Dyslexia Test - Symptoms of Dyslexia - Free Assessment

So, how do you know if your child has dyslexia? Following are some general symptoms of dyslexia that can serve as a guide for the steps you need to take if your child has these symptoms.

• Slow, labored inaccurate reading of single words in isolation
• Slow, choppy oral reading while ignoring punctuation
• Becomes visibly tired after reading for a short time
• Poor reading comprehension
• When reading, frequently reverses, inverts, or transposes letters or words
• Substitutes similar looking words, even if it changes the meaning of the sentence, such as sunrise for surprise
• Omits or changes suffixes, such as need for needed
• Spelling errors of reversals, inversions, or transpositions
• Continually misspells sight words or misreads sight words
• Written work shows signs of spelling uncertainty
• Misspells even when copying something from the board or from a book
• Unusual pencil grip when writing, often with the thumb on top of the fingers – a fist grip
• May hold the pencil lower or higher than normal
• The pencil grip is so tight that the child’s hand cramps
• Writing letters is a slow, labored, non-fluent chore
• Writes letters with unusual starting and ending points
• Has great difficulty getting letters to sit on horizontal lines
• Unusual spatial organization of the page. Words may be widely spaced or tightly pushed together. Margins are often ignored
• Has an unusually difficult time learning and using cursive writing
• Writes extremely short sentences
• Takes an unusually long time to write
• Displays very poor mastery of punctuation as well as grammar, syntax, and suffixes
• Misspells many words
• Has nearly illegible handwriting
• Uses space poorly on the page
• Misses many errors in written work even when proofreading has been attempted
• Left-right confusion, mainly showing up in handwriting and math
• Difficulty in directionality – confuses north and south or the meaning of words such as right – left
• Tying shoelaces is difficult
• Difficult time writing capital cursive letters
• Long division, fractions, and memorizing multiplication tables is difficult
• Touch typing is difficult
• Learning science and history facts is difficult
• Concepts of time and calendars are difficult
• Disorganized personal space
• Loses many personal items such as clothing, watches, papers, books, shoes

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If your child has many of these symptoms, he may be dyslexic. A test is a good place to start to find out for sure. Or, you can just assume that this is his life and move on from there.

So, how do we still the waters that churn continually in a dyslexic child’s mind? For starters, brain exercises must come into play. To calm these waters the brain must become balanced. Ear eights, eye eights, cross crawls, magic eights, and mirrors are exercises I use regularly with the dyslexic child. Martial arts is wonderful for these children due to the constant crossing of the midline and visualization of moves and poses.

Next, I work on spatial and visual processing. I have found that most of these kids are having a difficult time processing in their visual field. Eighty percent of what we take in is visual, so I always start here. Usually their eye muscles are weak, so I patch an eye and do the star eye exercises and repeat them on the other eye. I work on strengthening eye muscles. I have them work on spatial skills as well. Listen and draw is a great exercise I use for dyslexic children, as it encompasses all three avenues of learning. It is amazing how these kids perceive the world.

Next, I work on auditory and fine motor skills. I have yet to work with a dyslexic child who didn’t have fine motor skills problems. I am to the point where I can almost diagnose a kid after a few minutes. This thing is real, and it seems to be an epidemic. Getting these kids to write is one of the most difficult things I do. We start slowly with other exercises to get their hands and brains to work together. I always have these kids learn cursive, as it is difficult to have a reversed letter with cursive and it also flows with the brain. Manuscript is choppy and it does not flow. It actually slows these kids down. Cursive is a tough transition for them, but once it is made, then it works so much better and writing skills can then be learned.

Usually, after a few months of this, the waters do indeed calm down. They start doing things that were not possible for them before. They start seeing some successes in school. Reading isn’t quite the chore it once was. Writing becomes easier.

Is this an over night fix? Definitely not. It usually takes about a year for me to get a kid with dyslexia to be functional in a classroom and on grade level. And, that is with the parent’s help. Daily exercises are important. It took me twice as long to get a dyslexic girl up to speed because her parents weren’t willing to do eye exercises at home. But, she is in junior high school now and doing well. It just takes time and patience.

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