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Clues, Warning Signs, and Symptoms of Dyslexia
Young Children
- Chronic ear infections
- Severe reactions to childhood illnesses
- Delayed speech
- Learning new words slowly
- Problems forming words correctly
- Reversing sounds in words
- Confusing words that sound alike
- Constant confusion of left versus right
- Mixing up sounds or syllables in long words
- Late establishing a dominate hand
- Difficulty learning to tie shoes (remember the Velcro)
- Can’t create words that rhyme
- Difficulty learning nursery rhymes or playing rhyming games
- Trouble memorizing address, phone number
- Problems remembering the names of letters, numbers, and colors
- Trouble singing the alphabet
- Telling stories that are hard to follow
- Trouble following directions with multiple steps
- Saying thing and stuff instead of the name of a common object
Elementary and Middle School age
Starting school may bring another flood of symptoms that could occur.
- Trouble remembering the sounds that individual letters make
- Confusing letters that look similar (like b and d or p and q)
- Flipping letters (like b and p or d and q)
- Confusing letters that sound similar (like f and v)
- Substituting words when reading aloud, like house when the story says home
- Confusing or skipping small words, especially prepositions such as: at, to, of, up. (This can completely change the meaning of a sentence when reading.)
- Slow, choppy, inaccurate reading
- Reading well below the expected level for age
- Inability to sound out the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word
- Difficulty separating the sounds in words and blending the sounds that make words
- Terrible spelling
- Problems remembering the sequence of things
- Trouble processing and understanding what is heard
- Spending an unusually long-time completing tasks that involve reading or writing
- Avoiding activities that involve reading
- Often can’t remember sight words
- Extreme difficulty learning cursive
- Difficulty telling time on a clock with hands
- Trouble with math fact memorization and sequence of steps
- Extremely messy bedroom, backpack, and desk
- Dreads going to school
- Dysgraphia (the slow, non-automatic handwriting that is difficult to read.)
Teens and adults
Many of the above symptoms may still be present, but here are some that are common in teens and adults.
- Difficulty reading, especially reading aloud
- Tedious reading and writing
- Problems spelling
- Evading activities that involve reading
- Mispronouncing names or words, or problems retrieving words
- Spending a lot of extra time completing tasks that involve reading or writing
- Difficulty summarizing a story
- Trouble learning a foreign language
- Difficulty doing math word problems unless they are read to them
- Difficulty with True/False tests (one misread word can cause the answer to be the opposite, causing an incorrect response)
- Prefers watching a movie to reading a book
This list could go on and on; however, these are the most common.
On the flip side, Dyslexics have many positives also. Here are just a few:
- Very good at math concepts, even though rote memory problems may be difficult for them
- High learning ability
- Excellence when writing content (don’t look at the spelling)
- Big-picture thinking
- Thinking out of the box
- Very creative in ideas
- Ability to adapt
- Excellence when focused on a highly specialized area such as: medicine, law, finance, public policy, or science
List compiled from:
Bright Solutions for Dyslexia, 2001
Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 1998-2022
Shaywitz, M.D., Sally. Overcoming Dyslexia, 2003
Understood for All, Inc. 2020
