Many parents worry when their children struggle with reading, writing and in mathematics. Most children pick up the basics with some extra help and progress well, but others still keep struggling. Dyslexic children face problems in reading and writing. This is because the world of words, letters and numbers look different when seen through the eyes of a dyslexic. However, the dyslexic children are not lacking in intelligence. As a matter of fact, they may be even more brilliant when compared to their peers. The hindrance posed by their struggle with dyslexia can be overcome by therapy. Remember, all children who face trouble reading, writing and spelling are not dyslexic. Some children may have attention deficit disorder whereas others may just be lazy. Here are some warning signs of dyslexia in children:

• Dyslexic people have confusion regarding direction. They may confuse right for left and vice versa.

• They may have reverse letters while reading or writing. For instance, they may write or read b as d and vice versa. Similarly, p may be read as q.

• The same reversal is seen with numbers too. For instance, 42 may be written as 24.

• Dyslexic people have trouble following the sequence of alphabets in a word and words in a sentence. For instance, they may read cat instead of act or pat instead of tap. Similarly, "they felt" may be read as "felt they".

• They struggle with small words like and, the, for and more.

• Dyslexic children are usually late speakers. Most children should be able to speak a few words by the time he or she is one year old. Dyslexic children make grammatical and verbal errors while speaking even when they are 4-5 years old.

• The handwriting of a person is indicative of underlying problems like dyslexia. Dyslexic people usually have illegible handwriting. Most of their sentences are half finished and their words may contain a mixture of capital and small letters.

• Most tasks that require doing things in a sequence pose a challenge for dyslexic children. For example, tying their shoelaces can be a Herculean task because it involves putting on the shoes, holding the lace in a specific pattern and tying them step by step.

• They have trouble reading time from a clock with hands.

• These children face difficulties with math. Multiplication, subtraction, addition and the like are difficult for normal children to pick up. Dyslexic children find it even more difficult to memorize and to remember mathematical figures.

• People with dyslexia are messy. They find it difficult to arrange their things in order. They tend to pile things away.

No person with dyslexia has only one or has all these symptoms. Signs of dyslexia vary from person to person. Dyslexic people are gifted in arts, math, music, and mechanics. They just need some help to work around the problem posed by their dyslexia.

Mark Perry

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