Characteristics of People with Dyslexia

Preschool/Kindergarten

• Delay in talking; articulation problems
• Difficulty recognizing and producing rhymes
• Difficulty remembering written information, such as letter names (also phone number and address)
• Difficulty remembering and following directions

Grades 1-3

• Difficulty learning sound/symbol correspondences
• Persistent confusion of visually similar letters (b/d/p, w/m, h/n, f/t)
• Confusion of letters whose sounds are similar (d/t, b/p, f/v)
• Difficulty remembering basic sight vocabulary (e.g. color)
• Problems segmenting words into individual sounds and blending sounds to form words
• Reading and spelling errors that involve difficulties with sequencing and monitoring sound/symbol correspondence such as reversals of letters (past/pats), omissions (tip/trip), additions (slip/sip), substitutions (rip/rib) and transpositions (stop/pots)
• Omission of grammatical endings in reading and/or writing (-s, -ed, -ing, etc.)
• Difficulty remembering spelling words over time and applying spelling rules when writing

Grades 4-8

• Significant difficulty reading and spelling multisyllabic words, often omitting entire syllables as well as making single-sound errors
• Lack of awareness of word structure (prefixes, roots, suffixes)
• Frequent misreading of common sight words (where, there, what, then, when, etc.)
• Difficulty with reading comprehension and learning new information from text because of underlying word recognition difficulties
• Difficulty in comprehension of text because of underlying oral language problems affecting vocabulary and grammar
• Significant difficulty in writing related to problems in spelling and organization

High School, College, and Adult

• Continued difficulty with word recognition that significantly affect acquisition of knowledge and ability to analyze written material
• Slow rate of reading
• Continued difficulty with spelling and written composition
• Difficulty taking notes in class
• Trouble learning a foreign language