What is dyslexia?

Children learn and bloom at their own pace, and reading is no different from the development of other skills. It is common for children to encounter challenges with reading sooner or later. But if learning to read becomes an ongoing struggle that causes a child to fall behind their peers, they may have a learning disorder known as dyslexia.

What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is commonly associated with difficulty learning to read. It affects a child's ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds of language. Children with dyslexia have difficulty decoding new words, or breaking them down into more manageable chunks that they can pronounce. This causes difficulties with reading, writing and spelling. They may compensate by memorizing the words, but they will have trouble recognizing new words and may take longer to recognize even already familiar words.

Dyslexia is not a reflection of a child's intelligence. In fact, it is defined as a gap between a student's ability and their performance. Some children with dyslexia manage to keep up with their peers by making extra efforts, at least during the early school grades. But they might have trouble keeping up around third grade, when they need to be able to read quickly and fluently.

With help and strategies to compensate for their difficulty with decoding, students with dyslexia can learn to read and succeed academically. However, dyslexia is not something that goes away as you grow up.