As a dyslexia specialist, I get asked a lot of questions about dyslexia.  It seems that people have many misconceptions about it, so in this blog post I am going to clarify some things.

​Q:  Is dyslexia where people write letters and numbers backward?

​A: No.  It is typical in the early childhood years (pre-kindergarten through second grade) for children to reverse letters and sometimes numbers while learning to read and write.  Letter and number reversals are not necessarily a sign of dyslexia; however, many people who are dyslexic tend to reverse letters and numbers beyond the early childhood years. 

 Many people with dyslexia have difficulty with rapid-letter naming, which is where a page full of random letters are printed, and the person tries to name the letters as quickly as possible.  This type of activity is often one component of a screening for dyslexia.

Q: Can dyslexia be outgrown?

A:  Studies have shown that dyslexia persists into adulthood.  Phonological awareness can be taught and reading interventions can be implemented via a multisensory approach, and while dyslexic readers can learn to read accurately, it may be at a slower rate and not with automaticity.

Q:  Are people with dyslexia intellectually gifted?

A: Dyslexia can occur in people of all intelligence levels.  Many people with dyslexia compensate by strengthening other skills such as interpersonal skills, critical thinking, problem-solving, and reasoning.

Q:  Are people with dyslexia lazy?

A: Not at all.  A lack of motivation for reading and writing may be augmented in a person with dyslexia because it is such a struggle to read and write.  If a task is very difficult, and one is not getting the tools one needs to build skills to conquer that task, then one would most likely get discouraged and not continue with the effort of completing that task.

Q: Are more boys than girls dyslexic?

A: According to Louisa Cook Moats and Karen E. Dakin (Basic Facts About Dyslexia), boys are affected somewhat more than girls, but not by an overwhelming amount.  It may seem that many more boys than girls are dyslexic because boys are more likely than girls to misbehave in class, thereby getting the teacher’s attention.  Unfortunately, girls who may be having difficulty reading are more likely to stay quiet.

Q:  Does dyslexia run in families?

A:  It does seem to be hereditary.  Often, if a student is referred in school for reading issues, it is often asked in one or both parents has or had reading problems.
 
I hope this cleared up any confusion about dyslexia: what it is, and what it isn’t.  If you have any other questions about it, feel free to ask it in the comments, or write me an email.
 
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If you’re my age or older, you probably remember actually using a typewriter or word processor to type up reports for school.  You didn’t have a choice as to which font to use.  Now, however, there are a plethora of fonts available.  A problem with having so many choices is that some fonts just aren’t very readable, especially for people with reading disabilities.

 If you are interested to see what it might be like to have dyslexia, Daniel Britton, a graphic designer, took the Helvetica font and recreated it to mimic what a dyslexic person may feel when trying to read. The typeface he created is NOT what a dyslexic truly sees; this exercise is simply to mimic the feelings of frustration when reading.  Dyslexics can see the words on the paper just fine, but there is a disconnect between what is seen and how the brain processes it, therefore slowing down reading ability. 

Check out the alphabet:

You can read a passage using his font on his website. 

If you are dyslexic, a teacher of students with disabilities, or type reports for someone who is dyslexic, there are some fonts that are more readable than others.

Comic sans, though very informal-looking, is very readable.  The single-story “a” makes it especially good for younger readers, who may not have had much exposure to the double-story “a” and may not recognize it as easily.  However, many people do not like the look of Comic sans.  

 Why is it so difficult for some children (as well as adults) to learn to read?

One big reason is that the English language actually stems from several other languages.  Each language has its own pronunciation and spelling rules, so children have to learn more than one sound for many letters.  Think about the letters ‘ch’.  What sound does it make in the word 'chip'?  What sound does it make in the word 'chord'?  What sound does it make in the word ‘charade’? These two letters, when put together, make different sounds because ‘chip’, ‘chord’, and ‘charade’ originate from three different languages. 

The most basic words in our language stem from Anglo-Saxon.  These consist of many of our everyday words (baby, chip, dog), as well as words that are considered sight words ('said', 'what', 'the', etc).  Many sight words do not sound the way they are spelled, and they are in even the most basic picture books, so it is important for children to be able to read and spell these words at an early age.  Compound words, such as 'flashlight' and 'firefly', are also Anglo-Saxon.

A large chunk of our language originates from Latin.  These consist mainly of words that have prefixes, roots, and suffixes, such as 'attractive' ('at' is the prefix, meaning 'to', 'toward', 'tract' is the root, meaning 'to pull', and 'ive' is the suffix, meaning 'causing', 'making').  In essence, the word ‘attractive’ means ‘causing to pull toward’.  ‘Chord’, mentioned in my above example, is also Latin.

Yet another language that we get some of our English words from is Greek.  Many of our math and science words are Greek, such as ‘photosynthesis’ and ‘graph’ (‘ph’ is a Greek grapheme).

Then there are the languages that we "dip" from.  Some of our words, such as musical terms, are Italian.  Some other words are borrowed from French (‘charade’) and Spanish.  See below:

Getting a child to edit his work can be tough, especially if he is a struggling reader and writer.  It can be an overwhelming task: where to begin?

A simple solution is to use a “COPS” sheet.  Cops is an acronym for Capitalization, Overall appearance, Punctuation, and Spelling.  Since the majority of the population, regardless of ability, are visual learners, a poster that includes a picture really helps.  You can get a poster here, and a checklist here.

When your child is finished writing, whether the assignment is a sentence, a paragraph, or an essay, having him self-monitor by using a COPS checklist is helpful.  It breaks down the task of editing so that he is only looking for one thing at a time to fix. 

1.        Capitalization: are the beginnings of all sentences capitalized? Are proper names and places capitalized?  Are there any capitals that don’t belong?

2.       Overall Appearance: do the sentences make sense?  Is there space between the words?  Is it legible?

3.       Punctuation: is the proper punctuation used at the end of each sentence?  Is any additional punctuation where it belongs?

4.       Spelling: are the words spelled correctly?

Basically, your child will be reading over his work four times, looking for one specific thing each time.  I have used this for years with students of all ages, and it works well.  Of course, your child may not find every error in his work, but self-editing will make him more mindful of his writing.

I had mentioned the term “phonological awareness” to a friend the other day, and she told me she has no idea what it is.  I thought it would be a good idea to make it my first blog post, as it is the core issue of people with dyslexia.

Phonological awareness refers to the phonological structure of words, such as sensitivity to rhyme and awareness of syllables.  It is about hearing the sounds of the language, whether it’s the individual sounds in words, chunks of sounds in words, or words in sentences.

Most people who have dyslexia have difficulty with phonological awareness; they have trouble hearing, producing, and manipulating sounds in words.  For example, a person with dyslexia may have a problem hearing and understanding that the word ‘that’ is made up of three sounds: /th/, /a/, and /t/.  They may also struggle with orally changing the /th/ in the word to /m/, to make the word ‘mat’. 

This becomes a problem because the individual sounds in words correlate with letters in our alphabet (the alphabetic principle), and if sounds in words are a struggle, then figuring out which letters correspond with which sounds is going to be an even bigger struggle.  It severely impacts a child’s ability to read. 

The positive is that phonological awareness can actually be taught.  There are many activities that can be done to improve upon hearing the sounds in our language.  Basic activities for young children, such as producing rhyming words and teaching them nursery rhymes, are valuable.  For children who are learning to read, activities such as having them tell the sounds in a word, are helpful.  

Phonological awareness training is most effective when paired with training in letter/sound relationships.  In other words, activities for hearing sounds in words, along with the letters that make those sounds, is more effective than when just done on its own.  To read more information about phonological awareness, click here.