The Path to Failure - Or Success
Signs of Struggle for Every Age

Kindergarten and First Grade

• Your child doesn't seem to understand that words are made up of individual sounds that can be pulled apart and combined to make words. For example, that batboy can be pulled apart into bat and boy and that the word bat can be broken down still further and sounded out as: b aaaa t;
  
  
• Your child doesn't seem to be able to associate letters with sounds; for example, he or she finds it difficult to connect the letter b with the buh sound;
  
  
• When your child reads out loud, he or she makes errors that show no connection to the sounds of the letters; for example, the word big is read as goat;
  
  
• Your child has trouble reading common, one-syllable words, and sounding out the simplest of words, such as dog, cat, hop, nap;
• Your child complains often about how difficult reading is.

From Second Grade On

Problems in Speaking

The following indications in your child's speaking ability can forecast reading difficulty:

• Frequently mispronouncing long, unfamiliar or complicated words, or fracturing words by leaving out parts of words or confusing the order of the parts of words, saying amulium instead of aluminum, for example;
  
  
• Speech that isn't fluent - your child pauses or hesitates often when speaking and uses lots of "um's" or "uh's" when speaking;
  
  
• Imprecise language - making vague references to objects instead of referring to them by their proper name;
  
  
• Having trouble finding the right word, saying tornado instead of volcano, and confusing words that sound alike, such as lotion for ocean, or humanity for humidity;
  
  
• Taking a long time to come up with a verbal response to a question;
  
  
• Having serious difficulty remembering isolated pieces of verbal information - such as dates, names, telephone numbers and random lists; another sign of trouble may be that your child remembers concepts better than isolated facts.

• Very slow progress in acquiring reading skills, with particular difficulty with unfamiliar words that must be sounded out;
  
  
• Stumbling when reading multi-syllable words, without coming close when sounding out the full word;
  
  
• Omitting parts of words when reading, so that it sounds as if there's a hole in the word, reading convertible as conible, for example;
  
  
• An intense fear of reading out loud;
  
  
• Oral reading that is choppy and labored, with substitutions, omissions and mispronounced words;
  
  
• A stronger ability to understand words in context than individually;
  
  
• Poor performance on multiple choice tests, and an inability to finish tests on time;
  
  
• Substituting words with the same meaning for words that your child can't pronounce, saying car instead of automobile, for example;
  
  
• Disastrous spelling skills;
  
  
• Trouble reading mathematics word problems;
  
  
• A strong dislike for reading in general, and a feeling that reading for pleasure is too exhausting.

These recommendations are from Sally E. Shaywitz, MD, a professor of pediatrics at the Yale University School of Medicine, who has devoted her career to better understanding reading and dyslexia. She is the author of 200 scientific articles, chapters and books, including Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level, which received the 2004 Margo Marek Book Award and the 2004 NAMI Book Award.

These recommendations are excerpted from her chapter "Armed With the Facts: The Science of Reading and Its Implications for Teaching," from Why Kids Can't Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education, by Phyllis Blaunstein and Reid Lyon.