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What is dyslexia?
Many people think that dyslexia involves a child's problems with reading, writing, spelling and mathematics at school. Some associate the condition with scrambling of words and letters, and others think of it as being slow in comprehension. Almost everyone agrees dyslexia is a kind of learning disability, but this is only one aspect of the condition.
Because this is an invisible condition, it is oftentimes not recognized or acknowledged in school. This has far-reaching consequences for the dyslexic children, their parents and teachers. The society cannot make the most of possible talents of school drop-outs. Problems with reading and spelling that are not diagnosed in time may turn out to be handicaps at the person's advanced age.
What does dyslexia imply?
Dyslexia means having "severe and persistent problems with the automation of reading and/or spelling". Dyslexics will, even if they receive support, always have difficulties reading and spelling fluently and faultlessly. Furthermore, they have trouble learning to read and write in modern foreign languages. Dyslexia is independent of intelligence, and is found in average as well as very smart children. School pupils suffering from dyslexia usually cannot keep up with the standards of the education. Their performance does not match their intellectual capacities, in spite of their effort and diligence, which has consequences for their personal lives, as well as their families and the society.Dyslexia literally means being unable to read. It is a disorder characterized by persistent trouble in picking up and fluently applying reading and spelling skills. The scientific term for spelling problems is dysortographia. Dyslexia and dysortographia can exist separately.
Dyslexia is the most frequently occurring reading disorder around the world, although estimations on the percentage of dyslexic people vary widely. Oftentimes it is regarded as 'not reading well', which is an incomplete term, as it also applies to analphabetic people.
Dyslexic people have difficulties making the connection between written and spoken language. In other words, they see a word and do not recognize it, and are therefore unable to interpret what it means. It may be difficult to join written letters into a single word, and joining the words into a fluent sentence. It is therefore hard for dyslexics to understand what is written and what exactly a sentence means. Most dyslexic people try to compensate by skipping words or guessing what the right word might be. Teachers may be inclined to think their pupils are not looking close enough, but being dyslexic does not mean someone's eyes do not function properly. The cause is in the brains.
Research in families suggests that hereditary factors play a part in the development of dyslexia. There is often a great difference between language skills and other talents. Dyslexics frequently excel at thinking in three dimensions, which explains why they often end up studying industrial design, engineering and arts. The difference between language and other skills is usually so big that it leads to frustrations because dyslexics may be unable to fulfill their potentials when reading plays an important role in their studies. Dyslexic people often start at school for lower general education and rise up to higher education and eventually a university. This way language development is partially avoided.
Learning to read in primary school, pre-school or nursery
In primary school, young children learn to relate shapes to letters and letters to certain sounds. This is how the learning of technical reading begins.It is a fact that some kids pick up reading easier than others. In the Netherlands, for example, about 10% of the 6- or 7-year-old pupils appear 'unprepared' to start developing their reading and writing. For over a half of these pupils, extra help improves their skills up to the standards. Dyslexia is a disorder that affects the technical reading rather than comprehensive reading; however, it may hinder the comprehensive reading. In this case, technical reading requires a disproportionate amount of energy and effort.
Dyslexia also inhibits learning to read fluently. Most of the dyslexic children eventually learn to read well enough, but they will always stay behind. For them, reading takes more effort, and they are more easily distracted than the average reader, which often happens at the expense of comprehending what has been read.