As you read the following list of dyslexia symptoms, you may discover that you have one or two of these characteristics. This does not mean you are dyslexic. In fact, most people exhibit some of the characteristics listed below.
However, individuals with dyslexia find they have several of these characteristics persisting over time and interfere with their day-to-day life. Because the impact of dyslexia varies from individual to individual, the severity of the symptoms below will also vary. The International Dyslexia Associationreports that between 3% and 6% of all school-aged children are believed to have Dyslexia and between 15% – 20% of the general population have some dyslexia symptoms.
Dyslexia Symptoms – Preschool
- Late learning to talk
- Difficulty pronouncing words
- Difficulty acquiring vocabulary or using age appropriate grammar
- Difficulty following simple one-step directions
- Confusion with over/under, right/left, beginning/middle/end, etc.
- Difficulty learning the nursery rhymes, or songs
Dyslexia Symptoms – PreK, Kindergarten and First Grade
- Difficulty learning the alphabet—even the letters in his/her name
- Difficulty with word retrieval
- Difficulty naming colors, common objects in the child’s environment, simple shapes and letters rapidly, in a sequence—Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN)
- Difficulty switching between naming colors, objects, shapes, and numbers rapidly, in a sequence –Rapid Automatic Switching (RAS)
Dyslexia Symptoms – Reading
- Difficulty learning to read –even the simplest words: dog, cat, dad, mom
- Difficulty identifying or generating rhyming words, counting the number of words in a spoken sentence, or counting syllables in words spoken (phonological awareness)
- Difficulty with hearing and manipulating individual sounds in words (phonemic awareness)
/c/ /a/ /t/, /b/ /a/ /t/ - Difficulty distinguishing different sounds in words (phonological processing)
/sh/ /u/ /t/ - Difficulty in learning the sounds of letters (phonics)
- Slow, laborious decoding of words and of oral reading
- Difficulty remembering names of letters in or out of sequence or recalling the shapes of letters
- Transposing the order of letters when reading or spelling
- Misreading or omitting common short words: on, no; saw, was; an, and;
- “Stumbles,” will even skip longer words
- Comprehension during oral or silent reading is normally poor due to rate of reading and/or number of words read incorrectly
Dyslexia Symptoms – Writing
- Difficulty putting ideas on paper in a coherent manner
- Many spelling mistakes—often spelling the same word different ways within the same assignment
- May do well on weekly spelling tests due to rote memorization, but may have many spelling mistakes in daily work including those spelled correctly on a previous spelling test
- Proofreading is difficult—even involving the simplest skills, such as, capitalization and punctuation
- Weak memory for lists, directions, or facts
- Needs to see, hear and manipulate (when possible) concepts many times to gain ownership
- Downward trend in achievement test scores or overall school performance when left undiagnosed and treated
The above dyslexia symptoms are not all inclusive.