KINDERGARTEN

Keep in mind that most of these behaviors are not typical behaviors found in beginning readers but are unique to dyslexia.

LETTER NAMES AND SOUNDS

Like children in Pre-K who are at risk for dyslexia, at risk children in kindergarten will probably struggle learning their letter names and sounds.

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS/PHONEMIC AWARENESS

See Pre-K above for discussion of what this deficit looks like.

SIGHT WORDS

They may be able to recognize sight words in a list but fail to recognize them in text. Often, they recognize a sight word in text on line 1, but fail to recognize the very same sight word on line 2 of the text. They will frequently try to sound out sight words that they should recognize as a unit.

READING AND HANDWRITING

You may also notice that their handwriting is less legible than their classmates. They may display a very awkward looking pencil grip even after instruction in handwriting. They may begin to show signs of avoiding phonics activities and becoming a reluctant reader.

MATH CONCEPTS

Math concepts such as addition and subtraction may be difficult for this child to grasp, even when the teacher uses counting objects to demonstrate the concept.

GRADES 1-2

READING AND HANDWRITING – CONFUSION /FATIGUE /FRUSTRATION /EMBARRASSMENT / ANXIETY/RELUCTANCE

These children may at this point understand the alphabetic principle (that letters represent sounds), and even have strong phonics knowledge, but they have difficulty applying this knowledge in real time when reading. They may continue to sound out words they should be able to instantly recognize. As self-awareness increases, they begin to realize that they are behind their peers, and their self-esteem begins to suffer. They experience anxiety and begin to develop reading reluctance. They may instantly recognize the word top in a text, and painstakingly try to sound it out when it is repeated on the same page. They may read slowly and deliberately or read quite fast, scrambling letters and/or words. They may not observe punctuation, may pause more than other readers, and possibly lack expression when reading.

When reading orally, they may omit/add words in a sentence and letters within words (reading blad for bad) and omit or substitute articles and prepositions (reading the for a, and for for of). Their reading comprehension may be poor, even when decoding improves.

The b/d reversal and other common reversals that occur in kindergarten and early first grade may persist in both reading and writing beyond first grade and second grade without intervention. As in kindergarteners who are at risk for dyslexia, you may also notice symptoms of dysgraphia – not only impacting handwriting, but the ability to copy or generate an original sentence. Handwriting may be uneven, letters/words sometimes floating above the line, sometimes under, and lower case mixed with upper case letters. They may have an awkward pencil grip and may write letters from the bottom up.

When writing dictated sentences, they may skip prepositions and

articles or other words, and they often need sentences repeated several times. This may be associated with weak auditory memory. They may forget to capitalize sentences and omit end punctuation. Fatigue in both writing and reading activities (including word level phonics work) may be apparent. The child may want to "give up" during these activities because the effort involved produces cognitive overload and may result in both physical and mental exhaustion.

SPELLING

They may have trouble spelling even the simplest words. They may pass a spelling test on Friday after practicing all week, and not remember how to spell any of those words on the following Monday. Spelling their last name may be very difficult and they may replace it with an initial.

MATH CONCEPTS

Because the comorbidity between dyscalculia (math difficulties) and dyslexia is so high, this child may also require intervention in math, as math concepts and operations become more complex. Towards the end of second grade, without intervention, the child may continue to have problems with math concepts - telling time using an analog clock, memorization of the multiplication tables (if introduced), word problems, and understanding math symbols (all signs of dyscalculia).

READING COMPREHENSION

For children with dyslexia, reading comprehension is poor relative to their listening comprehension (Spencer, Wagner, Schatschneider, Quinn, Lopez, & Petscher, 2014).

When asked to narrate what they have just read to assess comprehension of the text, children with decoding impairment show weaker performance in terms of the number of main ideas retold (Kida, Ávila, Capellini, 2016).