Children with dyslexia are not all alike because dyslexia ranges from mild to moderate to severe to profound.
Preschoolers
ð Delay in speech development
ð Poor vocabulary development
ð Enjoys being read to but shows little interest in letters or words
ð When reading aloud, read very slowly and hesitantly; may lose place in text and miss out words, add extra words or substitute words
ð Difficulty in learning and remembering names of letters,
ð Difficulty in associating letters with sounds in the alphabet
ð Difficulty with recognizing and producing rhymes
ð Confusion of similar letters such as “b” and “d”, “p” and “q”
ð Confusion of words that look alike such as “on” and “no”, “was” and “saw”
ð Difficulty in reading or sounding out simple words – mat, hop, nap, etc.
ð Difficulty in breaking words into syllables and putting syllables back in correct order; for example, “bisghetti” for “spaghetti”
ð Difficulty in learning spelling
ð Short-term memory limitations
ð Mirror writing
Primary School Children
ð Slow to learn the connection between letters and sounds
ð Tends to confuse basic words
ð Misreads same words repeatedly
ð Slow and labored reading
ð Listening comprehension better than reading comprehension
ð Makes consistent reading and spelling errors including letter reversals (b/d), inversions (m/w), transpositions (felt/left), and substitutions (house/home)
ð Slow to learn prefixes, suffixes, root words, and other spelling strategies
ð Has difficulty with handwriting
ð Avoids writing