Consider too that many people with dyslexia are highly articulate and bright, which can seem inconsistent with the literacy and spelling struggles they experience. It might be incorrectly assumed a student is not trying or doesn't care about their performance on some assignments. This can get students in trouble, especially when the dyslexia has not been identified.
Because dyslexia affects working memory, a student might study for a spelling test and do well, and then tomorrow, not be able to spell what they spelled correctly on the test. School spelling tests can be a nightmare for dyslexic students. Its written language is constructed of symbols and pictograms which may be more easily remembered. They are therefore easier than English words to spell. For example, Spanish and Italian words are more consistent in the way they map letters to sounds. However, you won’t necessarily see everyone who has dyslexia experiencing the same difficulties with spelling. That's because phonemes in some languages are more orthographically transparent. Remember that 10% or more statistic? It applies right across the world. They therefore have difficulty in encoding and decoding words, skills which are necessary in order to manipulate written language. Dyslexia affects spelling when students are not able to hear the small units of sound that represent meaning. This, and the ability to make connections between sounds and letters and letter combinations is how we develop fluent reading and spelling skills.
To be able to differentiate between the sounds is to have phonemic awareness. It is thought that up to 10% of the population is affected personally by dyslexia some believe it’s even more than this.įed – wed – red these English words have three distinct sounds. You can be of normal intelligence and mildly or severely dyslexic, or you can be absolutely brilliant and mildly or severely dyslexic. It is a difference in the way in which the brain processes language, and it can affect visual and auditory processing as well.ĭyslexia is separate from intelligence and is found across a range of intellectual capabilities. What is dyslexia?ĭyslexia is a learning difficulty - also called a learning difference, and in some countries a learning disability – which can affect the skills involved in reading and spelling. That's why teaching English spelling to children and adults is no easy task, but give a sympathetic thought then to the student who struggles with dyslexia. All in all, it can quickly get confusing. More problematic is perhaps the fact that in English the same letter(s) can be used to represent different sounds and sometimes the same sound can be spelled with different letters! Additionally, there are inherited ways of spelling that no longer go with today's pronunciation. We received the package (there’s the spelling rule in practice) but what we received was a weird and feisty little monkey (and there are two exceptions). There are so many exceptions to the rules! I before E except after C is a case in point. English is a particularly difficult language when it comes to spelling.