Risk Factors and Characteristics
Pre School
- Delay in learning to talk
- Difficulty with rhyming
- Difficulty pronouncing words(e.g, “pusgetti” for “spaghetti”)
- Poor auditory memory for nursery rhymes and chants
- Difficulty adding new vocabulary words
- Inability to recall the right word(word retrieval)
- Trouble learning and naming letters and numbers and remembering the letters of his/her name
- Aversion to print (e.g.’ doesn’t enjoy following along if a book is read aloud)
Texas Dyslexia Handbook, 2018 p. 2
Kindergarten and First Grade
- Difficulty breaking words into smaller parts or syllables (e.g., baseball can be pulled apart into”base” “ball )”
- Difficulty identifying and manipulating sounds in syllables (e.g.,”man” sounded out /m/ /a/ /n/)
- Difficulty remembering the names of the letters and recalling their corresponding sounds.
- Difficulty decoding single words(reading single words in isolation.
- Difficulty spelling words the way they sound or remembering letter sequences in very common words seen often in print(e.g.,”sed” for “said’)
Texas Dyslexia Handbook, 2018 p. 2
2nd/3rd Grades
- Difficulty recognizing common sight words
- Difficulty decoding single words
- Difficulty recalling the correct sounds for letters and letter combinations in reading
- Difficulty connecting the speech sounds to appropriate letters or letter combinations
- in words for spelling
- Difficulty reading fluently
- Difficulty decoding unfamiliar words in sentences using knowledge of phonics
- Difficulty with written expression
- Reliance on picture clues,story theme or guessing at words
Texas Dyslexia Handbook, 2018 p. 3
4th to 6th Grades
- Difficulty reading aloud (e.g., fear of reading aloud in front of classmates)
- Avoidance of reading (particularly for pleasure)
- Difficulty reading fluently (e.g. reading is slow, inaccurate, and/or without expression)
- Difficulty decoding unfamiliar words in sentences using knowledge of phonics
- Acquisition of less vocabulary due to reduced independent reading
- Use of less complicated words in writing that are easier to spell than more appropriate words (e.g., “big” instead of “enormous”)
- Reliance on listening rather than reading for comprehension
Texas Dyslexia Handbook, 2018 p. 3
Middle and High School
- Difficulty with the volume of reading and written work
- Frustration with the amount of time required and energy expended for reading
- Difficulty reading fluently (e.g. reading is slow, inaccurate, and/or without expression)
- Difficulty decoding unfamiliar words in sentences using knowledge of phonics
- Difficulty with written assignments
- Tendency to avoid reading (particularly for pleasure)
- Difficulty learning a foreign language
Texas Dyslexia Handbook, 2018 p. 3