• Trouble learning common nursery rhymes, such as “Jack and Jill”

• Difficulty learning (and remembering) the names of letters in the alphabet

• Seems unable to recognize letters in his/her own name

• Mispronounces familiar words; persistent “baby talk”

• Doesn’t recognize rhyming patterns like cat, bat, rat

• A family history of reading and/or spelling difficulties (dyslexia often runs in families)

(Shaywitz 122)

Difficulties

• Reading errors that show no connection to the sounds of the letters on the page

• Does not understand that words come apart

• A history of reading problems in parents or siblings

• Cannot sound out even simple words like cat, map, nap

• Does not associate letters with sounds, such as the letter b with the “b” sound

Strengths

• Curiosity

• Great imagination

• Talent for building models

• Excellent comprehension of stories read or told to him

(Shaywitz, 2004)

Reading

• Very slow in acquiring reading skills. Reading is slow and awkward

• Trouble reading unfamiliar words, often making wild guesses because he cannot sound out the word

• Doesn’t seem to have a strategy for reading new words

• Avoids reading out loud

Speaking

• Pauses, hesitates, and/or uses lots of “um’s” when speaking

• Confuses words that sound alike, such as saying “tornado” for “volcano,” substituting “lotion” for “ocean”

• Seems to need extra time to respond to questions

School and Life

• Struggles to finish tests on time

• Extreme difficulty learning a foreign language

• Poor spelling

• Messy handwriting

Strengths

• Excellent thinking skills: conceptualization, reasoning, imagination, abstraction

• Ability to get the “big picture”

• Excels in areas not dependent on reading, such as math, computers and visual arts, or in more conceptual (versus fact-driven) subjects, including philosophy, biology, social studies, neuroscience and creative writing

(Shaywitz, 2004)

• Identification of Dyslexia is completed through a formal evaluation process completed by a school psychologists, clinical psychologists or pediatric neuropsychologists.

• Tests for dyslexia look at a number of skills related to reading, such as decoding, phonological awareness and comprehension.

(Understood, 2018)