Children learn and develop at their own pace.

“Most students are smart enough, care enough and want to succeed at learning.” – Gayle Moyers

The language skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. As a child grows, these skills usually develop in the order listed.

From before birth, the child is listening to his mother’s voice and the sounds in her immediate surroundings. By birth, he recognizes his mother’s voice.

As the people around the baby speaks to him, he listens and imitates the sounds he hears. Within his first year, he begins to speak – first in sounds, then single words, next in phrases, and finally, in sentences.

Learning to read should happen with ease and enjoyment. If a child is loved, well-nourished, gets adequate sleep and rest, and exercises daily, but does not demonstrate progress in mastering the language code to read, there may be specific issues to address.

When a child has trouble reading, he is usually challenged in writing also.

If your child has difficulty learning to read or is significantly slow to progress, there may be specific underlying issues that need to be addressed. In addition, other areas of development may also be lagging behind.

The sooner you discover them, the better.

Here are some general traits and behaviors that indicate your child may be dyslexic:

• He appears bright, highly intelligent, and articulate but is unable to read, write, or spell at a level with his peers.
• When called to a conference with his teacher, he is often labeled as lazy, careless, immature, “not trying hard enough,” or “a behavior problem.”
• During examinations, he does not test well academically even though his IQ is high; when tests are given orally, he gets good results but not when they are written.
• He is talented in non-academic subjects like art, drama, music, sports, mechanics, storytelling, sales, business, designing, building, or engineering.
• He struggles in lecture-type classes but learns best through hands-on experience, demonstrations, experimentation, observation, and visual aids.
• He has difficulty sustaining attention; seems to be “hyper” or a “daydreamer.” When he “zones out,” he seems to lose track of time.
• When you ask the school administration for help, you are told he isn’t “behind enough” or “bad enough” to be helped in the school setting. Sometimes, it is suggested that you hire an outside tutor.
• Because he feels dumb, after a while he develops poor self-esteem; hides or covers up his weaknesses with ingenious compensatory strategies; eventually, he becomes easily frustrated and emotional about his school, reading, or testing.

The characteristics you see may vary from day to day or even minute to minute. The most consistent thing about dyslexics is their inconsistency in skill demonstration or responses.

In my next few articles, I’ll highlight other traits and behaviors in specific developmental domains, which may also signal the presence of dyslexia.

Have you lived or worked with children who demonstrated some of these difficulties?