What is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language, and are unexpected, considering other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.

DSM-V updated the criteria to not require a pattern of strengths and weaknesses in IQ scores.

Some signs to be looking for if you're wondering about your child's struggles...

Difficulty with oral language

•      Late in learning to talk
•      Difficulty pronouncing words
•      Difficulty acquiring vocabulary or using age appropriate grammar
•      Difficulty following directions
•      Confusion with before/after, right/left, and so on
•      Difficulty learning the alphabet, nursery rhymes, or
          songs
•      Difficulty understanding concepts and relationships
•      Difficulty with word retrieval or naming problems

Reading problems like...

•      Difficulty learning to read
•     Difficulty identifying or generating rhyming words, or
          counting syllables in words (Phonological Awareness)
•      Difficulty with hearing and manipulating sounds in words
          (Phonemic Awareness)
•      Difficulty distinguishing different sounds in words
          (Auditory Discrimination)
•      Difficulty in learning the sounds of letters
•      Difficulty remembering names and/or shapes of letters
•      Reverses letters or the order of letters when reading
•      Misreads or omits common small words
•      “Stumbles” through longer words
•      Poor reading comprehension during oral or silent reading
•      Slow, laborious oral reading

Written Language Struggles

•      Difficulty putting ideas on paper
•      Many spelling mistakes
•      May do well on weekly spelling tests, but there are many spelling mistakes in daily work
•      Difficulty in proofreading

Orton-Gillingham Methodology

The Orton-Gillingham Approach

The treatment is educational ...
The Orton-Gillingham Approach is a research-based, reading, writing and spelling curriculum which is:

designed for dyslexic readers and certain others struggling with literacy skills.

validated by scientific reading research sponsored by The National Academy of Sciences emphasizing phonemic awareness, phoneme segmentation, the alphabetic principle, decoding, reading comprehension and fluency.

flexible and individualized. Diagnostic/prescriptive teaching enables the teacher to adapt the curricular elements to the needs of each student.

effective for all ages. A skilled Orton-Gillingham therapist can help students to achieve their potential and succeed in general education classes from grade school through college.

success-oriented. Materials are presented in a direct instruction, multisensory format. Elements are introduced sequentially with cumulative review.

sequential skill-building starting with the basics and advancing to highly complex language elements. Reading and spelling accuracy improves, often dramatically, as students learn to utilize letter-sound correspondences, syllable division patterns and spelling generalizations to decode and spell words.