Could your child have Dyslexia?
What is Dyslexia? (Definition by the International Dyslexia Association)
Dyslexia is a neurologically-based, often familial, disorder which interferes with the acquisition and processing of language. Varying in degrees of severity, it is manifested by difficulties in receptive and expressive language, including phonological processing, in reading, writing, spelling, handwriting, and sometimes in arithmetic.
Dyslexia is not the result of lack of motivation, sensory impairment, inadequate instructional or environmental opportunities, or other limiting conditions, but may occur together with these conditions.
Although dyslexia is lifelong, individuals with dyslexia frequently respond successfully to timely and appropriate intervention.
Warning Signs of Dyslexia:If three or more of these warning signs exist it is worth having your child tested for dyslexia
- delayed speech (not speaking any words by the child's first birthday. Often, they don't start talking until they are two, two-and-a-half, three, or even older.)
- mixing up sounds in multi-syllabic words (ex: aminal for animal, bisghetti for spaghetti, hekalopter for helicopter, hangaberg for hamburger, mazageen for magazine, etc.)
- early stuttering or cluttering
- lots of ear infections
- can't master tying shoes
- confusion over left versus right, over versus under, before versus after, and other directionality words and concepts
- late to establish a dominant hand
- May switch from right hand to left hand while coloring, writing, or doing any other task. Eventually, the child will usually establish a preferred hand, but it may not be until they are 7 or 8. Even then, they may use one hand for writing, but the other hand for sports.
- despite listening to stories that contain lots of rhyming words, such as Dr. Seuss, cannot tell you words that rhyme with cat or seat by the age of four-and-a-half
- difficulty learning the names of the letters or sounds in the alphabet; difficulty writing the alphabet in order
- Trouble correctly articulating R's and L's as well as M's and N's. They often have "immature" speech. They may still be saying "wed and gween" instead of "red and green" in second or third grade.
People with dyslexia do not make random reading errors. They make very specific types of errors. Their spelling reflects the same types of errors. Watch for these errors:
- 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 (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
- 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 when writing
- b-d confusion is a classic warning sign. One points to the left, the other points to the right, and they are left-right confused.
- b-p, n-u, or m-w confusion. One points up, the other points down. That's also directionality confusion.
- 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 a story or a sentence, substitutes a word that means the same thing but doesn't look at all similar, such as trip for journey, fast for speed, or 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.
Types of Spelling Mistakes to look out for:
- Their spelling is far worse than their reading. They sometimes flunk inventive spelling. They have extreme difficulty with vowel sounds, and often leave them out.
- With enormous effort, they may be able to "memorize" Monday's spelling list long enough to pass Friday's spelling test, but they can't spell those very same words two hours later when writing those words in sentences.
- Continually misspells high frequency sight words (nonphonetic but very common words) such as they, what, where, does and because—despite extensive practice.
- Misspells even when copying something from the board or from a book.
- Written work shows signs of spelling uncertainty--numerous erasures, cross outs, etc.
Also known as a visual-motor integration problem, people with dyslexia often have poor, nearly illegible handwriting.Signs of dysgraphia include:
- Unusual pencil grip, often with the thumb on top of the fingers (a "fist grip")
- Young children will often put their head down on the desk to watch the tip of the pencil as they write
- The pencil is gripped so tightly that the child's hand cramps. The child will frequently put the pencil down and shake out his/her hand.
- Writing is a slow, labored, non-automatic chore.
- Child writes letters with unusual starting and ending points.
- Child has great difficulty getting letters to "sit" on the horizontal lines.
- Copying off of the board is slow, painful, and tedious. Child looks up and visually "grabs" just one or two letters at a time, repeatedly subvocalizes the names of those letters, then stares intensely at their paper when writing those one or two letters. This process is repeated over and over. Child frequently loses his/her place when copying, misspells when copying, and doesn't always match capitalization or punctuation when copying—even those the child can read what was on the board.
- Unusual spatial organization of the page. Words may be widely spaced or tightly pushed together. Margins are often ignored.
- Child has an unusually difficult time learning cursive writing, and shows chronic confusion about similarly-formed cursive letters such as f and b, m and n, w and u. They will also difficulty remembering how to form capital cursive letters.
Directionality confusion, many people with dyslexia have directionality confusion.
- Left-Right confusion:
- Even adults have to use whatever tricks their mother or teacher taught them to tell left from right. It never becomes rapid and automatic.
- A common saying in household with dyslexic people is, "It's on the left. The other left."
- That's why they are b-d confused. One points to the left and one points to the right.
- They will often start math problems on the wrong side, or want to carry a number the wrong way.
- Up-Down confusion:
- Some children with dyslexia are also up-down confused. They confuse b-p or d-q, n-u, and m-w.
- Confusion about directionality words:
- First-last, before-after, next-previous, over-under
- Yesterday-tomorrow (directionality in time)
- North, South, East, West confusion:
- Adults with dyslexia get lost a lot when driving around, even in cities where they've lived for many years
- Often have difficulty reading or understanding maps.
Sequencing steps in a task
Learning any task that has a series of steps which must be completed in a specific order can be difficult. That's because you must memorize the sequence of steps, and often, there is no logic in the sequence.
These tasks are usually challenging for people with dyslexia:
- Tying shoelaces: this task not only has a series of steps, but many steps have directionality as part of them. Many children do not master this task until they're teenagers.
- Printing letters: the reason they form letters with such unusual beginning and ending points is that they can't remember the sequence of pencil strokes necessary to form that letter. So they start somewhere and then keep going until the letter looks approximately right.
- Doing long division: to successfully complete a long division problem, you must do a series of five steps, in exactly the right sequence, over and over again.
They will often know how to do every step in the sequence, but if they get the steps out of sequence, they'll end up with the wrong answer.
- Touch typing: learning to touch type is an essential skill for people with dysgraphia. But it is usually more difficult (and requires much more effort) for a dyslexic child to learn to type. Not only are the keys on the keyboard laid out in a random order (which requires rote memorization).
Learning any task that has a series of steps which must be completed in a specific order can be difficult. That's because you must memorize the sequence of steps, and often, there is no logic in the sequence.
These tasks are usually challenging for people with dyslexia:
- Tying shoelaces: this task not only has a series of steps, but many steps have directionality as part of them. Many children do not master this task until they're teenagers.
- Printing letters: the reason they form letters with such unusual beginning and ending points is that they can't remember the sequence of pencil strokes necessary to form that letter. So they start somewhere and then keep going until the letter looks approximately right.
- Doing long division: to successfully complete a long division problem, you must do a series of five steps, in exactly the right sequence, over and over again.
They will often know how to do every step in the sequence, but if they get the steps out of sequence, they'll end up with the wrong answer.
- Touch typing: learning to touch type is an essential skill for people with dysgraphia. But it is usually more difficult (and requires much more effort) for a dyslexic child to learn to type. Not only are the keys on the keyboard laid out in a random order (which requires rote memorization).
