• Reversals are the core feature.

• You will “grow out” of it.

• Dyslexia requires a medical diagnosis.
• Colored overlays/lenses are effective treatment.
• Students cannot be diagnosed until 3rd grade.
• Highly intelligent people cannot be dyslexic.
• Dyslexia is rare.
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is
neurological 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 the growth of
vocabulary and background knowledge.
• One specific type of learning disability
• May exist along with other conditions (such as ADHD or and
oral language disorder)
• When a person has dyslexia, their brain works or functions
differently.
• The functional differences have been shown in fMRI studies.
• There are also size, structural, and connectivity differences.
• Word-level reading difficulties are the core reading component
of dyslexia.
• It is reflected in difficulty with rapid decoding and encoding
and problems recognizing words automatically and fluently.
• Poor spelling accompanies the reading difficulty.
• Phonological awareness reflects a metacognitive understanding
that the words we hear and read have a sound-based structure.
• When a child doesn’t understand the relation between sound
and print, word recognition will be delayed.
• The reading difficulties are not predicted by age, other
cognitive abilities, or other academic abilities.
• Effective classroom instruction is important.
• Monitoring how the student responds to good instruction can
lead to earlier intervention.
• When word recognition requires great effort, there are fewer
resources for comprehension.
• If a child struggles to read, the child will read less.
• A child who reads less learns fewer vocabulary words for
reading comprehension.
• Has trouble recognizing the letters of the alphabet
• Struggles to match letters to sounds, such as not knowing what sounds
b or h make
• Has difficulty blending sounds into words, such as connecting C-H-A-T
to the word chat
• Struggles to pronounce words correctly, such as saying “mawn lower”
instead of “lawn mower”
• Has difficulty learning new words
• Has a smaller vocabulary than other kids the same age
• Has trouble learning to count or say the days of the week and other
common word sequences
• Has trouble rhyming
• Struggles with reading and spelling
• Confuses the order of letters, such as writing “left” instead of
“felt”
• Has trouble remembering facts and numbers
• Has difficulty using proper grammar
• Has trouble learning new skills and relies heavily on
memorization
• Gets tripped up by word problems in math
• Has a tough time sounding out unfamiliar words
• Has trouble following a sequence of directions
• Struggles with reading out loud
• Doesn’t read at the expected grade level
• Has trouble understanding jokes or idioms
• Has difficulty organizing and managing time
• Struggles to summarize a story
• Has difficulty learning a foreign language
• Speech services
• Family history of reading difficulties
ACT 1294
• Students in k-2 will be screened in the following areas:
• Phonological and phonemic awareness
• Sound symbol recognition
• Alphabet knowledge
• Decoding skills
• Rapid naming skills
• Encoding skills

• Next:
• RTI is used to meet the needs of at-risk students
• Students that continue to struggle to read are assessed using a battery of
assessments to identify possible markers of dyslexia
• A 504 plan is used to address the needs of the student
• The student receives dyslexia therapy
• Provided by a teacher or paraprofessional
• Explicit, direct instruction
• Individualized instruction to meet the specific needs of the student in a
small group setting
• Meaning-based instruction
• Multisensory instruction
 The Reality
• 35 % of high school dropouts
• 50% of those in
drug/alcohol rehabilitation
programs
• 70% of juvenile delinquents
The Possibilities
• 35% of entrepreneurs
• 40% self made millionaires
• 50% of NASA scientists
• Called the MIT disease