Updated IDA Definition (2025)
“Dyslexia is a specific learning disability characterized by difficulties in word reading and/or spelling that involve accuracy, speed, or both and vary depending on the orthography. These difficulties occur along a continuum of severity and persist even with instruction that is effective for the individual’s peers. The causes of dyslexia are complex and involve combinations of genetic, neurobiological, and environmental influences that interact throughout development. Underlying difficulties with phonological and morphological processing are common but not universal, and early oral language weaknesses often foreshadow literacy challenges. Secondary consequences include reading comprehension problems and reduced reading and writing experience that can impede growth in language, knowledge, written expression, and overall academic achievement. Psychological well-being and employment opportunities also may be affected. Although identification and targeted instruction are important at any age, language and literacy support before and during the early years of education is particularly effective.”
The Power of Knowledge: Signs & Strengths of Dyslexia
The Preschool Years
Kindergarten & 1st Grade
- Trouble learning common nursery rhymes, such as “Jack and Jill”
- Difficulty learning (and remembering) the names of letters in the alphabet
- Seems unable to recognize letters in his/her own name
- Mispronounces familiar words; persistent “baby talk”
- Doesn’t recognize rhyming patterns like cat, bat, rat
- A family history of reading and/or spelling difficulties (dyslexia often runs in families)
© Sally Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, pp. 122 – 123
Kindergarten & 1st Grade
Kindergarten & 1st Grade
Difficulties
- Reading errors that show no connection to the sounds of the letters on the page—will say “puppy” instead of the written word “dog” on an illustrated page with a picture of a dog
- Does not understand that words come apart
- Complains about how hard reading is; “disappears” when it is time to read
- A history of reading problems in parents or siblings
- Cannot sound out even simple words like cat, map, nap
- Does not associate letters with sounds, such as the letter b with the “b” sound
Strengths
- Curiosity
- Great imagination
- Ability to figure things out; gets the gist of things
- Eager embrace of new ideas
- A good understanding of new concepts
- Surprising maturity
- A larger vocabulary than typical for age group
- Enjoys solving puzzles
- Talent for building models
- Excellent comprehension of stories read or told to him
© Sally Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, pp. 122 – 123
2nd Grade - High School
2nd Grade - High School
Reading
- Very slow in acquiring reading skills. Reading is slow and awkward
- Trouble reading unfamiliar words, often making wild guesses because he cannot sound out the word
- Doesn’t seem to have a strategy for reading new words
- Avoids reading out loud
Speaking
- Searches for a specific word and ends up using vague language, such as “stuff” or “thing,” without naming the object
- Pauses, hesitates, and/or uses lots of “um’s” when speaking
- Confuses words that sound alike, such as saying “tornado” for “volcano,” substituting “lotion” for “ocean”
- Mispronunciation of long, unfamiliar or complicated words
School and Life
- Trouble remembering dates, names, telephone numbers, random lists
- Struggles to finish tests on time
- Difficulty learning a foreign language
- Poor spelling
- Messy handwriting
- Low self-esteem
Strengths
- Excellent thinking skills: conceptualization, reasoning, imagination, abstraction
- Learning accomplished best through meaning rather than memorization
- Ability to get the “big picture”
- A high level of understanding of what is read to him
- The ability to read and to understand at a high level overlearned (or highly practiced) words in a special area of interest; for example, if he or she loves cooking they may be able to read food magazines
- A surprisingly sophisticated listening vocabulary
- Excels in areas not dependent on reading, such as math, computers and visual arts, or in more conceptual (versus fact-driven) subjects, including philosophy, biology, social studies, neuroscience and creative writing
© Sally Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, pp. 123–125
Why Early Intervention Matters
What effective intervention can do to the brain:
When children with reading disabilities were given intensive, systematic code-based reading interventions, they demonstrated increased activation in important brain regions associated with reading and made significant gains in reading fluency and comprehension even 1 year after intervention had ended. (Shaywitz, 2004)
Neural systems for reading are malleable and highly responsive to effective reading instruction. Research shows when students (ages 6-9) receive systematic phonics-based reading intervention evidence of plasticity of the neural systems for reading is found in fMRI studies. (Shaywitz, 2004)
Using a scientifically based reading intervention which is intensive and phonologically based with children who are poor readers made significant and durable changes in brain organization so that brain activation patterns resemble those of typical readers of the neural system for reading. (Birsh, 2018)
why early intervention is best:
As children get older research found that "the intensity and duration of reading intervention must increase exponentially" to achieve the same improvement possible with younger children. Older students will only attain grade-level standards with "instruction sufficiently powerful to accelerate reading development dramatically." (Torgesen, 2007)
74% of students who are reading below grade level in 3rd grade will still be reading below grade level in 12th grade. (Birsh, 2018)
