What is MSL

​Multisensory teaching is one important aspect of instruction for dyslexic students that is used by clinically trained teachers. Effective instruction for students with dyslexia is also explicit, direct, cumulative, intensive, and focused on the structure of language. Multisensory learning involves the use of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways simultaneously to enhance memory and learning of written language. Links are consistently made between the visual (language we see) , auditory (language we hear) , and kinesthetic-tactile (language symbols we feel) pathways in learning to read and spell.

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Margaret Byrd Rawson, a former President of the "IDA", said it well:

• Dyslexic students need a different approach to learning language from that employed in most classrooms.  They need to be taught, slowly and thoroughly, the basic elements of their language

• They have to have lots of practice in having their writing hands, eyes, ears, and voices work together for the conscious organization and retention of their learning.

• Teachers who use this approach help students perceive the speech sounds in words (phonemes) by looking in the mirror when they speak or exaggerating the movements of their mouths. Students learn to link speech sounds (phonemes) to letters or letter patterns by saying sounds for letters they see, or writing letters for sounds they hear...