What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that mainly causes problems with writing, reading, and spelling. It affects around 10% of the population. It can cause issues in a traditional school environment, but with support, it can be managed and people can still perform really well at school and work.
Signs of dyslexia
Signs of dyslexia often start to show in the early years of school when a child begins to focus on learning to read and write.
Someone with dyslexia might:
- Read and write very slowly
- Confuse the order of letters in words
- Be confused by similar letters like ‘b’ and ‘d’
- Have poor or inconsistent spelling
- Understand verbal information, but struggle with writing it down
- Find it hard to carry out a sentence of directions
- Read in black and white
- Struggle with planning or organisation
People with dyslexia can have strong skills in other areas such as problem solving or creative thinking, but it’s important to know that this can vary from person to person. There’s no definitive cause for dyslexia but it can run in families.
It’s important to know some people might feel like they have difficulty with some of the things above, but that does not mean that they will be diagnosed with dyslexia. This condition needs to be diagnosed by a professional and isn’t something you can diagnose yourself with.
Managing dyslexia
If you’re struggling with tasks at school that involve reading, writing, or spelling, I would recommend you to speak to your pastoral teacher or a teacher you trust to see if there is any extra support you can have.
If this does not help, your school can arrange for an assessment by a specialist to diagnose dyslexia. In this case, more support can be given such as extra time during exams, or one-to-one learning support.
Hopefully this has given you more of an understanding of dyslexia and will help you be mindful of it .
By Karis Harwood
