What
Is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is characterized as difficulty interpreting letters, words,
and symbols, thereby making reading difficult. People with dyslexia
have trouble matching the letters they see on the page with the sounds
those letters make. This will not go away as dyslexia is lifelong. But
don't equate dyslexia to a learning disability. Children with dyslexia
are often very bright and creative thinkers.
Comprehensive
Symptoms of Dyslexia
It
is important to keep in mind that no two people with dyslexia are
exactly alike because dyslexia ranges from mild to moderate to severe
to profound. People with dyslexia may also have AD/HD or ADD.
Warning Signs of Pre-K and
Kindergarten Students
- delayed speech (not speaking any words by their first birthday)
- mixing up sounds in multi-syllabic words such as aminal for
animal, bisghetti for spaghetti, and hekalopter for helicopter
- early stuttering or cluttering of words
- lots of ear infections
- difficulty in tying shoes
- confusion over left vs right, over vs under, before vs after
- late to establish a dominant hand; sometimes up until age 7
or 8
- inability to correctly complete phonemic awareness task
despite listening to stories that contain lots of rhyming words,
such as Dr. Seuss
- difficulty learning the names of the letters or sounds in
the alphabet
- difficulty writing the alphabet in order
- trouble articulating R's and L's as well as M's and N's. May
be in 2nd or 3rd grade and still saying "wed and gween" instead of
red and green
Reading Signs To Watch For
- can read a word on one page, but won't recognize it on the next
page
- knows phonics, but can't or won't sound out an unknown word
- slow, labored, inaccurate reading of single words in
isolation, especially when there is no story line or pictures to
provide clues
- when they misread, they often say a word that has the same
first and last letters, and the same shape, such as form-from or
trial-trail
- they may insert or leave out letters, such as could-cold or
star-stair
- they may say a word that has the same letters, but in a
different sequence, such as who-how, lots- lost, saw-was, or
girl-grill
- when reading aloud, reads in a slow, choppy cadence (not in
smooth phrases), and often ignores punctuation; reads like one
long sentence
- becomes visibly tired after reading for only a short time
- reading comprehension may be low due to spending so much
energy trying to figure out the words
- listening comprehension is usually significantly higher than
reading comprehension
- directionality confusion shows up when reading and writing
b-d, b-p, n-u, or m-w confusion; they are also left-right confused
- substitutes similar-looking words, even if it changes the
meaning of the sentence, such as sunrise for surprise, house for
horse, while for white, wanting for walking
- when reading will substitute a word that means the same
thing but doesn't look at all similar, such as trip for journey,
fast for speed, cry for weep
- misreads, omits, or even adds small function words, such as
an, a, from, the, to, were, are, of
- omits or changes suffixes, saying need for needed, talks for
talking, or late for lately
