.
The map is not the final product: it is a base to review. With Kiuwo you can start from existing materials, generate a visual structure, and then adapt it to an individualized plan, test, review session, or oral exam.
7. Make foreign languages more contextual
Foreign languages can be demanding for students with dyslexia, especially when the relationship between sound and spelling is less transparent. New words work better when they do not arrive in isolation.
Use recognizable contexts: images, short scenes, songs, videos, dialogues, and everyday situations. Connect the word to the scene, not only to the translation. A lexical map can combine the word, mental image, usage example, and pronunciation.
8. Prepare tests and exams with a stable structure
Tests and exams often create high emotional load. Preparation becomes more manageable when students know the sequence: what to review, with which support, in what order, and with which practice questions.
For an oral test, a map can become a speaking outline. For a written test, it can help review keywords and relationships. For a final interdisciplinary exam, it can help connect subjects without losing coherence.
9. Protect attention, emotions, and participation
School difficulty is not only cognitive. Anxiety, frustration, and repeated failure change the way a student approaches a task. For this reason, teaching strategy also includes classroom climate, collaboration, and chances to participate without always being exposed through a fragile skill.
Activities where the student is not alone in front of a page often work well: cooperative learning, guided debate, flipped classroom, short videos with questions, maps built with the class, and formative checks before the official assessment.
10. Build self-esteem through accessible tasks
A student who repeatedly experiences mistakes as proof of inadequacy stops taking risks. School can reverse this pattern when it offers accessible tasks, clear feedback, and real opportunities to show competence.
Self-esteem does not mean avoiding effort. It means creating experiences where the student can see that a strategy works: they explain better, remember more information, retrieve a word, connect two concepts, or approach a test with less disorder.
How to turn the guide into a map or worksheet
The simplest way is to turn the 10 strategies into a teaching checklist. Before assigning a lesson, reading, or test, choose three questions:
- What is the main barrier for this student or this class?
- Which support makes the structure of the task visible?
- How will I know that the student is actually using the tool?
From there, you can build a map with three levels: objective, obstacle, support. For example:
- Objective: explain photosynthesis.
- Obstacle: remembering sequence and vocabulary.
- Support: a map with phases, keywords, an image, and a check question.
If you use AI to speed up material preparation, keep this criterion: the tool generates a base, the teacher decides whether that base is instructionally appropriate. The same principle is covered in AI for teachers: creating inclusive materials without losing hours.
What to check before sharing the material
Before sharing a map or worksheet with students with SLD, run a quick check:
- Are the main branches few and recognizable?
- Are the keywords the same ones used during the lesson?
- Is the map readable on screen and on paper?
- Do images support the concept, or are they only decorative?
- Does the student know how to use the material for review?
This review prevents the most common mistake: creating support that looks good but is not usable. Inclusive material is not the one with more elements. It is the one that reduces unnecessary load and makes the task more readable.
Frequently asked questions about SLD teaching strategies
The most useful strategies combine clear instructions, adequate time, maps, keywords, visual channels, compensatory tools, and frequent feedback. The choice depends on the main barrier: reading, memory, vocabulary, organization, or anxiety.
Sources used
- AID Decalogo per Insegnanti
- Legge 170/2010
- DM 5669/2011 and SLD guidelines
- CAST UDL Guidelines
- Unsplash License
Already have a handout, textbook chapter, or lesson recording? With Kiuwo you can turn it into a mind map to review, simplify, and use as support for SLD, SEN, revision, and oral exams.
