We’ve spent a while now looking at some of the ways dyslexia can manifest that aren’t linked to reading and writing skills. It might seem a little strange, but there’s actually a whole host of ways in which we can observe behaviours and tendencies in children and young people that are actually indicative of dyslexia – you can find out more about what to look for in any given situation in our last three blogs here:
7 ‘Off the Page’ Signs of Dyslexia in Kids at Play ⚽
7 ‘Off the Page’ Signs of Dyslexia in Kids Doing Art 🎨
7 ‘Off the Page’ Signs of Dyslexia in Kids Speaking and Listening 👂
But dyslexia is a deeply personal condition, and it manifests differently in almost everybody. There are symptoms that are common, those that are less common, and those that are rare, and everybody will end up with a different combination. We need to know what dyslexia looks like in a more holistic way so that we can make sure we’re not missing it, especially early on, when intervention and support can have the most powerful positive impact. And this means that whilst developing our understandings of dyslexia outside of the written, we need to know what it actually looks like in a reading and writing form too. It’s not just as simple as spotting bad handwriting, hesitation when reading aloud and trawling through reams of text for mirrored letters.
In fact, it’s not so easy to pick up a piece of work and say ‘huh, this looks like they might have dyslexia’ at all. Symptoms are diverse and often difficult to pick out. A dyslexia expert – a specialist, a SENCo, an assessor or any one of the many other dedicated professionals who work every day with people with dyslexia- will be able to identify them with much greater accuracy, but to a casual observer, it’s actually pretty hard to spot.
So that’s why we’ve noted down a further seven things to look out for if you suspect that somebody young in your life has dyslexia, especially in their reading and writing. It’s certainly not an exhaustive list – we’d suggest you contact professional assessment for any form of decision-making and diagnosis- and many kids who do these things won’t have dyslexia, but if you think something might be going on, pick up an exercise book and take a look inside it- it’s a great starting place.
7 ‘On the Page’ Signs of Dyslexia in Kids
- Readers develop at different rates, and this is entirely normal. But you should be alert to larger gaps appearing between a child’s expected reading age and where their classmates are, and where they actually are – are they still on reading books from the year before? Or when they pick books at a store at a library, do they decide on ones that seem just a little too young for them? If so, it could be dyslexia - so keep an eye out for other signs.
- “Dyslexic Handwriting” is a phrase we see a lot online, but what does it actually mean? Dyslexia doesn’t necessarily mean that a child has bad handwriting (but it might – it’s a hard one to master when decoding and learning how words fit together is difficult), but we should remember that it can also occur alongside another condition called dysgraphia. The condition is indicated by slow and laborious handwriting, messy and irregular letter formation, and a lack of fluency in their writing. People often highlight letter reversals and ‘mirror writing’ as signs of dyslexia too, but the truth is, a lot of children do this, and many professionals say it can’t be treated as a reliable indicator, especially in early language-learning.
- How is their spelling? Many people with dyslexia find spelling as one of the more challenging areas they come across in their reading-writing education. Do they tend to spell words incorrectly, or do they try to spell them phonetically (how they sound), like ‘motabick’ for ‘motorbike’, etc. Look for larger amounts of crossings-out on the page too, or even areas where they’ve started writing on one line, but then drifted off onto another – both can be indicative there’s dyslexia present.
- Do they often come home complaining of struggling to finish tests on time? For kids with dyslexia, timed essays and tests are a problem as a lot of the time, it can take them longer than their peers to decode the words on the page, as well as write their answers. Look out for sentences like “I knew the answers but I ran out of time” and if they say something like “I didn’t understand the questions!”, try to interrogate this – did they not know the answers, or what was being asked of them?
- Do they find it tricky to ‘sound out’ words, even simple ones, or demonstrate any other behaviours that might indicate they’re struggling with breaking down words into sounds or constructing words from these on-page breakdowns. For example, if they see a word broken into two parts like ‘mo-tor’ or ‘app-le’, can they do the necessary sound-word relationship work to put the words together?
- This one’s not quite ‘on the page’, but there’s a connection – do they try to avoid reading? Do you get calls that otherwise happy school days have been marred by periods of bad behaviour when silent reading time rolls around, or do they try to drag their siblings away from their own reading to play outside or on a games console at the weekend? Reading avoidance isn’t just walking away or being disinterested when reading is offered as an activity – kids are smart, and many will do what they can to put physical distance between themselves and situations where they may be asked to read.
- Do they struggle learning other languages at school? Some children and young people with dyslexia are natural language-learners, but many more find them very difficult to master, especially when it comes to those with different alphabets and different grammatical systems than the ones they’re used to.
Dyslexia isn’t easy to spot. And it can be a worrying time in any parent or guardian’s life if they come across behaviours that might seem to indicate that a child has dyslexia, especially if it’s having an impact on their school work, their play, or even just how they interact with the world around them. At SWD, we’d always advocate seeking a dyslexia assessment if you have any suspicions that somebody in your life has dyslexia, as it’s these assessment and diagnosis procedures that open the doorway to targeted support and a better, more accessible living and learning experience.