Parents, Do The Following Scenarios About Your Kids Seem Familiar?

Do the following scenarios seem familiar?

My daughter is 7 years old. She can't spell simple words like ‘four’, ‘their’, ‘they’ and ‘knew’ even sounding these words out is useless. She memorises all the new and unfamiliar words learnt in class. She cannot understand simple mathematical word problems. Solving word problems is impossible because she doesn't know what steps she needs to follow.

My child could not read fluently till he was 8 years old. He left out words while reading a text and simply stopped if he could not pronounce a word.

My child cannot pronounce unfamiliar words while reading aloud she makes up words on her own or simply skips them. She spells words phonetically, writing ‘kat’ instead of ‘cat’ and ‘kud’ instead of ‘could’.

Doing homework with my son is a hair-pulling and paper-tearing tug of war on most days. His writing looks like a spider crawling all over the page. He misspells many simple words. He reads very slowly and with a lot of effort. He takes nearly twice as much time to complete his homework. He feels really frustrated at the end of the whole exercise.

My daughter is 8 years old. She keeps writing 'b' or 'g' instead of ’d’. She mixes up letter order in the word, writing ‘stop’ instead of ‘spot’ and ‘saw’ for ‘was’. She cannot follow a sequence of directions and understands only a single instruction at a time. Memorising facts and understanding grammar rules is the most difficult thing in the world. 

The answer to all these problems is the same. Your child could be dyslexic.

What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. In Greek "Dys" means difficulty and "lexia" means language. It is a neurological disorder that interferes with the acquisition of processing language, specifically in reading, writing, spelling, and handwriting. In India, about 10 to 15 % of the school going population is believed to be suffering from dyslexia.

The International Dyslexia Association (2008a) defines dyslexia as 

“a specific learning disability that is neurobiological 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 growth of vocabulary and background knowledge”.

Dyslexia is a persistent problem which is pervasive across the skills of reading, writing and fundamental mathematics. The child has difficulty in processing language, spelling words which sound the same like ‘knew’ and ‘new’. They do not understand letter-sound correspondence like the first sound in the word ‘could’ is spelt with ‘c’ not ‘k’.  They reverse letters writing ‘b’ or ‘g’ instead of ‘d’. They have difficulties with the letter order in words like they spell ‘animal’ as ‘aminal’. Their reading skills are extremely poor while reading they simply skip unfamiliar words or make up words to fill in the gaps. 

They cannot comprehend stories unless picture illustrations are part of the text and cannot follow multiple verbal instructions given at the same time for example, ‘Take out your pencils, open your maths book and read the third problem on page no. 60’. Their written work is messy and unreadable, the page looks like has insect has made ugly squiggles all over it. They cannot solve arithmetic problems involving language for example, ‘A jar has 200 pebbles, and Ben gives 30 to his sister and the rest to his brother. How many pebbles does the brother get?’ These are some of the problems a dyslexic child could be facing.

Unfortunately, parents and teachers come across more myths compared to facts about dyslexia. Children with dyslexia are told that they are stupid, lazy and incompetent. These kids are asked to work harder, try harder, and practice more. Parents and teachers think that they are acting out and making everybody’s lives difficult. 

Further Reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia

http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/

http://www.ncld.org/