formerly Children's Literacy Services of Baldwin County, AL
What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a difficulty with language in which intelligence is not a problem. For learners with this difficulty, an unexpected gap exists between the potential for learning and school achievement. They may have difficulty with reading, spelling, processing auditory language, or expressing themselves clearly through speaking or writing.
Some children (but not all) who struggle with reading actually have dyslexia. As defined by the International Dyslexia Association dyslexia is “a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties in accurate 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 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.”
It is not a lack of intelligence or motivation. It is not an intellectual or developmental disability. It is not reading or writing letters backwards, lack of educational opportunity, caused by poor eyesight, vision problems, or hearing problems, nor is it acquired as the result of a head injury or a degenerative disease. A determination of dyslexia can be discouraging, but there is good news.
Even before the pandemic, nearly two-thirds of U.S. students were unable to read at grade level. Scores had been getting worse for several years. In the spring of 2021, a national analysis of the test scores of 5.5 million students found that students in each grade scored three to six percentile points lower on a widely used test, the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), than they did in 2019. Numerous studies have documented poor reading progress among U.S. students during the pandemic. Fortunately, more and more educators are implementing science-based reading interventions to change the trajectory of these children's lives.
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From the International Dyslexia Association:
"Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological 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 the growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.
To explain further, dyslexia has a biological basis and is characterised by a variety of language difficulties. Rather than a temporary struggle in reading development, dyslexia is a chronic condition; the characteristics are unchanging. There is not a single form of dyslexia. The struggles can be with word recognition (such as reading a single word by itself), with spelling, or with decoding or segmenting words (such as sounding words out or breaking a word into syllables). A phonological component exists, meaning the dyslexic person has difficulty with sounds."