How High Visual Intelligence Can Cause Apparent Dyslexia
Most teachers of 5 and 6-year-old children will tell you how baffled they can be by this phenomenon.
There will often be several bright children in the class, who can do most things well and have a good attitude, but fall behind in reading.
They will often do well at first, learning the alphabet and simple words quite easily. But then, as other children progress, they start to struggle, hitting a plateau by the age of 7. With the text using a wider vocabulary, they resort to more and more wild guessing as they become confused.
Eventually their confidence begins to crumble. They can feel the frustration and concern of the adults around them, but don’t know what to do.
Sometimes this leads to a diagnosis of dyslexia, which is quite wrong.
Dyslexia suggests there is some underlying problem that cannot be overcome.
But these children are usually just trying to read the wrong way. There is no reason why they should not be able to read.
Let me explain the process.
A very visual child will learn most of the alphabet quite easily. Then they are usually shown some simple high frequency words, which they can sight-memorise. Their first early reader books are usually made up of a very simple vocabulary of these common words and they can apparently read them, using this sight-memorisation and a bit of intelligent guessing.
So their parents and teacher believe all is well.
But problems develop as the text starts to use a broader range of words. Some children will naturally switch to scanning the words phonetically.
Others cannot make the switch without careful instruction. Their auditory perception just isn’t up to hearing the phonic structure of the words.
And these are the ones that have major problems.
They will use the context to guess wildly, taking the first letter of the word as a guide.
They find themselves down a cul-de-sac and don’t know the way out. At the same time they can feel how worried their teacher and parents are, but can’t do any more than they already are.
Of the one in five children who reach the age of 11 unable to read properly, around 80% are in this group. It virtually destroys their chances of a good academic career and severely limits their working options.
And what a tragedy. We routinely watch them become confident readers in just a few weeks. They only need to be guided back onto the right path.
The label dyslexic is very dangerous. It lets everyone off the hook of actually finding a solution. And still consigns the child to a lower and tougher track through life.