Dear Sir

Heardy I aply for any posision in your cumpany. I am ninteen years of age and have now cumpleted grabe ten. I am interristed in people and a motivateb person. I dont have any work ecsperience dut I am wiling to lern.

Yours faitfuly,

George White

When reading the above letter, you might think it was written by someone with low intelligence. You would be mistaken. This person’s intelligence is above average, but he struggles severely with reading and spelling. He has dyslexia.

Many children and adults with dyslexia appear far brighter verbally than their written work suggests. Parents often say things like:

“He can explain it perfectly, but he cannot read it.”
“She studies for hours but remembers very little.”
“His spelling is unbelievable for such a clever child.”

The term dyslexia was introduced in 1884 by the German ophthalmologist Rudolf Berlin. He derived it from the Greek words dys, meaning difficult, and lexis, meaning word. Berlin used the term to describe a specific reading disturbance in individuals who showed no obvious visual impairment or intellectual disability. In later publications, Berlin referred to dyslexia as “word blindness” and described patients who had complete command of spoken language but had lost the ability to read following brain injury.

Over time, however, the term evolved and is now commonly used to describe developmental reading difficulties in children and adults that affect accurate and fluent reading, spelling, decoding, and written language skills. Modern brain imaging studies have shown that dyslexia is neurological in origin and linked to differences in the way the brain processes written language.

Although dyslexia is most commonly associated with severe reading difficulties, there is ongoing debate about its exact definition and distinguishing features from other reading problems. Instead of becoming trapped in debates, it is often more useful for parents and teachers to recognise the symptoms and warning signs.

1. Weaknesses in phonological processing

Phonological processing refers to the use of speech sounds to process spoken and written language. Difficulties in this area are among the most common signs of dyslexia.

Research by neuroscientist Dr Sally Shaywitz has shown that dyslexia is strongly associated with weaknesses in the phonological component of language. In simple terms, many individuals with dyslexia struggle to process and manipulate the sounds within words efficiently.

Symptoms that may indicate weaknesses in phonological processing include:

• Difficulty decoding words, which involves matching letters to sounds.
• Inability to rapidly retrieve letter sounds while analysing words, so that the beginning of the word is already forgotten by the time the last letter is retrieved.
• Trouble blending individual sounds into words. They may sound out letters correctly but still say the wrong word. For example, a child may sound out the letters c-a-t correctly but then say “cold.”
• Vowel sounds may be particularly troublesome.
• Difficulty separating words into individual sounds or syllables.

Modern research has consistently shown that phonological awareness is one of the strongest predictors of later reading success. Weaknesses in this area are therefore important warning signs that should not be ignored.

2. Weaknesses in RAN and word retrieval

Many learners with dyslexia struggle with rapid automatised naming (RAN) — the speed at which familiar information, such as letters, numbers, colours, objects, or words, can be retrieved from long-term memory.

Research has shown that weaknesses in RAN are strongly associated with slow, effortful reading and poor reading fluency. Even when a child knows the correct answer, retrieving it quickly may remain difficult.

Symptoms that may indicate weaknesses in RAN include:

• Slow naming of letters, numbers, colours, or objects.
• Slow, hesitant reading despite adequate decoding ability.
• Difficulty retrieving familiar words during conversation. Learners may say, “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” but are unable to retrieve the correct word quickly.

3. Directional confusion

Directional confusion may take several forms, from being uncertain of left and right to being unable to read a map accurately, says Dr Beve Hornsby in her book Overcoming Dyslexia. A child should generally know left and right by age five and be able to distinguish another person’s left and right by age seven.

Directional confusion affects other concepts as well, such as up and down, top and bottom, compass directions, keeping one’s place while playing games, and copying the gym teacher’s movements when facing them. Hornsby states that as many as eight out of ten severely dyslexic children experience directional confusion. The percentage is lower in those with milder forms of dyslexia.

Directional confusion contributes to reversals of letters, words, or numbers, as well as so-called mirror writing.

The following symptoms may indicate directional confusion:

• Reversing letters such as b and d, or p and q, either when reading or writing.
• Inverting letters, reading or writing n as u, m as w, d as q, p as b, f as t.
• Reading or writing words such as no for on, rat for tar, won for now, saw for was.
• Reading or writing 17 for 71.
• Mirror-writing letters, numbers, or words.

4. Sequencing difficulties

Learners with dyslexia have trouble with sequencing, i.e., perceiving and remembering information in the correct order. Naturally, this affects their ability to read and spell correctly. After all, every word consists of letters arranged in a specific sequence. In order to read, one has to perceive the letters in sequence and remember which word is represented by that sequence of letters. By simply changing the sequence of the letters in a word, it can become mean or amen.

The following are a few dyslexia symptoms that may indicate sequencing difficulties:

• Putting letters in the wrong order and reading felt as left, act as cat, reserve as reverse, and expect as except.
• Putting syllables in the wrong order, reading animal as ‘aminal,’ enemy as ‘emeny.’
• Putting words in the wrong order, reading are there for there are.
• Writing letters in the wrong order, spelling Simon as ‘Siomn,’ time as ‘tiem,’ and child as ‘chidl.’
• Omitting letters, i.e., reading or writing cat for cart, wet for went, sing for string.

Learners with dyslexia may also have difficulty remembering the order of the alphabet and sequences of numbers, for example, telephone numbers, the months of the year, the seasons, and the sequence of daily events. Younger children may also find it difficult to remember the days of the week. Some cannot repeat longer words aloud without getting the syllables in the wrong order, such as preliminary and statistical.

Learners with dyslexia may also struggle to follow multi-step instructions or remember information in the correct order. For example, a teacher may say:

“Take out your workbook, open to page 15, underline the heading, and answer questions 1–5.”

By the time the learner reaches the third instruction, they may have already forgotten the first.

5. Difficulties with the little words

A frequent comment made by parents of children struggling with their reading is, “He is so careless; he gets the big difficult words but keeps making silly mistakes on all the little ones.” Certainly, the poor reader gets stuck on difficult words, but many do seem to make things worse by making mistakes on simple words they should be able to manage—like ‘if,’ ‘to,’ and ‘and.’

The following are indications of problems with the little words:

• Misreads little words, such as a for and, the for a, from for for, then for there, were for with.
• Omits or reads twice little words like the, and, but, in.
• Adds little words which do not appear in the text.

It is important to note that this is extremely common and not a sign that a child is careless or lazy.

6. Late talking

Research has revealed a dramatic link between the abnormal development of spoken language and learning disabilities such as dyslexia. The following are just a few examples:

• A 1970 study by Dr Renate Valtin of Germany, based on one hundred pairs of dyslexic and normal children, found indications of backwardness in speech development and a greater frequency of speech disturbances among dyslexic than among normal children.

• According to Dr Beve Hornsby, author of Overcoming Dyslexia, about 60 percent of children with dyslexia were late talkers.

• In her book Learning Disabilities, author Janet Lerner states, “Language problems of one form or another are the underlying basis for many learning disabilities. Oral language disorders include poor phonological awareness, delayed speech, disorders of grammar or syntax, deficiencies in vocabulary acquisition, and poor understanding of oral language.”

In most cases, a baby should understand simple words and commands from nine months. From around a year, they should be saying their first words. By two, they should have a vocabulary of up to 200 words and use simple two-word phrases such as “drink milk.” By three, they should have a vocabulary of up to 900 words and be using complete sentences with no words omitted. They may still mix up consonants, but their speech should be understandable to strangers. By four, they should be fully able to talk, although they may still make grammatical errors.

If a child talks immaturely or makes unexpected grammatical errors in their speech when they are five, this should alert the parents to probable later reading problems. The parents should immediately take steps to improve the child’s language.

7. Difficulties with handwriting

Some dyslexics suffer from poor handwriting skills. The word dysgraphia is often used to describe a difficulty in this area and is characterised by the following symptoms:

• Generally illegible writing.
• Letter inconsistencies.
• Mixture of upper/lower case letters or print/cursive letters.
• Irregular letter sizes and shapes.
• Unfinished letters.
• Struggle to use writing as a communicative tool.

8. Difficulties with maths

The language of mathematics is often poorly understood by people with dyslexia up until age twelve—and even beyond. The word dyscalculia is often used to refer to this problem.

Difficulties with maths can be identified by the following symptoms:

• The dyslexic may have problems with numbers and calculations involving adding, subtracting, and time tables.
• They may be confused by similar-looking mathematical signs: + and ×; –, ÷ and =; < (less than) and > (greater than).
• They may not grasp that the words’ difference’, ‘reduction,’ and ‘minus’ all suggest ‘subtraction.’
• They may understand the term ‘adding’, yet be thrown if asked to ‘find the total.’
• The person with dyslexia may reverse numbers and read or write 17 for 71.
• They may transpose numbers, i.e., 752 – 572.
• They may have difficulty with mental arithmetic.
• They may have a problem with telling the time.

9. Bizarre reading and spelling

Bizarre reading or spelling is a severe form of dyslexia and is characterised by the following symptoms:

• Guesses wildly at words regardless of whether they make sense or not. In her book Overcoming Dyslexia, Dr Beve Hornsby uses the following example to illustrate how some dyslexics guess wildly at words: “Now the children were discussing their new play. ‘We need a brave person for the mountain rescue,’ explained the boy,” was read as “How the children were designing their new play. ‘We need a brave man of the mount chishimse,’ ixslating the boy.”

• Spells bizarrely, for example, substance spelled ‘sepedns,’ last spelled ‘lenaka,’ about spelled ‘chehat,’ may spelled ‘mook,’ did spelled ‘don,’ and to spelled ‘anianiwe.’

Other dyslexia symptoms

• Makes up a story based on the illustrations, which bears no relation to the text.
• Reads very slowly and hesitantly.
• Loses orientation on a line or page while reading, missing lines or reading previously-read lines again.
• Reads aloud hesitantly, word by word, monotonously.
• Tries to sound the word’s letters but cannot say the correct word. For example, sounds the letters’ c-a-t’ but then says cold.
• Mispronounces words or puts stress on the wrong syllables.
• Reads only in the present tense, although the text is in the past.
• Foreshortens words, for example, ‘portion’ for proportion.
• Substitutes another word of similar meaning, for example, dog for pup.
• Omits prefixes, omits suffixes, or adds suffixes.
• Reads with poor comprehension.
• Remembers little of what they read.
• Spells words as they sound, for example, ‘rite’ for right.
• Cannot write or match the appropriate letter when given the sound.
• Often ignores punctuation. They may omit full stops or commas and fail to see the need for capital letters.
• Poor at copying from the board.
• Has trouble attaching names to things and people.

Edublox programs effectively overcome dyslexia symptoms by addressing the underlying shortcomings that interfere with academic performance.

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