Our kids have returned to school for another year. How are you feeling? Confident? Knot in your stomach? My stomach knot and I are old friends.
We often feel the knot in our stomach before our brain will acknowledge the extent of our child’s literacy struggles. Reading struggles tend to present themselves early. Perhaps subtly, but always early.
Dyslexia is neurobiological and highly heritable. Dyslexia presents along a spectrum of mild to severe. If learning to read was (or is) difficult for you, your spouse or anyone in your child’s family this history is important! It’s often the catalyst for parents to seek out a diagnosis or remediation/intervention for reading.
Dyslexia isn’t reading letter backwards, it’s not visual at all. It’s a phonological processing disorder. The meaningful sounds of words enter the brain, but don’t quite match up to letters. This distinction matters because the signs of dyslexia (in fact many language-processing disorders) are heard long before reading struggles appear, if you know what you’re listening for.
One of the biggest worries of a parent is that the impairment is the child’s intelligence. This is a fallacy. There is no correlation between dyslexia and intelligence, and more than 95% of students can learn to read with proper instruction.
Is it dyslexia (or a language-based LD)?
Preschool to Kindergarten
- Difficulty noticing words rhyme
- Struggle connecting letters to letter sounds, even with repeated practice
- Difficulty recognizing letters in their own name, even with repeated practice
Grades 1-2
- Slow, effortful, or “sounding out” reading that doesn’t get fluent, even with repeated practice
- Avoids reading, or strong resistance to reading time
- Guessing based on the first letter or the picture, even with repeated practice
- Wildy charming and charismatic, distracting from the actual job of reading
Grade 3 and Beyond
- A significant gap between oral and reading ability
- Strong comprehension when a book is read to him, but a significant struggle when reading independently
- Persistent spelling difficulties, even with repeated practice
Do you see any of these patterns in your child? Did the knot in your stomach just return? If so, then it’s worth exploring. The most important thing to know is that a formal diagnosis is not required to take the next step. Early intervention with a professional trained in the science of reading and linguistics, not a specific program, is key to building foundational skills.
The reading science is very clear; The gap in reading, vocabulary development, comprehension and writing will continue to broaden with each passing year with devasting impacts for the reader. The earlier a child receives intervention the faster remediation happens and sticks!
Dyslexia is a nuisance, but it does not need to be a life sentence.
Literally Fun Literacy Academy | 226-343-8485 | www.literallyfunliteracy.ca
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