Dyslexic Reading

The reading errors of a person with dyslexia are anything but random. Their errors tend to be quite specific and are mirrored by their spelling mistakes. Here are some common errors in reading among those with dyslexia:

* Reads the word on one page, but doesn't recognize it on the next.

* Grasps phonics but is unable to sound out an unfamiliar word.

* Finds it slow-going and difficult to pick out and read single words on a page where there are no pictures or a story line for context.

* May substitute a word with identical first and last letters or a word with a similar shape, for instance from/form, trail/trial.

* May add or subtract letters to words, for instance cold/could, stair/star.

* May substitute a word with identical letters in a different sequence, for instance how/who, lost/lots, was/saw, blow/bowl.

* When reading aloud, the cadence is slow and phrases are choppy rather than smooth. They ignore, or seem to ignore, punctuation.

* They tire after only a short period of reading.

* They expend so much energy on figuring out the words that reading comprehension falls by the wayside. They understands a great deal more when someone reads to him.

* They confuse letter directionality when reading and writing. The letters b and d are good examples. One letter faces right, the other left. They may substitute one for the other on a regular basis. The same is true of up/down letters such as b and p, n and u, and m and w. When these letters are often substituted for each other, this is a sign of directionality confusion.

* Substitutes words that look similar, though the substitution changes the meaning of the text. For example, he may substitute horse for house, walking for wanting, white for while.

* As they read, they may substitute a word with the same meaning that doesn't resemble the original, for instance fast for quick, cry for sob, or travel for journey.

* Leaves out, misreads, or adds short function words like from, were, are, the, of, to, a, an.

* May leave off or substitute word endings, for instance talk for talked, needing for needed, late for later.

Dyslexic Spelling

The dyslexic's spelling tends to be much worse than his reading. Here are some examples of the spelling errors typical in dyslexia:

* Vowel sounds are hard for them to visualize. Rather than use an incorrect vowel, the dyslexic may just leave vowels out altogether as they write, making it impossible for anyone to read what has been written.

* With a great deal of effort, the dyslexic student may be able to retain a list of spelling words memorized on Monday for a Friday spelling bee, but won't be able to recall the spelling of those same words two hours later when they need to use those words in a sentence.

* Misspells common sight words (common, non-phonetic words) on a regular basis, for instance where, what, because, they. Frequent practice doesn't correct the situation.

* Misspells words while copying from a book or from the blackboard.

* Their writing displays signs of uncertainty—there are lots of crossed-out words and words that have been erased.

Thanks to www.cognibeat.com for allowing us to reprint their article here. The original can be found at http://community.cognibeat.com/2010/12/readingspellingdyslx

Why Read?

We take reading for granted. But what do people with reading difficulties miss out on through not being able to read with ease? Why is reading so important?

Why Read? - Why Those Who Can’t Read Lose Out

For quite some time now, we’ve known that large numbers of people can’t read, or at least not without a struggle. Many people with reading difficulties manage to get through life without anyone ever realizing they can’t read, while others strike a compromise and ask others to read to them when necessary. They may ask for oral instead of written instructions on the job.

What is it these people miss out on by dint of their reading difficulties? Abraham Lincoln had a succinct way of framing the importance of reading: “A capacity and taste for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.”

A dyslexic may have an intense thirst to read, yet the words refuse to order themselves on the page for his perusal and comprehension. It is clear that without the capacity, the taste for reading cannot be fulfilled.

Academic Success

But reading isn’t just about a thirst for literature. It’s more basic than that. The U.S Department of Education dumbs it down like this: "It is no exaggeration to say that how well children learn to read affects directly not only how successful they are in school but how well they do throughout their lives. When children learn to read, they have the key that opens the door to all the knowledge of the world. Without this key, many children are left behind."

Reading is so indispensible in our lives that we it for granted. But step back a moment and imagine what it would be like if you couldn’t read the instructions that come with your medication. Imagine how the inability to read would tend to limit your job opportunities. Imagine yourself as a child who cannot read, falling behind your peers in school a bit more with each passing day.

Reading keeps the mind active. The brain needs regular exercise to grow and develop and reading is the perfect medium for this purpose. The more we read, the better we comprehend the written word. By making reading a habit, we train our brain to seek out and relate to the written wor

"Happy Days" in Spite of Dyslexia

The Fonz

Henry Winkler assured his place as a star in the Hollywood firmament by playing the role of "The Fonz" on the television show Happy Days, three decades ago. The Fonz wasn't just a slick, motorcycle-riding dude in a leather jacket who had a way with the chicks—he was a hero and often won the day. Today, Winkler is still a hero, still winning the day, but in the real world: the world of special education.

Undiagnosed Dyslexia

Winkler had to battle a severe case of undiagnosed dyslexia to make his way to stardom. Now 65, Winkler says that every person has the potential for greatness. The greatness, so he says, has nothing to do with one's grades or how one learns. The real job of the dyslexic is to discover his gift and how he will contribute to the world.

Book Series

Winkler is still acting, having performed in dozens of television and movie roles since Happy Days finished its ten-year run back in 1984. But his true and current claim to fame is as the co-author of a series of books about a character named Hank Zipzer. The character is at least semi-autobiographical and describes the adventures and misadventures of a boy with a learning disability not unlike Winkler's own.

Immigrant Parents

Winkler grew up in Manhattan, the child of German Jewish immigrants. His parents had no understanding that their son suffered from a learning problem. They gave him a derogatory nickname, an expression in German that meant, "Dumb dog." By his own admission, Winkler says he had issues with math, spelling, science, writing, reading, and social studies, but was, " … very good in lunch."

"Lazy, Stupid!"

Sports were also difficult and the actor recalls getting hit in the face with the ball when playing tetherball. Both his parents and his educators told him he was lazy, stupid, and not living up to his potential. But Winkler knew from the age of 7 that he was going to be an actor.

Master's Degree

Though he never attended a single special-education class, Winkler managed to get through high school. He even earned a bachelor's degree from Boston's Emerson College as well as a master's in fine arts, from Yale University's School of Drama. When he was 31, Winkler discovered that he had a real disability, something called "dyslexia." He felt a tremendous sense of relief. Today, he expresses gratitude for having a disability. He feels that dyslexia forced him to work harder and gain greater achievements.

Real People

Winkler draws on real life people in naming the characters in his books. Ms. Adolf is named for an actual, cold-hearted teacher from Winkler's childhood. The kind-hearted character Mr. Rock is named for Winkler's only teacher who assured the young boy that he would be fine.

Triumphal Symbol

Winkler's dyslexia is still alive and kicking, but he's learned to cope with new scripts by getting them early and learning them one word at a time. Henry has even gotten to the point where he reads mysteries and thrillers for pleasure, though reading will never be easy. He saves each book he reads on a designated shelf in his home as a symbol of triumph.

Dyslexics Don’t Learn From Repetition

Most schoolchildren can hone in on the teacher’s voice even amidst the cacophony of a boisterous classroom. That’s because the typical brain has the automatic ability to focus on auditory information that is repetitious, predictable, and relevant, but it’s different in kids with dyslexia.

The teacher’s voice may become lost within the larger spectrum of background noise, such as chairs scraping across the floor, whispered voices, clanging locker doors, and playground chants. That’s because dyslexic children have trouble separating important auditory information from other, competing sounds.

Sound Regularities

These findings come from research conducted at the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University, which offers evidence that kids who have trouble picking out speech from background noise also have a measurable neural (nerve) deficit that has an adverse impact on their ability to take advantage of sound regularities within their sound environments.

Nina Krause, Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology and director of the Laboratory, says that in order to hear speech within noise, we must have the ability to single out repetitive elements through a kind of sharpening or fine-tuning of these elements. This is the way we tag voice pitch, a cue that is crucial for singling out a specific voice within an environment of background noise.

Current Context

Krause and her colleagues showed that the brain manages to focus on the relevant factors of the sound environment thanks to an auditory system that is capable of adapting and changing its activity depending upon a current context.

Both typical and poor readers were shown a video as the sound “da” was broadcast in their ears via earphones during two separate sessions. The responses of the subjects’ brains to these sounds were measured.

During the first session, the sound was repeated in a continuous manner. In the second session, the sound “da” was used at random among other verbal sounds. During a third session, behavioral tests were administered to the children. At the same time, the kids were asked to repeat sentences that had been spoken to them against a backdrop of ever-increasing levels of noise.

Repetitive Speech

Even though the typical children were distracted by a movie, their auditory systems were able to tune in to repetitive speech sounds and sharpen the encoding of those sounds. But the poor readers showed no improvement in encoding sounds with repetition. The children with more typical adaptive auditory systems did better on the behavioral tests that required them to try to pick out speech within a busy sound environment.

Beneficial Strategies

The results of this study suggest that poor readers, who have trouble processing auditory information within a noisy background, might benefit from such strategies as situating the student in front of the teacher or using technology to enhance a teacher’s voice for a particular student.

Surviving the Season

Getting Through the Holidays with the LD Child

How can parents and their children with learning disabilities (LD) get through the holiday season with a minimum of emotional meltdowns?

This time of year, we often hear the words “merry” and “joyous” banded about in reference to the holiday season. But for the parents of a child with a learning disability, the holiday is anything but a happy time. Routine and structure are the lifeblood of a child with a learning difficulty of any sort and the long winter vacation offers just the opposite. It’s no wonder things get a little hairy and emotional meltdowns are the order, rather than the exception, of the day.

The antidote is clear: in order for parents (and their children) to survive, some sort of structure must be imposed and a routine created. Yet the holidays are hectic and overwhelming, even for well-organized adults. How can a parent compensate for the lack of structure and routine for a learning-disabled child when things are so frenzied?

The simplest way to help your child is to include them as a factor in your holiday planning. Just as you schedule your holidays plans in your calendar (bake X-mas cookies Wednesday, host open-house from 12PM-5PM January 1st) so too, you can pencil in activities with your child. The typical school day is broken up into regular blocks of time spent in routine activities. You can’t quite mimic that effect, and you’re not expected to do so, but any kind of quiet, scheduled activity, for instance 45 minutes of reading from a favorite storybook, can give your child back their bearings at this time.

Ongoing Activities

In order to keep your child from feeling pressured, you may want to make an activity an ongoing event. For instance, if your child likes decorating the tree, schedule a time of day for that, and let them decorate the tree over a period of days. You can start things off by stringing the lights. Then, during the time you’ve scheduled each day for tree-decoration, place a box of ornaments nearby for them to choose from.

The great thing about this activity is that your child feels included in your holiday preparations. They feel a part of things. Stay near your child to offer assistance as needed, and don’t neglect to tell them stories about the history of those decorations.

A parent should also prioritize their holiday plans and activities. Each demand on your time and energy should be considered in the light of your child’s needs and what you must provide to keep them happy and calm. In some cases, you may not have a choice. Some family outings, for instance, may be mandatory.

Examining Choices

If going to Grandma’s house for X-mas Eve dinner is nonnegotiable, attending five open houses in a row definitely is open to discussion. Keep plans down to a minimum for the sake of your child to avoid exposing them to unfamiliar surroundings, activities, and fuss. You can discuss this as a family and decide together which events take precedence and which, with regrets, you must skip. By examining your choices together as a family, you can determine the best way to spend your emotional and physical resources.

Last but not least, schedule in the joy. Clear a space on your calendar to just be with each other and enjoy time together. Take a walk in the snow and smell the air. Listen to some holiday music and sip a cup of hot cocoa together. Talk to your child and listen to them, too. That’s the stuff of joy for both you and your child and the holiday dividends of being a parent.

Happy Holidays!

Thanks to www.cognibeat.com for allowing us to reproduce this article. It can be found in it's entirety at http://community.cognibeat.com/2010/12/survivingtheseason/

Getting a Job

David Baron has lived with moderate dyslexia all his life. As a child growing up in the 1950′s and 60′s, no one understood his difficulties with numbers. Though he never received a confirmed diagnosis of dyslexia, Baron married a Special Ed teacher 3 decades ago. It was David’s wife who put her finger on the problem: moderate dyslexia.

Open Candor

A brilliant man of many talents, David speaks with candor about his adult struggles toward furthering his education, getting a decent job, and about how his disability has affected his self-esteem.

CogniBeat: “Has your dyslexia made it difficult for you to obtain gainful employment?”

Baron: “Sure has! It has had a profound effect on obtaining employment and education. I have a great talent for the sciences and technology but can’t manage the math. There was never any point in attempting to get into these areas in a serious way. I would have taken courses in hi-tech, such as programming, but these areas require serious math proficiency. I applied for a computer programming course after I learned a bit of Visual C++ just to see if I could do it and wrote small programs. I took the entrance exam for the programming course but bombed out in the math section.

Limited Options

Years back I considered going for my electrician’s license as I’d learned electronics in high school and even got my amateur radio license at age 14, but the prerequisites for the electrician’s course includes knowledge of trigonometry. They use trig to mathematically explain only one thing—electric phase relationships—and they assume that it can only be explained that one way. I had learned phase relationships in high school in electronics classes, and to this day I can explain it conceptually so that even a 13 year-old can understand, but that wasn’t good enough to get into the electrician’s course because they presume the student’s ignorance and insist on teaching this concept with trigonometry. Because my math inability is so serious I have had very limited employment options and job opportunities throughout my life.”

CogniBeat: “How does your dyslexia impact your self-image?”

David Baron: “Periods of unemployment—of having limited employment opportunities—has meant reduced income. It’s an obvious fact I can’t contribute to the household expenses as I would like. I know we don’t live as well as we would have had I been able to work in hi-tech—if I’d had a decent ability in math. It makes me feel poorly about myself. If I had average math abilities and average conceptual abilities [rather than advanced] it would have been far better. It wouldn’t be a profound lack coupled with a serious talent that turns out to be largely limited by the lack. Since a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, my usefulness with conceptual workings is correspondingly reduced due to the inability in math.”

CogniBeat: “Are you met with understanding in general society?”

David Baron: “People are very surprised to learn that I’m moderately dyslexic; they always assume that those who can speak and write fluently plus handle technological, ‘geeky’ scientific matters with ease are equally able in math. If they know about my lacks, do they empathize or commiserate? No, but then I never give people a reason to, as I always emphasize my talents and only if I have to do I admit my lacks, and those only as a matter of fact.

Few realize how a lack of math ability impacts my life financially except our family bookkeeper—my wife.”

This post has been reproduced with kind permission of www.cognibeat.com and can be seen in it's entirety at; http://community.cognibeat.com/2010/11/getting-a-job

Disleksia: The Movie

Dislecksia: The Movie

Filmmaker Harvey Hubbell has been making the rounds of schools across the United States recently. As a dyslexic himself, he is hard at work on a project he calls "Dislecksia: The Movie". The filmmaker believes that there is little awareness among the general public about dyslexia, a learning disability that affects skills such as reading, writing, spelling and sometimes math.

Dyslexia Documentary

Hubbell's documentary is a comedy that is based on his own experiences as a dyslexic child growing up in the 60's and 70's. He talks about his performance problems in school and how his teachers handled them.

Hubbell's documentary takes a close look at the causes of dyslexia and attempts to explain the ways in which the dyslexic brain differs from other brains. He also talks about the pervasiveness of reading difficulties in society and examines how educators might make a dent in improving this situation which has permeated classrooms everywhere.

It is my mission to raise awareness on the topic, and to help dyslexics to get the education they need by offering the movie as a tool for advocates who work to get laws changed. - Harvey Hubbel V

Four Emmy's

Hubbell has managed to succeed at his chosen field despite his own challenges with dyslexia. The filmmaker's documentaries have earned over 50 awards from various film festivals, including four Emmy awards.

Early Identification

Hubbell hopes his project will bring dyslexia into the forefront of the public conscious so that more dyslexics will receive the help they need. There's a crucial need to identify symptoms of dyslexia early, so that children can receive diagnostic testing and treatment as soon as possible. It is believed that one in every ten children worldwide has dyslexia.

Make a tax deductible donation to Dislecksia:The Movie and purchase merchandise!

It is believed that in the United States, for instance, somewhere between 15 and 35 million Americans are living with dyslexia. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says that 15%-20% of the American student population has dyslexia.

Getting Over the Hump

Overcoming Reading-Comprehension Difficulties

When most people think of reading difficulties, they think of dyslexia. But not all reading difficulties stem from this learning disability. To be a proficient reader involves2 basic skills; 1. recognizing words and 2. understanding their meaning. Word recognition is a very broad term that encompasses the phenomena of dyslexia without going into detail.

But a small number of children, around 10%, have trouble with reading comprehension. They have no problem with reading text and they read with a great deal of accuracy—unlike children with dyslexia. What children with reading-comprehension difficulties cannot do is explain to you what they’ve just read.

A recent study published in Psychological Science, a publication put out by the Association for Psychological Science, discusses a training program which may help kids overcome this type of reading difficulty. Four psychological scientists from the University of York in the UK, Paula J. Clarke, Margaret J. Snowling, Emma Truelove, and Charles Hulme carried out a study to determine which of three reading intervention programs would be the most effective in enhancing a child’s reading comprehension.

Three Programs

The participants in this study were 8 and 9 year-old children with reading-comprehension difficulties. They took part in one of three intervention programs: Text Comprehension training (TC), which involves re-reading written texts and trying to visualize content (metacognitive); Oral Language training (OL), which ignores texts altogether, and concentrates instead on spoken language with an accompanying emphasis on vocabulary; and a third program consisting of a combination of TC and OL called COM, that utilizes components from the other two programs. The children were evaluated for performance prior to the study, during the training period, and at 11 months after completion of the programs.

While all three groups showed some improvement in reading comprehension, the children with the most significant and long-term improvement were those who participated in the OL training group. “The OL and COM groups also showed improvements in knowledge of the meanings of words that they had been taught and these improvements, in turn, helped to account for these children’s improved reading comprehension skills,” said the authors.

The simple fact that the children who had the OL training did better than those in the COM training group suggests that spending more time on oral-language training seems to be a key factor in overcoming reading-comprehension issues. The COM program used half the amount of oral-language training used in the OL intervention.

Vocabulary Deficits

The authors point out that their findings seem to have pinpointed underdeveloped vocabulary as at least one major underlying reason for reading-comprehension difficulties. It is hoped that the results of the study will guide educators in helping children get over the hump of their reading-comprehension issues.

This blog has been reproduced with kind permission from www.cognibeat.com and can be seen in it's entirety at http://community.cognibeat.com/2010/12/gettingoverthehump

Dyslexic Success: Erin Brockovich’s Biggest Victory

Erin Brockovich is famous for rising up from humble beginnings as a single, unemployed mom to an activist that helped win a class-action lawsuit to the tune of $333 million, the largest settlement in a direct class-action suit in the history of the United States.

Brockovich did her thing by going over myriad pages of text with a fine-toothed comb. But those thousands of pages she scoured weren’t just any kind of text—they were legal briefs and medical records, consisting of difficult, technical language. One might say that Brockovich’s biggest victory wasn’t winning a lawsuit against a corporation worth billions of dollars, but the fact that she could read. Brockovich has dyslexia.

Brockovich has said that her high school teachers wouldn’t have believed she could read that many briefs. In fact, educators counseling her told her that she wouldn’t be able to get through college. While Brockovich was aware she wasn’t stupid, she did suffer tremendous hardships in her school years. She says the problems began in the second grade.


Like a lot of children who suffer from learning difficulties, Brockovich didn’t receive a confirmed diagnosis of dyslexia until she was an adult. As she grew up, she became the victim of a great deal of teasing from her classmates. Even today, Brockovich’s difficulty is still manifest whenever it comes time for her to balance her checkbook. Erin tends to reverse symbols. The balance may stand at $1,800, yet Brockovich might write $8,100. That’s something that scares her, and Brockovich doesn’t scare easy. Still, Ms. Brockovich no longer minds the teasing. She believes her handicap is what led her to do her current work. In reflecting on her history, Brockovich is adamant that we must not typecast children. She is concerned about the fact that educators tend to label students and feels this is a damaging trend.



Brockovich directs those with learning difficulties to never lose hope. If a teacher should become frustrated, Erin tells kids not to let that frustration touch them. She advises that they step away, because the pressure is sure to make them fail at learning. She tells them not to worry about being labeled.


Brockovich credits a wise teacher, Kathy Borseff, her high school history teacher, for keeping her spirits up. Borseff recognized that Brockovich knew the material in spite of her failing marks. So Borseff convinced the teachers to give Brockovich oral tests. The positive results of this experiment proved that Brockovich was just as smart as the other kids. She just had her own brand of intelligence.

This article was reposted with kind permission from CogniBeat :Erin Brockovich’s Biggest Victory