Identifying and living with Dyslexia

Dyslexia impacts five to 10 percent of the population. If a person has dyslexia, it is present all of their life. While the cause of dyslexia is unknown, it is known that dyslexia results from a dysfunction of one or more of the neurologic processes in the brain.

Dyslexia is characterized by frequent inaccuracies in word recognition, a lack of fluency in word recognition, and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. According to educational experts at Tampa Day School – a K – 8th-grade college-prep private school providing educational services to children with dyslexia, as well as ADHD, anxiety and other learning differences – dyslexia does not simply involve having difficulty with reading. Therefore, it must be distinguished from other causes for difficulties in learning how to read, such as hearing difficulties, impaired vision or inadequate instruction.

The good news is that all children with dyslexia can learn to read. However, they may learn to read in very different ways. At Tampa Day School, teachers determine what the cause of the reading difficulty is and then utilize an approach that is specifically tailored to each child’s learning style.

If you are concerned that your child may have dyslexia, Tampa Day School provides the following list of symptoms that most children with dyslexia will experience:

Pre-school age children

• Difficulty learning rhymes
• Slow with naming colors, objects, etc.
• Difficulty learning and remembering the alphabet
• Difficulty recognizing letters and remembering their names
• Difficulty telling you what letter or sound is at the beginning of a word
• Difficulty associating the appropriate sound with a letter

Early elementary school-age children

• Letter reversals and word reversals
• Trouble appreciating rhyming, sound or word games
• Confusion with words that are similar
• Mispronunciations
• Confusing sounds in multi-syllable words
• Difficulty distinguishing syllables in words
• Difficulty segmenting words into individual sounds
• Difficulty naming pictures of object
• Confusion with before/after, right/left, over/under and contrasting concepts

Older elementary school-age children

• Trouble with manipulating sounds in words
• Trouble appreciating rhyming, sound or word games
• Difficulty finding the right words when speaking
• Slow or inaccurate reading; trouble sounding out words
• Reading word by word
• Very poor spelling
• Difficulty identifying the accurate meaning of words
• Difficulty with written expression

“Reading is so much more than a subject in school,” said Lois Delaney, head of school at Tampa Day School. “When we’ve helped a child to read who’s been struggling, there’s nothing more rewarding than when a mom or dad comes to us with tears in their eyes and says, ‘My son read a book to me for the first time last night!’.”