Do you think you / your child / someone important in your life may be dyslexic?

What has made you consider this?

Has it been that your child’s school has suggested possible dyslexia?

Have you researched dyslexia and recognise several ‘dyslexic’ strengths and weaknesses in yourself or your child, for example:

• disconnect between strong understanding / oral contribution and written work

• slower speed of working compared to peers

• poor concentration

• difficulties remembering instructions

• difficulties remembering spellings and times tables

• confusion between letters that may look similar

• misreading texts by perhaps adding or missing out words

It may be helpful to read the below definition of dyslexia (the Delphi definition) – taken from the British Dyslexia Association (BDA) website British Dyslexia Association (bdadyslexia.org.uk)

Dyslexia is a set of processing difficulties that affect the acquisition of reading and spelling.

In dyslexia, some or all aspects of literacy attainment are weak in relation to age, standard teaching and instruction, and level of other attainments.

Across all languages, difficulties in reading fluency and spelling are key markers of dyslexia.

Dyslexic difficulties exist on a continuum and can be experienced to various degrees of severity.

The nature and developmental trajectory of dyslexia depends on multiple genetic and environmental influences.

Dyslexia can affect the acquisition of other skills, such as mathematics, reading comprehension or learning another language.

The most commonly observed cognitive impairment in dyslexia is a difficulty in phonological processing (i.e., in phonological awareness, phonological processing speed or phonological memory). However, phonological difficulties do not fully explain the variability that is observed.

Working memory, processing speed and orthographic skills can contribute to the impact of dyslexia.

Dyslexia frequently co-occurs with one or more other developmental difficulties, including developmental language disorder, dyscalculia, ADHD, and developmental coordination disorder