Dyslexia Information Guide

According to the Georgia Department of Education, “Dyslexia is a neurobiological (located physically in the brain) condition that makes reading more difficult. Dyslexia is a language-based condition rather than a vision-based condition. It is a condition that does not go away, but individuals with dyslexia can learn to read well when provided multisensory, dyslexia-specific interventions.  Dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence; instead, it has to do with an individual’s ability to process sound-symbol relationships and language” ( p.8, 2019)

To learn more click here: https://dyslexiaida.org/dyslexia-basics/

• In the area of reading “students with dyslexia struggle with the relationship between letters and sounds. Because of this, they have a hard time decoding, or sounding out, unfamiliar words, and instead often misread them based on an overreliance on their sight-word memory” (GaDOE, p.8, 2019).

•  Due to decoding deficits, students with Dyslexia in turn struggle with their reading fluency which has a direct impact on reading comprehension skills. “Readers with dyslexia also may have difficulties with language comprehension, such as limited vocabulary and a restricted repertoire of easily recognized grammatical patterns” (GaDOE, p.25, 2019).

• Dyslexia also impacts students' writing skills. According to the University of Michigan, “Given that Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability, many dyslexics have great difficulty with writing. We know that dyslexics often have difficulty identifying the sounds (phonemes) in words. Because this skill underlies one's ability to spell, writing the words can be difficult. Likewise, difficulties in word finding can affect one’s ability to think of the words when writing” (2022).

• Students with Dyslexia not only struggle with poor spelling and difficulties encoding words but also “often struggle with the type of organizational skills that are required to plan out a composition, they also can have major difficulties transferring their thoughts into writing”  (Time4Learning, 2022)

• Language based learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. 

• Characterized by difficulties with word recognition, poor spelling and the decoding process

• Nothing to do with Intelligence 

• Characterized by difficulties with word recognition, poor spelling and the decoding process

• Language based not vision based

• Individuals can learn to read with specific multisensory interventions

• Some symptoms may mask 

• Characteristics of dyslexia - inattention, behavioral and emotional issues or gifted 

• Not caused by poor instructors or students who are not trying

• Common characteristics but looks different in everyone (age, individuals foundational reading skill development)

• Struggle making the connection of letters and sounds in return makes it hard to decode or sound out new words