What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is defined as a learning difference that affects skills involved in reading, spelling, and writing. While there is still a lot of information that we have yet to learn about Dyslexia, we do know that it is more common than people realize, with ~20% of our population having characteristics that align with a Dyslexia diagnosis. Dyslexia is a continuum of differences, where although we see similar patterns of strengths and difficulties across individuals, there is variation between how Dyslexia presents itself between individuals who have the diagnosis.
Common Characteristics
- Difficulty with recognizing
letters - Difficulty rhyming
- Difficulty with remembering
letter sounds - Difficulty with recognizing
numbers - Difficulty with picking up early
reading skills - Difficulty with early drawing
and handwriting skills
(letter/shape formation) - Slow to add new vocabulary
- Letter reversals
- Reads slowly with little
fluency - May be highly creative but
dislikes direct academic work - For older children, difficulty
with reading comprehension
due to effort required for
decoding - Genetic history of dyslexia in
the family - Resistance to school
Early Intervention
It is important for Dyslexia to be identified as early as possible, so that the appropriate intervention can be provided. When Dyslexia goes unidentified, children may experience secondary complications such as low self-esteem, negative self talk, or anxiety related to the challenges that they face. When Dyslexia is identified early, adults are able to teach their child about the amazing differences and strengths that their creative brains possess. The focus can be shifted to the child’s areas of strengths and talents while simultaneously providing “direct, explicit, multisensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic, and prescriptive ways” of teaching literacy when reading, writing, and spelling does not come easily to them.
Neurological Wiring
Dyslexia is an often misunderstood difference in a person’s neurological wiring. This neurological difference often results in characteristics that provide people with dyslexia both brilliant success in areas involving creativity, problem solving, visual spatial and pattern recognition, and simultaneously can interfere with a person’s ability to develop accurate and/or fluent word recognition and foundational skills needed to read, spell, and write.
Handout: What is Dyslexia?
