Does Your Child Have Dyslexia?
Dyslexia tends to remain hidden. Children know they are different from friends who read easily. So dyslexic kids do their best to hide those differences.
There are some common clues, however, that parents and teachers can use to see if a child has dyslexia.
She or he:
- Avoids reading
- Refuses to read.
- Reverses letters, words, and numbers.
- Claims a book or story isn’t formatted perfectly so they shouldn’t have to read it.
- Takes a relatively long time to read a small amount of text.
- Finds correctly pronouncing words to be tough.
- Misspells what seems like an unusually large number of words.
- Struggles with distinguishing left from right.
- Has difficulty with correctly using the words from/to, inside/outside, or up/down.
- Finds it hard to follow directions with more than one step
- Has problems with memorization (dyslexia impacts short-term memory).
- Tends to not answer a question directly. Instead, he or she may answer another question that was not the question that was asked.
- Is challenged by the concept of time. This includes being habitually late for appointments, school, and events.
- Gives long, creative explanations when asked to explain their difficulty in reading.
- Stumbles when trying to rhyme words
- Has trouble with math. Yes, dyslexia is associated with reading, but many dyslexics also find basic math a challenge.
- Shows an attitude of being owed a perfect definition of a task or request. Without that ideal structure, they say they shouldn’t have to do the work or solve the problem.
- Demonstrates strong anger or intense frustration when any of the above is brought up.
Please note that in no way does this list contain all indications of dyslexia. Each dyslexic person is unique and may provide a different number and combination of clues. Not all dyslexics will display all these indications.
