Dyslexia

Dyslexia, which starts in childhood, is a chronic learning disability that makes reading and writing difficult, causing children to avoid reading and, as a result, learn fewer new words than their peers. It’s caused by innate differences in the brain, regardless of background, intelligence, vision, or spoken language skills. It can happen alongside dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and speech problems. Parents with dyslexia are more likely to have children with dyslexia, indicating a genetic component. According to the International Dyslexia Association, it is estimated that 15-20% of the population has dyslexia or 1/5 individuals. Common symptoms include:

• Phonemic awareness: Difficulty making strong, automatic links between sounds/letters or remembering letter patterns, producing rhymes or recognizing rhyming words, counting phonemes in a word (segmenting), adding/moving sounds around in a word (elision), and hearing/blending isolated sounds to form a word (blending).
• Reading: Difficulty reading single words, reading slowly, making errors when reading aloud, avoiding reading aloud, needing to re-read paragraphs to understand them.
• Writing: Poor handwriting, messy work, reversing letters, or spelling words incorrectly.
• Speaking: Late talking, learning new words slowly, mispronouncing words.
• Concentration: Difficulty following instructions, concentrating, or listening. Forgetting words, confusing similar letters.