Dyslexia Indicators — Learning Vector

INdicators of Dyslexia

Preschoolers

Late talking, compared to other children
Pronunciation problems, reversal of sounds in words (such as ‘aminal’ for ‘animal’ or ‘gabrage’ for ‘garbage’)
Difficulty with nursery rhymes
Slow vocabulary growth, often unable to find the right word (takes a while to get the words out)
Difficulty rhyming words
Trouble learning numbers, the alphabet, days of the week
Poor ability to follow directions or routines
Does not understand what you say until you repeat it a few times
Enjoys being read to but shows no interest in words or letters
Has weak fine motor skills (in activities such as drawing, tying laces, cutting, and threading)
Unstable pencil grip
Slow to learn new skills, relies heavily on memorization
May be unable to recall the right word

School-Age Children

Has good memory skills
Fails to understand that words come apart
Difficulty learning the letter names and corresponding sounds
Difficulty saying the alphabet correctly or in sequence
Has not shown a dominant handedness
Seems extremely intelligent but weak in reading
Reads a word on one page but doesn’t recognize it on the next page or the next day
Confuses look-alike letters like b and d, b and p, n and u, or m and w.
Substitutes a word while reading that means the same thing but doesn’t look at all similar, like “trip” for “journey” or “mom” for “mother.”
When reading leaves out or adds small words like “an, a, from, the, to, were, are and of.”
Reading comprehension is poor because the child spends so much energy trying to figure out words.
Might have problems tracking the words on the lines, or following them across the pages.
Avoids reading as much as possible
Writes illegibly – poor letter construction
Writes everything as one continuous sentence
Does not understand the difference between a sentence and a fragment of a sentence
Misspells many words
Uses odd spacing between words. Might ignore margins completely and pack sentences together on the page instead of spreading them out
Does not notice spelling errors
Is easily distracted or has a short attention span
Is disorganized
Have difficulties making sense of instructions
Fails to finish work on time
Appears lazy, unmotivated, or frustrated

Teenagers

Avoids reading and writing
Avoids reading aloud
Difficulty spelling and may resort to using less complicated words that are easier to spell
Guesses at words and skips small words
Difficulty with hand writing
Has difficulties with reading comprehension
Does not do homework
Might say that they are “dumb” or “couldn’t care less”
Is humiliated
Might hide dyslexia by being defiant or using self-abusive behavior

Adults