Warning Signs of Dyslexia

Trusted information for families navigating the dyslexia journey — we’re here to help.

Sound familiar?

If your child struggles with any of these, they may benefit from structured literacy intervention — and we can help.

Spends hours studying for spelling tests but can’t retain the words from one week to the next
Struggles to master high-frequency words like because, friend, and does
Can usually read to a point, but doesn’t know how to sound out unknown words
May have extreme difficulty memorizing their address, phone number, or math facts
Had a difficult time learning to tie their shoes
Reading feels slow, choppy, or exhausting — even after years of practice

The technical definition:

“Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede the growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.”

– International Dyslexia Association

The functional definition:

Dyslexia is a rainbow of possibilities of strengths and weaknesses that a person can possess and is typically recognizable by persistent struggles with reading and spelling – despite how much you read to them every night. It is not associated with intelligence in any way. There are plenty of brilliant people with dyslexia who struggle to read and spell and lead markedly successful lives. Dyslexia can be difficult to detect because one child’s dyslexia can look vastly different from another’s depending on their unique strengths and weaknesses and their frequent ability to mask their struggles by employing clever coping mechanisms and compensation strategies. Dyslexia is a brain-based learning difference that affects many areas beyond reading and spelling, but reading and spelling tend to get most of the focus since those skills are vital to school success. Since this is a brain-based difference (meaning there are certain regions of the brain that operate differently from a non-dyslexic person), we know that there is nothing you did that made your child dyslexic, it isn’t something that developed over time, and it also isn’t something that can be cured. We can, however, utilize the years and years of research that has been done on effective methods of reading and spelling instruction to help them overcome their struggles in this area. That’s where we come in.

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