Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin.
- when a person has dyslexia, their brain works differently
- students with dyslexia will require a different approach to reading instruction
The student’s difficulties in the area of reading will reflect one or more of the primary characteristics of dyslexia with unexpected low performance for the student’s age and educational level in the following areas:
- Reading real words in isolation
- Decoding nonsense words
- Reading fluency - reading individual words accurately at an appropriate pace
- Written spelling - an isolated difficulty in spelling would not be sufficient to identify dyslexia
This unexpectedly low reading performance will be a result of a deficit in the phonological component of language which pertains to speech sounds in words.
The student’s low performance in reading acquisition is unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction.
- It is a surprise that the child struggles to read
