How to Spot Dyslexia
How to Spot Dyslexia: When to “Wait and See”, When to be Concerned, and When to Take Action By Laura Webb, Educational Therapist Have you noticed…
How to Spot Dyslexia: When to “Wait and See”, When to be Concerned, and When to Take Action
By Laura Webb, Educational Therapist
Have you noticed that your student is “guessing” when they are reading along with you in their favorite book?
- Do they fill in the letters at the end of a word that make it a different word, but one that could make sense? However, it is not what the author wrote.
- Do they make up entire words in a sentence?
- Do they switch around words like “and”, “but”, “the”, “it”, “he”, and “they”, but they seem to get the gist of the story?
We want our readers to use the subject they are reading about and the pictures they see to make reading easier for them, AND… we want to support the development of their phonics skills!
Using what is called “context clues” is an important part of reading, BUT when does it become a problem area? They may have missed some key aspects of reading. This is a significant debate currently underway in the reading instruction community.
Phonics skills are key to a good reading foundation.
However, pointed, multisensory phonics instruction is often missing in most classrooms beyond the 2nd grade. The “wait and see” advice is given to parents because there is a SMALL percentage of kids who just “take off” or start to “get it” after around 2nd or 3rd grade. Only about 10% of readers who were struggling previously “get it” and never require further assistance. Would you bet a child’s scholastic well-being on 10%?
If your student can not sound out unknown words or reads in a slow, choppy, breathy way, it is better to get them help sooner rather than later. They may be using “guess reading” as a reading strategy, and it has now become excessive. We want them to integrate sight words (words that do not follow rules) and decoding skills (for words that do follow rules).
They need BOTH.
Certain reading struggles can be present early on in school, but there are things that children may actually outgrow, such as letter and number reversals. They may not be great spellers early on, but they can learn the rules in class and become proficient spellers by 3rd or 4th grade. These are all valid possibilities.
However, if your reader is continuously and consistently struggling, this is when you need to take action.
“Dyslexia is an unexpected difficulty in reading in an individual who has the intelligence to be a much better reader. While people with dyslexia are slow readers, they often, paradoxically, are very fast and creative thinkers with strong reasoning abilities” says Yale University.
The dyslexic mind is an amazing and beautiful thing with MANY strengths, including big-picture 3D thinking, creativity, and the ability to innovate. It is not a bad thing at all, but rather just requires extra attention.
Even though most schools will not test or diagnose Dyslexia until the 3rd grade, early intervention is key. The dyslexic mind MUST HAVE enough repetition and review of phonemic concepts in order to overcome reading struggles and truly become literate. In fact, “they need 20 times the repetition and review of reading rules and concepts.” (Adapted from Howe, Kathryn, 2004, from the Orton Gillingham manual)
If you have questions about any of the indicators I have mentioned above, please reach out, and I can help you sort out what is going on for your student.
