FAQs

In general, people tend to avoid tasks that are difficult. Oftentimes, struggling children will do their best to flee the scene when asked to read. When the child does read, it is laborious, sounds choppy and is often quite inaccurate. The child may read with no intonation and skip punctuation marks. She guesses on words perhaps saying invent for invite or black for block. Unfortunately, this leads to inaccurately remembering the word image and making future errors in reading and spelling.

Many children have admitted that they often write using words like “fun” and “good” to avoid misspelling a more sophisticated word. The word they is often spelled thay and the word looked, may be written as lookt. These errors are common yet many children ace their Friday spelling assessment with memorizing how to spell the words. (Isn’t it interesting how often the children forgot how to spell those same words the next week?)

You may be thinking, “My child is so good at math and it’s just this reading thing that slows her down.” That may be true but when a child is not progressing as expected, she will read far fewer words and receive less exposure to each word.

If you are a parent who has just been told that your child is struggling to read or you know something just doesn’t seem right, please don’t wait. Trust your instincts and find out what is going on that is making this task so difficult. Some parents are told to wait it out and that their child will grow out of it. The earlier you can get your child help, the easier it is to bridge the gap. Early intervention avoids having your child fall farther and farther behind his peers.

“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 growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.”

Adopted by the International Dyslexia Association Board of Directors, Nov. 12, 2002

You don’t have to answer this question on your own. A psychoeducation evaluator can help you understand what is occurring with your child. Take a look at your family’s history and see if anyone has had difficulty learning to read. If someone in the family has dyslexia or has had difficulty with language, there is a higher chance that your child has dyslexia.

Yes! There are many successful dyslexics thriving in the world today!

“You can’t overcome it (dyslexia); you can work around it and make it work for you, but it never goes away. That’s probably a good thing, because if dyslexia went away, then the other gifts would go away too.”

Beryl Benacerraf, M.D., Physician.
World-renowned radiologist and expert in ultrasound.

“I performed poorly at school – when I attended, that is – and was perceived as stupid because of my dyslexia. I still have trouble reading. I have to concentrate very hard at going left to right, left to right, otherwise my eye just wanders to the bottom of the page.”

Tommy Hilfiger