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DYSLEXIA CHARACTERISTICS

Dyslexic individuals have average or above intellectual ability but struggle with reading, writing, and spelling.  Many dyslexics are quite verbal and perform orally well in school; however, their written work is slow and often looks like the work of a younger child.  The dyslexic student processes written symbols more slowly than a normal reader and is often slow in completing work.  The dyslexic may read a word several times correctly, and then reverse or jumble the letters in the word or omit the word altogether.  Reading comprehension is compromised by poor oral fluency and laborious decoding.  Auditory comprehension of stories is generally average or above average.

Achievement in math may be not be affected for some dyslexics, although immediate recall of number facts or spatial errors in computing math problems may be problematic.

Dyslexic characteristics for:

Grades 1-3

• Difficulty with learning sound/symbol correspondences of visually similar letters such as b/d, w/m, h/n, f/t, and confusion of auditory similar letters such as d/t, b/p of f/v.
• Difficulty remembering basic sight vocabulary, problems with segmenting words into individual sounds and blending sounds to form words, reading and spelling errors with omission of letters and sounds.
• Difficulties with sequencing the alphabet, days of the week, months of the year etc.  Reversals, omissions and transpositions of letters in words;  past/pats, trip/tip, rip/rib, stop/pots.   
• Omissions of suffixes and endings; -ing, -ed, -s, etc.
• Difficulty remembering spelling words over time and applying spelling rules.
• Poor oral reading skills and fluency

  For more information on the characteristics of dyslexia, go to www.interdys.org or  www.dyslexia.yale.edu.