Some gifted/“stealth dyslexic” readers can look like the best reader in their class because their comprehension is so strong and their vocabulary so mature that they can eloquently describe their thoughts on what they’ve read, despite underlying inefficiencies/deficits in the mechanics of reading. Gifted kids can compensate, and dyslexic students can often get the “gist” of what they read.
According to Minnesota Neuropsychology, 2021 the following are things to watch out for that can be hints or clues that something might be worth looking into.
When reading silently, the student quickly moves through passages and easily gets “the gist,” can extrapolate and make inferences, but sometimes misses some key details.
When reading aloud, either/or
The pace feels a bit “hurried” (qualitatively different from an expert/fluent reader), but often stumbles over words, misreads words, or skips small words such as “the” “that” “so.” or
The pace is slow and laborious, difficulty sounding out grade-level words
Struggles with decoding non-words. These kids often easily develop a huge repertoire of sight words, thanks to their strong vocabulary and strong verbal memory, so the reading of familiar words often appears/is fluent. Often, the decoding difficulties can still be seen/heard for non-words.
Strongly prefers reading silently and avoids reading aloud in front of others. Also prefers being read to or audiobooks or graphic novels.
Often, spelling and written composition are important clues for an underlying problem when Dyslexia is compensated/not obvious. An otherwise strong reader/strong student who has poor spelling very often (almost always) has some level of underlying deficit in phonological processing and automatic symbol (letter) processing.
Laborious and/or illegible penmanship and disorganized letter/word spacing. Not grasping/implementing mechanics of writing such as capitalization, punctuation, paragraphs.
Avoidance of writing despite very strong verbal expression. For example, the student could give an eloquent spontaneous speech, but struggles to write a few sentences on the same topic.
“Learned helplessness” manifesting as frustration, anxiety, giving up quickly, motor restlessness, silly behavior, avoidance of reading/writing tasks.
Commonly recommended accommodations within the classroom and/or within the gifted instruction setting for gifted students with dyslexia:
Classroom Approaches:
Extended time
Audiobooks with the text (important for the student to have text with the audiobook to follow along)
Access to speech-to-text software
Graphic novels for leisure reading
Enrichment or Tier Two Approaches:
2-pronged, parallel approach of accommodation for both the weakness and the access to enrichment/content that is appropriate for his/her intellectual ability.
Example of what this might look like in practice:
A fourth-grader has been identified with characteristics of dyslexia because decoding is challenging. The student needs intervention in phonics and decoding but can read and comprehend at the 9th-grade level. It is important that the student’s teachers make adjustments in the reading level/range of the text or create scaffolded supports to access the text, like additional time, graphic organizer, audio supports, etc. to support their intervention while challenging their advanced comprehension abilities.
This accommodation is critical for different reasons. It decreases behaviors associated with learned helplessness, eliminates the student from feeling like he/she is faking it while reading aloud, and also helps students avoid the reinforcement of unhelpful habits like guessing or skimming while missing important details.
Spelling and Writing Individualized Adjusted Expectations:
If the 4th Grade student is spelling at a 2nd Grade level, adjust his/her spelling lists to a 2nd Grade level, starting with a list you know he/she will get 100% correct. Hang out here for a while. Then, slowly add about 3-4 next-level words to the list. Stay in this in-between zone (some easy, some hard) until the student has mastered the new 3-4 words. Then slowly begin adding more.
Spelling is important for reading development, so it is important to continue spelling/writing instruction and support even if it is difficult. It is equally important to meet them at their current level of mastery in order to keep them engaged.