Symptoms of Dyslexia

CHARACTERISTICS AND SIGNS OF POSSIBLE DYSLEXIC STUDENTS
Does not need to have all of these symptoms, most children have some of them.
• Student’s performance in academic tasks is often inconsistent
• There are frequent letter/ number reversals, rotations, and/or transpositions in reading, writing and/or spelling.
• Student is unable to read satisfactorily in spite of adequate intelligence. Student has unusual difficulty with spelling (beyond the weekly list).
• Student may have auditory discrimination problems, sometimes confusing similar speech sounds.
• Student has unusual difficult with handwriting.
• Student may have difficulty remembering how to make letter shapes.
• Student has difficulty copying accurately from near or far point or both.
• Student’s written work does not reflect his or her potential
• Student has difficult completing written assignments.
• Student is unable to recite the alphabet correctly in sequence (without singing or chanting).
• Student’s recall ability is poor, especially for words and names.
• Student has difficulty remembering and following directions.
• Student has difficulty expressing him/herself clearly and fluently.
• Student lacks organization skills.
• Student may lose assignments and papers frequently
• Student has difficulty starting assigned independent activities.
• Student shows some directional confusion: left/right; before/after; under/over.
• Student shows no established preference for right or left hand in writing. Student is either overly active and disturbing or unusually passive and withdrawn most of the time.
• Student’s attention span is short.
• Discrepancy between intellectual potential and actual achievement Student may have high anxiety in testing situations.
• Student may have difficulty with the passage of time.
• Student may have low self-esteem.
• Student has average or above average intelligence who may have unusual difficulty in reading, writing, spelling.
• Student may exhibit highly creative thinking and reasoning while performing poorly with written language tasks.
• Student excels in three-dimensional activities as sports, music, art, drama, math, cooking, mechanics, woodshop but meets with frustration hi the classroom.
• Student has an unusual pencil grip.
• Student is weak in phonics, especially vowels.
• Student is lacking in phonological awareness; cannot isolate individual sounds in words.