by Olivia Bethea

Created on: January 10, 2009

Dyslexia is an overused term which is frequently used as a catch all to categorize children with reading and spelling difficulties. To many an uninformed person, dyslexia is reduced to the exhibition of one primary trait, the tendency to see or spell words backwards. While letter reversal is a common occurrence among dyslexics, the scope of this disorder expands far beyond the mere reversal of letters.

Dyslexia Defined

In truth, dyslexia is a specific disorder with a narrow definition. The research definition used by the National Institute of Health describes dyslexia as a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin and characterized by the distinct lack of accurate and fluent word recognition often accompanied by subpar spelling and decoding skills. The International Dyslexia Society describes dyslexia as a neurologically-based disorder which varies in degree of severity and interferes with the acquisition and processing of language.

Is My Child Dyslexic?

Determining that a child is indeed dyslexic can be a long and confusing journey for parents. Dyslexics typically read at levels significantly lower than expected despite possessing average to above average intelligence. However, no two dyslexics are exactly alike nor do they all display the same symptoms. Professionals who test for this disorder usually administer a varied battery of tests with their focus attuned to observing a cluster of specific symptoms. Following are some common symptoms which might alert parents to the possibility that their child struggles with dyslexia.

Despite prior phonics instruction the child is unable or unwilling to sound out a word.

The child reads in a slow and labored manner with frequent mispronunciations.

The child has the tendency to ignore punctuation and to ignore words that are there while conversely inserting words that are not.

The child has spelling skills that are much worse than their reading ability.

The child continually misspells high frequency sight words.

The child has low reading comprehension as a result of spending so much time trying to figure out unknown words.

The child substitutes similar looking words, i.e "from" for "form" or "through" for "though".

This list is by no means exhaustive and enumerates only a few of the most common manifestations of dyslexia. If, as a parent, you recognize that your child exhibits several of these classic symptoms and also struggles with reading, is a poor speller, has difficulty sounding out unknown words, and grows

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