About Dyslexia
Dyslexia is defined by Rose (2009) as a “learning difficulty stemming from weak phonological processing, which primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent reading and writing”.
The word ‘dyslexia’ comes from the Greek and means ‘difficulty with words’. Dyslexia covers a wide range of difficulties in acquiring the skills needed to read, write and spell. Dyslexia occurs independently of intelligence and is distinctive to each individual, with each person having differing profiles of strengths and weaknesses.
Often, dyslexic people may have difficulty processing and remembering information they see and hear. They may appear to be disorganised and can find memorising facts a struggle.
Dyslexia is an ongoing difficulty that can present daily challenges. However, with early identification and a good understanding of each individual’s strengths and weaknesses, strategies can be developed to improve reading and writing skills and prevent dyslexia being a barrier to achievement.
What are the signs of dyslexia?
Parents are usually not aware of any signs of dyslexia until their child starts school and more attention is focused on reading, writing and spelling.
A person with dyslexia may:
- read and write slowly and hesitantly;
- confuse the order of letters in words when reading and/or writing;
- have poor phonological knowledge;
- have weak or inconsistent spelling, sometimes spelling the same word in different ways in the same piece of work;
- understand information when told verbally, but have difficulty with information that’s written down;
- find it hard to carry out a sequence of instructions;
- have a poor standard of written work compared with oral ability;
- be confused by letters which look similar, such as b/d, p/g, p/q, n/u, m/w;
- find it difficult to blend letters together for reading;
- miss out words when reading, fail to recognise familiar words or add extra words’
- find it difficult to identify the most important points from a passage;
- struggle to remember things in a sequential order, eg tables, days of the week, months of the year, the alphabet;
- appear to have poor concentration;
- lack confidence in their own abilities, often suffering from low self esteem.
A child who has a cluster of these difficulties together may be dyslexic. However, people with dyslexia often have good skills in other areas, such as creative thinking and problem solving.
Useful links
“Being dyslexic can actually help in the outside world. I see some things clearer than other people do because I have to simplify things to help me and that has helped others”
Richard Branson