Dyslexia is the most common learning disability and is characterized by difficulty reading despite normal intelligence. Individuals with dyslexia have problems sounding out words, spelling and writing words, and pronouncing words.
Signs and Symptoms
- Delayed onset of speech
- Lack of phonological awareness
- Easily distracted by background noise
- Difficulty identifying or generating rhyming words
- Difficulty or identifying syllables in a word
- Difficulty segmenting words into individual sounds
- Difficulty naming objects
- Poor spelling
- Difficulty summarizing stories and memorization
Many people think that dyslexia is simply a problem of reversing letters or writing letters backwards. However, it presents a much more comprehensive and pervasive challenge for individuals diagnosed with it. It affects people in varying degrees, and can affect writing, language, and the ability to perform math problems as well as reading.
In preschool, children may have problems recognizing that words rhyme, or finding words that rhyme when given a target word, such as cat. They may have trouble learning letters and their associated sounds, learning new words, and have trouble following directions.
In grade school, student often have trouble blending sounds to form a word, or manipulating sounds in a word. They may also have difficulty recognizing common sight words, easily forget how to spell words that they previously studied or find word problems in math very difficult. Reading books often is confusing or boring, and they often have trouble remembering details about a story they have read.
In middle school, students’ reading levels will be lower than their oral language. They read very slowly and will avoid reading out loud. Students struggle with their writing skills, and have difficulty expressing and organizing their ideas. They often make many spelling errors, and may spell the same word differently in the same piece of writing.
Students may not always fit in, because they have difficulty communicating with others, and may not always be able to read body language.
Our program is created based on the individual needs of the students. We begin with a comprehensive assessment to determine the strengths and challenges of your child.
Skills that we work on
- Sound-symbol relationships
- Letter formation
- Spelling rules
- Dictionary use
- Short and long vowel sounds
- Digraphs
- Diphthongs
- Affixes and Roots
- Word structure
- Decoding and encoding words
Executive Function Skills
In addition to teaching students with dyslexia the foundational reading skills, it is important to also teach them them thinking and problem solving skills that will help them function in the classroom and in life. These skills include:
- Planning and organization
- Flexible thinking
- Time management
- Working memory
- Metacognition-the ability to monitor one’s own thinking and behavior
- Managing emotions
- Initiating Tasks
