Signs Of Dyslexia In Primary School: Prep To Year 6

The Primary School Checklist

The signs change part way through primary school, so this checklist is in two parts. Tick what you see most weeks, not what happened once, then take it to your child’s teacher. A checklist cannot show whether a child has dyslexia. It shows whether the pattern is worth a closer look.

Prep To Year 2: Learning To Decode

In the first three years of school (about ages five to eight) children are taught to turn letters into sounds and blend them into words. Prep is also called Foundation, Kindergarten, Reception, Pre-primary or Transition. Dyslexia shows here as trouble with that code.

• Letter sounds do not stick. After terms of teaching your child is still unsure of the sounds for common letters. Dyslexia is at heart a difficulty with the sounds inside words, so pairing each sound with a letter takes far more repetition.
• Says the sounds but cannot blend them. “S, a, t” comes out, and then “sit” or a shrug. Blending means holding each sound in mind while adding the next, which leans on the same sound memory.
• Reads the first letter, or the picture, and makes up the rest. “House” is read as “horse” or “home”. When sounding out is unreliable a child reaches for any other clue on the page.
• Reads “went” in the home reader, then stalls on it in a worksheet. The word was recognised by its look or its place in the sentence, not worked out from its letters, so it has not been stored.
• Knows the home reader by heart but cannot read the same words in a list. Memory and pictures are carrying the book. Cover the pictures, or point to single words out of order, and see what happens.
• Spelling still leaves sounds out or muddles their order after a year or more of teaching. “Sop” for “stop”, “flim” for “film”. Spelling a word the way it sounds (“sed” for “said”) is a normal stage. Sounds that keep going missing are the sign, because the child cannot yet pull every sound out of the word.
• Reading time ends in tears, stalling or a sore tummy. Avoiding a task is often the first thing a parent sees. It follows from effort that is out of step with the result.
• Talks and understands well, yet reading lags far behind. A child who follows a chapter book read aloud but cannot read a simple sentence has a gap between spoken and written language, which is common in dyslexia.

Years 3 To 6: Reading To Learn

From about Year 3 (ages eight to twelve), school expects children to read in order to learn everything else. Many words may now be read correctly, so the signs of dyslexia in an 8 year old or older child move to speed, long words, spelling and writing.

• Reads accurately enough, but slowly and word by word. Reading aloud is flat and halting. Each word is still being worked out instead of recognised at once, so nothing is left over for expression.
• Stumbles on long or new words. “Evaporation”, “ancient”, a new character’s name. Subject words arrive faster than they can be decoded, so they are skipped or guessed.
• Understands when you read it aloud, not when reading alone. The thinking is fine. The effort of getting the words off the page uses up the attention that understanding needs.
• One word turns up with a different spelling each time on the same page. The spelling was memorised as a string of letters, not built from the word’s sounds.
• Writes much less than they can say. A child with plenty to tell you produces three lines and picks short words they know how to spell.
• Homework that should be quick takes all evening, and reading aloud in class is dreaded. Tiredness after school, “I’m dumb”, and worry about school are common by this stage and are part of the picture.
• Gets worded maths problems wrong on paper and right when they are read out. Then the reading, not the maths, is likely the problem.

For how these signs sound and look in real reading and writing, see what dyslexia looks like. Stalling, drifting attention and unfinished work at reading time can also look like an attention difficulty: the differences are in ADHD and dyslexia. From Year 7 the signs in high school shift again, and the signs for every stage are on signs of dyslexia in children.

From dyslexiaassessment.com.au. A checklist is not a diagnosis.