Study tips for students with dyslexia: how to revise for board exams

Rereading a chapter feels like work, and for a student with dyslexia it is a great deal of work: every page takes longer, and by the end the beginning has faded. It also gives a false sense of knowing, because familiar text feels understood. The student who has read the same chapter of history five times can still go blank on a question about it.

Active recall reverses this. Close the book and write, say or draw what you remember, then open it and check. The effort of pulling information out of memory is what makes it stay, and it shows immediately what is missing. For a slow reader it has a second advantage: most of the time goes on thinking, not on decoding text.

Spaced repetition adds time. Revisit each topic after a day, a few days, a week and a few weeks, rather than five times in one evening. Short sessions of 25 to 40 minutes, with a proper break, suit most students with dyslexia better than two-hour stretches, because reading fatigue sets in early. A remedial teacher can help find the length that works.

The board textbook is written for reading. Revision material should be written for remembering, and for a student with dyslexia that usually means fewer words and more structure. Make the revision material once, early in the year, and use it many times.

• Mind maps: the chapter title in the centre, the main ideas as branches, key words and small drawings on each branch. One page per chapter.
• Flowcharts for processes: photosynthesis, the passing of a bill, the steps of a mathematical method.
• Flashcards with a question or picture on the front and a short answer on the back, sorted into 'know', 'nearly' and 'not yet' piles.
• Colour coding that stays the same all year: one colour for definitions, one for dates, one for formulas, one for diagrams.
• A key-term spelling list for each subject: the 20 to 40 words the examiner will expect, such as 'photosynthesis', 'parliament' or 'denominator', practised a few at a time.
• Timelines on a long strip of paper for history, stuck on a wall where the student passes every day.
• One-page summaries in the student's own words, written after the mind map, not copied from a guidebook.

Multisensory methods, which link seeing, saying, hearing and moving, are the same principle that underpins good reading teaching; structured literacy and multisensory teaching explains the approach. The student should make most of the material themselves, because making it is part of the learning.

Yes, and many revise better that way. Listening takes the decoding out of revision, so the student's attention goes to meaning. Useful sources include text-to-speech, which reads digital text aloud on most phones and computers; notes the student records in their own voice and plays back on the school van or during a walk; and recordings of a parent or teacher reading key pages.

The government's DIKSHA and ePathshala platforms carry NCERT material, which is useful for CBSE students and for many state boards that follow NCERT books. Audio versions of textbooks are not available for every subject, class or language, so check what exists for your child's books before building a plan around it. A digital copy of a textbook can often be read aloud with text-to-speech even where no audio version exists.

Listening should lead to doing. After a recording, the student closes it and explains the topic aloud, answers three questions, or adds to a mind map. Assistive technology for learning disabilities covers the tools in more detail.

Each subject loses marks in a different way, and the method should follow the marks. Look at last year's answer sheets with the remedial teacher and ask where the marks went: content, spelling, incomplete answers, diagrams, or running out of time.

• Languages: learn the answer formats for letters, notices and essays as templates, keep a short personal list of the spellings the student gets wrong most, and practise comprehension by reading the questions before the passage.
• Science: draw each diagram from memory until the labels come without looking; learn definitions as spoken sentences first, then write them; keep a formula card for physics and chemistry.
• Social science: dates on the wall timeline, maps practised by marking blank outline maps, and causes and effects of each event as a flowchart rather than as paragraphs.
• Mathematics: work examples rather than reading them, write each step on its own line, read word problems aloud and underline the numbers and the question before starting.
• Every subject: past-paper questions sorted by chapter, so that each revision session ends with real exam questions.

Spelling deserves a word. Some boards do not penalise spelling for students with learning disabilities in some subjects, and others say nothing, so ask the school what applies. Either way, the key-term list protects the words that carry the marks.

Long answers are where students with dyslexia lose the most, often because they start writing without a plan and run out of time or words. A template gives every long answer the same shape: a one-line opening that answers the question, three points each with a key term and an example, and a one-line close. With the shape settled, the student only has to supply the content.

Past papers are the closest thing to the real exam, and they should be practised under real conditions from the middle of class 10. If the board has granted compensatory time, a scribe or a reader, use it in every practice paper, so the timing becomes familiar. On CBSE, CISCE and NIOS the extra time is 20 minutes for each hour of the paper, which turns a three-hour paper into four hours; stamina for that has to be built. Preparing a child to use a scribe, reader or extra time sets out the practice plan.

After each paper, mark it together and sort the lost marks: did not know, misread the question, ran out of time, or could not get it down on paper. Each needs a different fix, and only the first needs more revision of the chapter.

The example below is for a class 10 student with dyslexia in the months before the board exams, attending school on weekdays. It is illustrative, not a prescription: change the subjects, the block lengths and the days to fit your child, their school timings and any tuition they already attend.

Build in empty blocks for catching up, because the plan will slip. Put sleep, meals and some outdoor time on the timetable too, so they are protected in the last weeks rather than squeezed. Preparing a child with ADHD for exams has more on building a plan a child will follow.

In the board year the remedial teacher's job shifts. Reading and spelling work continues, but more of the time goes on study skills and exam technique: building the mind maps and templates with the student, setting timed sections, running practice with any scribe or reader, and reviewing papers for patterns. They also keep an eye on workload, because a student with dyslexia who adds three extra classes in class 10 often has nothing left for the revision that works.

A good remedial teacher tells the family and, with the family's agreement, the school's special educator what is being practised, so that pre-boards can use the same arrangements. They write down what has improved each month, in plain words.

Parents are often the most available help and the most tempted to do too much. The most useful jobs are specific and short.

• Read a page aloud when the student asks, without commentary.
• Quiz from the flashcards for ten minutes after dinner.
• Listen while the student explains a topic, and ask one question at the end.
• Keep the timetable visible and the phone out of the study room during blocks.
• Protect sleep and meals, and keep visitors and functions light in the last weeks.

What does not help is rewriting the student's notes for them, sitting beside them for every session, or comparing their pace with a sibling or cousin. Notes a parent writes are easier to read and harder to remember. If revision has become a nightly argument, bring in another adult; Special Minds introduces remedial teachers and special educators for board exam support for learning disabilities, at home in eight cities and online anywhere in India. Exam stress in children who learn differently covers the emotional side of the same months.