What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a term that is becoming increasingly common.

Back when my oldest daughter was young, I thought she might be mildly dyslexic. I had been on a course at the local college focused on “supporting reading and spelling difficulties”. As part of that course we had to do a case study. I chose Clara.

At the end of the course, the lady running it, suggested I had a word with the school to ask for their advice.

When I approached the school, their response was: “Dyslexia is an excuse for laziness, I don’t think you have a problem”. End of story.

I didn’t have the confidence then to fight my corner, so I decided to learn what I could about different learning styles myself. I hoped that it would compliment my degree and at the same time I could support my daughter.

That was how my interest in the subject began.

The term dyslexia is defined in the Oxford English dictionary as: “A general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence.”

A more detailed definition is given by the British Dyslexia Association:

• The word 'dyslexia' comes from the Greek and means 'difficulty with words'.

• It is a life-long, usually genetic, inherited condition and affects around 10% of the population.

• Dyslexia occurs in people of all races, backgrounds, and abilities, and varies from person to person: no two people will have the same set of strengths and weaknesses.

• Dyslexia occurs independently of intelligence.

• Dyslexia is really about information processing: dyslexic people may have difficulty processing and remembering information they see and hear. This can affect learning and the acquisition of literacy skills.

• Dyslexia is one of a family of Specific Learning Difficulties. It often co-occurs with related conditions, such as dyspraxia, dyscalculia, and attention deficit disorder (ADD).

• On the plus side, dyslexic people often have strong visual, creative, and problem-solving skills and are prominent among entrepreneurs, inventors, architects, engineers and in the arts and entertainment world.

Many famous and successful people are dyslexic.

Another definition which is worth considering was presented by (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003, p. 2) stating that: “Dyslexia is 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.”

One of the issues with recognising dyslexia is that it can present itself in many different ways.

Dyslexia is a very general term, and the traits will regularly overlap and will often vary from person to person.

One common problem faced is a difficulty with hearing different sounds.

Some people will prove to be efficient with recognising words they have seen before and practiced using but may well struggle with “reading” out the sounds (phonemes) that create new words.

Phonemes are the individual sounds in a word; for example, cat has three: c/a/t.

“Computer” would be made up of more and obviously therefore, make it much more of a challenge.

Some sounds are harder to hear than others such as ‘b’ and ‘p’ as they are both “soft sounds” which are created with a soft “burst of air” when spoken.

Apparently, the easiest way to notice the difference is by touching your voice box as you say each one and you are supposed to feel a slightly stronger movement when you say the letter ‘b’. (I haven’t noticed this to be the case I must admit!)

There are other similar sounding letters which can add to this confusion. Letters such as:

k, and g.

f and v

t and d

s and z

ch and j

m and n

f and th (th like in the word thin)

Problems of this sort are called “Phonological processing”.

Put simply, this means your child would probably struggle with handling of the sounds of individual letters within the words when they speak, listen, or try to remember them.

The processing aspect relates to what your brain has to do in order to try and make sense of it.

One method of recognising if your child has a difficulty with this is to make up rhymes together using words that sound the same at the end such as: like, hike, Mike, and bike. Creating rhymes such as: Does Mike like to ride his bike or go on a hike?

We used to make up rhymes to sing to our old dog, Snow: “We all love Snow, she’s perfect did you know. She likes to have a rest because she’s the very best!” (Please don’t judge!)

A child who struggles with “Phonological Processing” would struggle with the creation of rhymes such as either of these.

These rhymes can be changed so that you are using the same sounds at the beginning of the words.

There are loads of common examples of phrases which could be used here such as: six sizzling sausages or she sells seashells on the seashore.

Not been able to hear the differences in the words could be an indicator, that this is something your child potentially struggles with and needs investigating further.

Not only may sounding these words out cause difficulties when reading, but also pronouncing them may cause some worries.

The biggest problem that could present itself is when trying to spell. If your child can’t hear each individual sound in the words, sounding it out will become much more of a problem.

A second difficulty could present itself when someone struggles to remember how both individual letters and words look.

This is known as “Orthographic processing”. The term orthographic refers to the letters, numbers and symbols that are used in writing.

Although seeing the letters / words backwards isn’t necessarily the issue, getting individual letters and words back to front might be. ‘p’s and ‘q’s may become confused for each other and words such as dog and god may become interchanged.

Most people will remember a word once they have read it only a few times, for some dyslexics they may need to reread it many, many more times before they become more confident with it.

I love the idea put forward by Alan M. Hultquist in “What is dyslexia?”

He compares letters to pictures.

He suggests imagining a picture of a dog, it can be sitting, walking, sleeping, jumping, doing anything it is still a dog.

However, letters and numbers can only be presented in one specific way. If they are presented in any other way, they cease to be that letter or number.

This can cause huge problems for some people!

Words with similar spellings but completely different meanings such as they’re and their can also be challenging.

People who have this form of dyslexia can usually read and spell fairly confidently providing all the letters in the words match the sounds that they make.

Unfortunately, in the English language there are so many words which cannot be sounded out phonetically, or two words that sound the same can be spelt differently and have completely different meanings such as two, to and too. For and four are other examples of this. The list of possible examples is endless.

You’ll find games that can be played to support the learning of these type of words over in the Clara James Approach, but my favourite is probably my version of Pictionary.

You have a list of words which sound the same but have different meanings or spelt the same but sound different (homophones and homographs).

The first person chooses a word from the list but doesn’t tell the other person what they have chosen. The first person then draws an image of their chosen word. Person 2 has to try and guess what they are drawing.

Once correctly guessed, you write the word with the correct spelling next to the image. Your artistic skills aren’t important, it’s the recognition of the correct spelling that is key.

I was playing this with a lad the other day and he drew a wall. I guessed a word. Wrong. Another word. Still wrong. A third attempt and still I was wrong. Finally, I had to ask what the image was of. He explained that he was reading behind the wall!

I’m afraid I didn’t get that one. But the game is fun and is a great way to put visual images with the words in a manner that should be fun.

The third form of dyslexia that some people will struggle with is reading and spelling.

Reading is often very slow and although they read a word previously in the text, they may have to sound it out again the next time they come across it in a different sentence.

A big issue with reading slowly is that the text may lose its meaning as they can’t remember what they have read and sounding out each individual word takes away from the flow of the passage.

A game we often play in the lessons (and again can be found over in the Clara James Approach) is one that I call the dotty board game.

On a sheet of A4 paper make a path of 18 dots. 6 will perhaps be red, 6 might be green, and you might choose yellow for the final 6. Also create 6 forfeits such as miss a go, move forward 3, go back 6, the other person reads, etc and number each one from 1 to 6.

You each choose a colour. For the purposes of this example, I’ll be yellow, you can be red. You roll the dice and move the appropriate number of spaces. You must keep going, you can’t double back on yourself halfway through a go.

If you land on a yellow, I’ll have to read as appropriate. If you land on a red, you’ll have to read. Should you land on a green, you roll the dice again the number will determine your forfeit.

You can change the dots to something more relevant to your child’s interests if you like.

The purpose of the game is to take the onus away from one person having to do all the reading. It gives them the opportunity to enjoy the story as well.

I know when I was young, if I had to read out loud, I would get in such a state over it that my words would come out as a jumbled mess. By sharing the reading and incorporating it into a game, it hopefully relieves some of the stress and makes it a more enjoyable experience.

Many years ago, I read somewhere, that for many dyslexics, each time they read it is like reading a different foreign language. Remembering the meaning of the symbols and the context of that symbol amongst the other symbols, then remembering what it all relates to, is almost impossible.

The final and probably the most common form of dyslexia is “Mixed Dyslexia”.

It is probably the one that most people with dyslexia will show aspects of. Mixed dyslexia is a combination of elements from more than one of the above categories.

Research into dyslexia is ongoing though currently evidence is pointing firmly in the direction genetics.

Studies at the University of Bristol of over 10,000 children born between 1991-1992 identified genetic variants that could increase a child’s likelihood of receiving an early diagnosis.

There is also a strong belief that dyslexia is influenced by which side of our brain is dominant. The human brain is complicated and responsible for everything the body does: it controls movement, receives, stores and analyses information.

The brain can be divided into two hemispheres the left-hand side and the right-hand side.

The left-hand side is concerned with tasks such as:

• Sequencing

• Storing facts

• Using language

• Emotions

• Structured activities

• Organisation

• The knowledge of “how”

• Logical reasoning; cause and effect, breaking things down and drawing logical conclusions

The right-hand side has a totally different function. It is concerned with:

• Thinking about things holistically, considering the whole picture

• Working with pictures

• Using visuals (shapes and colours) for explanations

• Using images to help with memory

• Expressing emotions

• Being playful

• Improvising

• Its intuitive

It is commonly believed that those who display dyslexic and dyspraxic tendencies are more likely to be “right brain dominant”.

This would make them better at problem solving and thinking outside the box. Where they might show weaknesses in some of the areas controlled by the left-hand side, the right-hand side overcompensates, making these qualities even stronger.

This blog is an extract from my book: Square Pegs and round Holes

I hope it has provided you with some thoughts and inspiration