Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability.

Dyslexia refers to a cluster of symptoms, which result in people having difficulties with specific language skills, particularly reading.

Students with dyslexia usually experience difficulties with other language skills such as spelling, writing, and pronouncing words.

Dyslexia affects individuals throughout their lives; however, its impact can change at different stages in a person’s life.

It is referred to as a learning disability because dyslexia can make it very difficult for a student to succeed academically in the typical instructional environment, and in its more severe forms, will qualify a student for special education, special accommodations, or extra support services.

Myth: Dyslexia does not exist
Fact: Dyslexia is one of the most researched and documented conditions that will impact children. Over 30 years of independent, scientific, replicated, published research exists on dyslexia—much of it done through the National Institutes of Health, funded by taxpayer dollars.

Myth: Dyslexia is rare
Fact: Dyslexia is not rare. It is the most common reason a child will struggle first with spelling, then with written expression, and eventually “hit the wall” in reading development by third grade.

According to the NIH researchers, in the United States, dyslexia impacts 20% of our population. That's 1 out of every 5 people. But it does come in degrees. Some have it only mildly, some have it moderately, some have it severely, and some have it profoundly.

Very few children with dyslexia are in the special education system. Only 1 in 10 will be eligible for an IEP (when tested in second or third grade) under the category of Learning Disability (LD).

NIH research has repeatedly demonstrated that lack of phonemic awareness is the root cause of reading failure. Phonemes are the smallest unit of spoken language, not written language.

Children who lack phonemic awareness are unable to distinguish or manipulate sounds within spoken words or syllables. They would be unable to do the following tasks:

• Phoneme Segmentation: What sounds do you hear in the word hot? What's the last sound in the word map?
• Phoneme Deletion: What word would be left if the /k/ sound were taken away from cat?
• Phoneme Matching: Do pen and pipe start with the same sound?
• Phoneme Counting: How many sounds do you hear in the word cake?
• Phoneme Substitution: What word would you have if you changed the /h/ in hot to /p/?
• Blending: What word would you have if you put these sounds together? /s/ /a/ /t/
• Rhyming: Tell me as many words as you can that rhyme with the word eat.

If a child lacks phonemic awareness, they will have difficulty learning the relationship between letters and the sounds they represent in words, as well as applying those letter/sound correspondences to help them “sound out” unknown words.

Phonemic Awareness is the first step. You must teach someone how to listen to a single word or syllable and break it into individual phonemes. They also have to be able to take individual sounds and blend them into a word, change sounds, delete sounds, and compare sounds—all in their head. These skills are easiest to learn before someone brings in printed letters.

Phoneme/Grapheme Correspondence
Here you teach which sounds are represented by which letter(s), and how to blend those letters into single-syllable words.

Six Types of Syllables that Compose English Words
If students know what type of syllable they're looking at, they'll know what sound the vowel will make. Conversely, when they hear a vowel sound, they'll know how the syllable must be spelled to make that sound.