Learning to Soar
Dyslexia Support
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Potential Dyslexia Symptoms
Every person is different, so no one will have every symptom, however a person with dyslexia will have many. Dyslexia symptoms can range from mild to severe and the effects on individuals can vary greatly.
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Professional screeners will look for many different factors when performing an analysis of an individual. Testers look for a “constellation” or cluster of symptoms in the following areas:
Susan Barton Discusses Dyslexia and Its Symptoms
Reading Difficulties
Spelling Difficulties
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Can read a word on one page, but won't recognize it on the next.
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Knows phonics, but can't—or won't—sound out an unknown word.
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Slow, labored, inaccurate reading of single words in isolation.(when there is no story line or pictures to provide clues)
- Say a word that has the same first and last letters, and the same shape. (such as house-horse or beach bench)​
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Insert or leave out letters. (such as could–cold or star–stair)
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Say a word that has the same letters, but different sequence.
(such as who–how, lots–lost, saw–was, or girl–grill) -
When reading aloud, reads in a slow, choppy cadence, and often ignores punctuation.
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Becomes visibly tired after reading for only a short time.
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Reading comprehension may be low due to spending so much energy trying to figure out the words.
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Listening comprehension is usually significantly higher than reading comprehension.
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Directionality confusion shows up when reading and when writing.
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b–d, (left-right) confusion is a classic warning sign
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b–p, n–u, or m–w (up - down) confusion
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Substitutes similar-looking words, even if it changes the meaning.
(such as sunrise for surprise, house for horse, while for white, wanting for walking.) -
When reading a story or a sentence, substitutes a word that means the same thing but doesn't look at all similar (such as trip for journey, fast for speed, or cry for weep.)
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Misreads, omits, or even adds small function words (such as an, a, from, the, to, were, are, of)
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Omits or changes suffixes (such as need for needed, talks for talking, or late for lately)
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Spelling is far worse than reading.
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Utilize inventive spelling.
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Have extreme difficulty with vowel sounds, and often leave them out.
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With enormous effort, may be able to “memorize” Monday's spelling list long enough to pass Friday's spelling test, but can't spell those very same words two hours later.
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Continually misspells high frequency sight words
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Misspells even when copying something from the board or from a book.
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Written work shows signs of spelling uncertainty—numerous erasures, cross outs, etc.
Hand Writing Difficulties (Dysgraphia)
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Unusual pencil grip, often with the thumb on top of the fingers.
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Young children will often put their head down on the desk to watch the tip of the pencil as they write.
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The pencil is gripped so tightly that the hand cramps. Will frequently put the pencil down and shake out his/her hand.
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Writing is a slow, labored, non-automatic chore.
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Writes letters with unusual starting and ending points.
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Has great difficulty getting letters to “sit” on the horizontal lines.
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Copying off of the board is slow, painful, and tedious.
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Unusual spatial organization of the page. Words may be widely spaced or tightly pushed together. Margins are often ignored.
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Has an unusually difficult time learning cursive writing, and shows chronic confusion about similarly-formed cursive letters such as f and b, m and n, w and u. They will also have difficulty remembering how to form capital cursive letters.
Challenges with Written Work
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Avoids writing whenever possible.
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Writes everything as one very long sentence.
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Does not understand that a sentence has to start with a capital letter and end with punctuation.
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Is confused about what is a complete sentence versus a fragment.
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Misspells many words—even though they often use only very simple one-syllable words that they are “sure” they know how to spell.
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Takes an unusually long time to write, due to dysgraphia.
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Has nearly illegible handwriting, due to dysgraphia.
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Uses space poorly on the page; odd spacing between words, may ignore margins, sentences tightly packed into one section of the page instead of being evenly spread out.
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Does not notice their errors when “proofreading.” They will read back what they wanted to say, not what is actually on the page.
Directionality Issues
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Left–Right confusion.
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Often starts math problems on the wrong side, or want to carry a number the wrong way.
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Up–Down confusion.
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Confusion about directionality words:
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First–last, before–after, next–previous, over–under, yesterday–tomorrow (directionality in time)
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North, South, East, West confusion.
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Often have difficulty reading or understanding maps.
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Telling time on a clock.
Issues with Sequencing Tasks
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Learning tasks that has a series of steps which must be completed in a specific order can be difficult.
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These tasks are usually challenging for people with dyslexia:
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Tying shoelaces
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Printing letters
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Doing long division
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Touch typing
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Inability to memorize lists, especially those without obvious meaning
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Challenges with Multiplication tables.
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Difficulty with Days of the week or months of the year in order.
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Difficulty with Science facts
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Difficulty with History facts
Inability to Memorize Facts
Math Challenges
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People with dyslexia are often gifted in math. Their three-dimensional visualization skills help them “see” math concepts more quickly and clearly than non-dyslexic people. Unfortunately, difficulties in directionality, rote memorization, reading, and sequencing can make the following math tasks so difficult that their math gifts are never discovered.
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Memorizing addition and subtraction facts.
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Memorizing multiplication tables.
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Remembering the sequence of steps in long division.
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Reading word problems.
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Copying an answer from one spot to a different spot.
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Starting a math problem on the wrong side.
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Showing their work: They often “see” math in their head, so showing their work is almost impossible.
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Doing math rapidly.
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They often excel at higher levels of math, such as algebra, geometry, and calculus
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Organizational Difficulties
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Extremely Messy Bedrooms
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Difficulty managing school materials
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Messy backpacks
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Difficulty keeping track of homework
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Difficulty managing calendars, notebooks and agendas.