Signs & Symptoms

Warning Signs for Dyslexia/Struggling Readers:

Preschool/Kindergarten:

  • Delayed speech
  • Saying sounds in the wrong sequence (e.g. eminy = enemy, aminal = animal)
  • Trouble with rhyming words
  • Trouble with Phonemic Awareness (hearing and manipulating sounds in words)
  • Delay in establishing a dominant writing hand
  • A history of family members with learning difficulties

Early Elementary:

  • Difficulty learning the alphabet
  • Difficulty learning the sounds of letters
  • Issues with writing hand dominance: can’t choose between the left and right hand
  • Struggles with spelling
  • Difficulty with handwriting

Later Elementary & Older Students:

  • May read at or close to “grade level” but are slow readers
  • Replaces functional words when reading such as the for or and for is
  • Reads the beginning of words correctly but does not read all the way through the word
  • Leaves out letters while spelling (e.g. drik = drink)
  • Writing is extremely difficult
  • Reversal of letters past second-grade