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Dyslexia affects approximately 15-20% of the population, making it the most common learning difference you'll encounter in the classroom. Understanding its warning signs isn't just about identification—it's about recognizing that dyslexia reflects differences in how the brain processes language, not deficits in intelligence or effort. When you can spot these patterns early, you open the door to targeted interventions that can transform a struggling reader into a confident one.
The warning signs of dyslexia cluster around specific cognitive processes: phonological processing, orthographic processing, rapid automatic naming, and working memory. You're being tested on your ability to distinguish between these underlying mechanisms and recognize how they manifest across different literacy tasks. Don't just memorize a checklist of symptoms—know which cognitive process each warning sign reflects and how these processes interconnect to create the reading difficulties you'll observe.
The core of dyslexia lies in phonological processing—the brain's ability to recognize, store, and manipulate the sound structures of language. When this system struggles, every aspect of reading that depends on connecting sounds to print becomes laborious.
Compare: Phonological awareness vs. letter-sound correspondence—both involve sounds, but phonological awareness is purely auditory (no print involved), while letter-sound correspondence requires connecting sounds to visual symbols. FRQs often ask you to distinguish between these and recommend appropriate assessments for each.
Dyslexia often involves difficulties with rapid automatic naming (RAN)—the speed at which the brain retrieves familiar information. When retrieval is slow, reading can't become automatic, and cognitive resources get consumed by basic decoding instead of comprehension.
Compare: Phonological deficits vs. RAN deficits—some students have one, some have both (called a "double deficit"). Students with only RAN deficits may decode accurately but painfully slowly. This distinction matters for intervention planning—phonics instruction helps phonological deficits, but fluency practice targets RAN weaknesses.
When basic reading processes consume excessive cognitive resources, working memory becomes overloaded. Students can decode the words but have nothing left for understanding them.
Compare: Comprehension difficulties in dyslexia vs. specific comprehension deficits—students with dyslexia typically comprehend well when listening to text (their language comprehension is intact). If a student struggles with both listening and reading comprehension, you may be looking at a different profile. This is why the Simple View of Reading () is so important for differential assessment.
Observable behaviors often provide the first clues that underlying processing differences exist. These aren't causes of dyslexia—they're responses to the frustration of struggling with print.
Compare: Avoidance behaviors vs. attention difficulties—a student who avoids reading but engages enthusiastically with hands-on learning likely has a literacy-specific issue. A student who struggles to engage across all activities may have attention concerns. Always consider whether the avoidance is task-specific or generalized.
| Underlying Process | Warning Signs to Watch For |
|---|---|
| Phonological Awareness | Rhyming difficulty, phoneme segmentation struggles, sound manipulation challenges |
| Letter-Sound Correspondence | Decoding problems, letter reversals, inconsistent sound-symbol connections |
| Rapid Automatic Naming | Slow naming of familiar items, word retrieval delays, laborious reading pace |
| Reading Fluency | Slow reading, frequent pausing, lack of prosody and expression |
| Working Memory | Comprehension gaps, difficulty following directions, vocabulary retention problems |
| Spelling/Orthographic Processing | Persistent misspellings, phonetic errors, inconsistent spelling of same words |
| Behavioral Responses | Reading avoidance, frustration, anxiety around literacy tasks |
A student can rhyme words orally but struggles to decode simple CVC words in print. Which two cognitive processes should you assess, and how do they differ?
Compare and contrast a student with phonological deficits only versus a student with a "double deficit" (phonological + RAN). How would their reading profiles differ?
A third-grader reads accurately but extremely slowly, with little expression. Her listening comprehension is excellent. Which warning sign category does this reflect, and what intervention approach would be most appropriate?
Why might a student with dyslexia perform well on a reading comprehension assessment when the passage is read aloud, but poorly when reading independently? Connect your answer to the Simple View of Reading.
A student avoids all writing tasks and becomes anxious during spelling tests but participates eagerly in science experiments and math manipulatives. What does the task-specific nature of this avoidance suggest about the underlying cause?