Know The Signs:
Preschool years
Signs that a young child may be at risk of dyslexia:
- Delay in language development and or family history of speech/language disorder
- Slow to learn new words
- Problems forming words correctly, such as reversing sounds in words or confusing words that sound alike
- Problems remembering or naming letters, numbers and colors, or other items in categories
- Difficulty learning nursery rhymes or naming words that rhyme
School Age Children
Once your child is in school, dyslexia symptoms may become more apparent, including:
- Reading far below the expected level for age
- Problems processing and understanding what is heard especially as sentences get longer and more complex
- Difficulty finding the right word or forming answers to questions
- Problems remembering the order of events or stories
- Difficulty seeing (and occasionally hearing) similarities and differences in letters and words
- Inability to sound out the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word and break up syllables
- Difficulty spelling
- Spending an unusually long time completing tasks that involve reading or writing
- Avoiding activities that involve reading
Teens and adults
Dyslexia signs in teens and adults are similar to those in children. Common dyslexia symptoms in teens and adults include:
- Difficulty reading, including reading aloud
- Slow and labor-intensive reading and writing
- Problems spelling
- Avoiding activities that involve reading
- Mispronouncing names or words, or problems retrieving words
- Spending a longer than typical amount of time completing tasks that involve reading or writing
- Difficulty summarizing or retelling a story orally or in writing
- Difficulty doing math word problems and/or multi step calculation
