GRADES 3-12

In addition to the problems experienced by children in PreK-2, specific reading behaviors may be common especially as the older student attempts to read longer passages, chapter books, or articles. These students are often known to be "reluctant readers."

TYPICAL READING BEHAVIORS THAT MAY BE OBSERVED

• Sounding out words (and sight words) that should be instantly recognized
• Reading a word correctly on one line, and then reading the same word incorrectly elsewhere in the text
• Slow deliberate reading or fast scrambled reading
• Skipping lines in the text or parts of sentences
• Omitting words in the sentence (prepositions, articles, or other words)
• Adding words in the sentence (prepositions, articles, or other words)
• Semantic substitutions (home for house, yell for shout)
• Transposition of letters within words (broad for board)
• Transposition of letters within words with wild guessing (griddle for garden – student pulls the r in garden towards the g to make gr and takes a wild guess, bringing in the d sound)
• Migration of letters between words (late flight might be read as flate light or other variation)
• Vowel switching (bug for bag)
• Switching initial or final sounds (tack for back, man for mat)
• Adding letters to a word (blad for bad)
• b/d confusion (brink for drink, did for bid)
• Dropping/adding/skipping/substituting syllables in multi-syllable words, especially words with suffixes (park or parked for parking)
• Incorrect Plural/Singular Form and/or Verb Tense
• Poor recognition of base words (such as skate in skating – may read skating as skatting because of inability to recognize the fact that the silent e has been dropped before adding ing)
• Weak error detection or high number of self-corrections with multiple corrections on a single word (trying it 3 - 4 times)
• Prosody Issues – poor phrasing, expression, and overall smoothness and timing. Poor observation of punctuation, especially commas and periods.

MORE DETAILS ABOUT SOME OF THESE READING BEHAVIORS – LETTER TRANSPOSITION/MIGRATION OF LETTERS BETWEEN WORDS/ PREFIX DROPPING/SWITCHING

They may also have difficulty discriminating between words with transposed letters such as board/broad, diary/dairy.

clam/calm, cloud/could, form/from. They may drop a letter that appears more than once in a single word – especially if the result of the drop is an actual word. An example would be for the word drivers, the student might read it as divers, dropping the first r. The word garden might be read griddle as the letters migrate to a point that the student makes a guess without any reference to context. This is especially true as the student encounters more two and three syllable words. They might also drop or switch prefixes, suffixes, and other syllables. The prefix pre will often be read as per and vice versa. The word unclear might be read as clear.

VOWEL SWITCHING

When the student begins to read passages or pages, there is more of a tendency to switch vowels even in simple CVC words.

DROPPING/ADDING/SKIPPING/SUBSTITUTING SYLLABLES IN MULTI-SYLLABLE WORDS

This problem becomes more noticeable as the student gets older because s/he is required to read more difficult text involving multi-syllable words. They may delete or add entire syllables as they read. This very weak sensitivity to syllables, especially when reading unfamiliar words may lead the student to replace a word like parking with park or parked.

POOR RECOGNITION OF BASE (ROOT) WORDS WITH SUFFIXES

Suffixes ed and ing are often dropped or changed, as well as words ending with ies and ied. These students have difficulty recognizing base words and they find these suffixes very confusing. For example, in a simple word like buried, they may not recognize that the base word is bury. Again, these errors are not the same as the errors typical of beginning readers; instead, their errors are unique to dyslexia.

INCORRECT PLURAL/SINGULAR FORM AND VERB TENSE

The student may read the word horses as horse and vice versa. Another frequent error pattern relates to verb tense. Jumped may be read as jump, and vice versa.

WEAK ERROR DETECTION OR HIGH NUMBER OF SELF-CORRECTIONS

Although error detection can be very weak in dyslexic students, some make a high number of self-corrections, sometimes trying a single word 3-4 times.

INACCURATE ARTICLES, PREPOSITIONS, TENSE, AND PLURALITY

There is a frequent disregard for prepositions and articles. They are often deleted altogether or changed in ways that impact