Dyslexia is a common learning disability that affects reading, writing, and spelling skills. Mild dyslexia means having some difficulties with these skills, but not severe enough to significantly impact daily life and academic performance. Here are some key things to know about what mild dyslexia can look like:
Difficulty decoding words
One of the hallmark signs of dyslexia, even mild cases, is trouble decoding words. This means struggling to sound out unfamiliar words by mapping letters to sounds. A child with mild dyslexia may read slowly and need more time to sound out words. They may also make more mistakes reading unfamiliar words. However, they can typically read familiar words with fewer issues.
Letter and number reversals
Reversing letters like b and d or numbers like 6 and 9 is common in mild dyslexia. These reversals may happen more frequently in early elementary years and improve over time. But some reversal issues can persist even into adulthood in milder cases.
Difficulty with reading fluency
Reading fluency refers to reading accurately, quickly, and with proper expression. Children with mild dyslexia may read more slowly than peers, even when reading familiar words. Their reading may sound choppy or labored instead of smooth and expressive. This makes it harder for them to focus on comprehending text.
Trouble memorizing sight words
Sight words are common words that young readers are expected to memorize by sight, such as “the,” “is,” and “you.” Students with dyslexia often have trouble committing sight words to memory and relying on mental sight word vocabulary to boost reading fluency. A mild case may mean they require more drilling and repetition to learn a volume of sight words.
Writing skills affected
Dyslexia not only affects reading skills, but often writing too. Someone with mild dyslexia is likely to have at least some struggles with spelling, punctuation, grammar, and organizing writing. They may have messier handwriting and need more time and effort to complete writing assignments accurately.
Preschool language delays
Early language delays may emerge as a red flag for dyslexia. Mild cases often show some subtle lags in talking, learning nursery rhymes, or understanding rhyming patterns. A preschooler may also seem confused by the smallest changes in wording when stories are read aloud.
Trouble memorizing math facts
Memorizing math facts like multiplication tables can be difficult for someone with dyslexia. Children with milder forms may be slower to master math facts and rely on alternative strategies like counting on fingers. They may continue using these compensation strategies longer than peers.
Messy and illegible handwriting
Dyslexia can manifest in difficulties with handwriting too. A mild case often shows up as somewhat messy and illegible handwriting compared to classmates. Letters and words may be inconsistently sized and spaced. Writing is tiring and time consuming. Typing on devices is often easier than handwriting.
Avoiding reading aloud
Even children with milder dyslexia tend to be uncomfortable and avoid reading aloud. They are self-conscious about making mistakes and lagging behind the pace of peers. Some may act out or make excuses to avoid taking their turn for reading activities in class.
Focus and attention challenges
Reading requires immense focus and concentration for those with dyslexia. Even milder cases struggle with staying attentive during longer reading tasks. They may seem restless, distracted, or “spacey.” Maintaining stamina and focus through a book is more draining than for typical readers.
Relying on context clues
Using context clues from pictures, titles, and nearby words to guess at unfamiliar words is a common coping strategy. Children with mild dyslexia rely heavily on these context cues. They compensate for decoding weaknesses by guessing words from hints in the surrounding text and illustrations.
Avoiding saying words aloud
Some children with dyslexia avoid saying words aloud when unsure how to pronounce them. A student with mild dyslexia may skip over words they don’t immediately recognize rather than trying to sound them out. Teachers may assume they are just being shy or reticent to participate.
May do better verbally than on paper
Oral language skills are often stronger than writing skills in mild dyslexia. A student may participate eagerly in class discussions but struggle to convey thoughts clearly on paper. Their verbal contributions frequently exceed their written test performance.
Relying on others to help with reading
To cope with reading challenges, a child with mild dyslexia often seeks help from parents, siblings, or teachers. They may ask family members to read stories aloud to them at home more often than peers. In class, they may quietly ask peers for help sounding out unknown words.
Hiding reading difficulties
Some kids expend considerable effort trying to hide reading struggles from others. A child with mild dyslexia may pretend to read a book while just looking at pictures. They may duck questions about their reading progress to avoid attention on their difficulties. Some develop skillful coping strategies like these.
Difficulty learning a foreign language
Learning a foreign language relies heavily on sound-letter correspondence rules. Not surprisingly, dyslexia can greatly hinder success in foreign language classes. A student with mild dyslexia is still likely to find memorizing vocabulary words and fluent pronunciation more difficult than typical peers.
Slower work completion
Even with mild dyslexia, completing assignments takes longer across subject areas. Reading, writing, note taking, and test taking may all require extra time to finish classwork thoroughly. These students tire more easily and need frequent breaks during long assignments.
Trouble telling left from right
Telling left from right seems easy, but is a common struggle linked to dyslexia. Even into adulthood, some people with milder forms of dyslexia still pause to think about left vs. right. This reflects differences in how the brain processes space and directionality.
Letter formations are less automatic
Handwriting each letter requires thought and effort for students with dyslexia. They focus intently on how to form each letter, unlike peers who have mastered automatic letter formation. Writing is slow and tiring as a result. Typing may be easier than handwriting tasks.
Weak phonological awareness
Phonological awareness is the ability to detect rhymes, syllables, onset-rimes and individual phonemes in spoken words. This skill is vital for decoding print later on. Individuals with mild dyslexia exhibit weaker phonological awareness compared to most peers when formally assessed.
Not recognizing small words inside big words
Typical readers easily separate compound words and contractions into smaller words. But students with dyslexia may miss these smaller words within bigger words. For example, they may not recognize “play” inside “playback” or “can’t” inside “cannot.”
Penmanship is slow and laborious
Handwriting fluency requires mastering letter formation to the point where putting thoughts on paper is automatic. For students with dyslexia, penmanship remains slow and laborious for longer. Copying from the board taxes working memory and is tiring.
Problems remembering names of places and people
A hallmark of dyslexia is difficulty remembering names and labels. Students with milder dyslexia commonly forget names of places and people more often than peers. Remembering names for standardized tests may be challenging.
Difficulty following complex instructions
Following multi-step directions is hard for someone with dyslexia. Processing and remembering each step in order takes considerable mental effort. Even milder forms lead to more confusion over instructions than for typical learners.
Slower reading speed
Reading rates are universally slower in people with dyslexia, even mild cases. Text is less automatic and fluent to decode. Typical readers gather meaning rapidly from print. Readers with dyslexia must laboriously decrypt each word, which greatly slows the process.
Poor sense of direction
Spatial reasoning deficits in dyslexia often lead to a poor sense of direction. A teenager or adult with mild dyslexia may take longer to learn how to navigate around new places. Following maps and verbal directions are often challenging.
Trouble remembering lists in order
Sequencing difficulties arise with dyslexia. Mastering the alphabet, days of the week, and months of the year in order may be harder for a child with milder dyslexia. Memorizing lists in sequence requires focused effort.
Reluctance toward reading
Children with dyslexia often lose motivation to practice reading over time. Those with milder dyslexia may still read for pleasure less eagerly than peers. They view reading as more work than leisure compared to typical students.
Mispronouncing long, unfamiliar words
Students with dyslexia have more trouble sounding out long, multisyllabic words. With milder forms, they may attempt to read more challenging vocabulary but mispronounce unfamiliar words. Their decoding skills get taxed more easily.
Avoiding reading out loud
Being called on to read aloud often makes students with dyslexia anxious. Even those with milder forms may try hiding challenges by refusing to read out loud in class or only whisper reading softly. Or they may act out to get sent out of the room when it’s their turn.
Relying on memorization rather than decoding
To manage unfamiliar words, students with dyslexia rely heavily on rote memorization. A child with mild dyslexia gets stumped when trying to sound out words never seen before. They do better when given word lists to memorize.
Difficulty organizing ideas in writing
Writing requires juggling multiple mental processes. Those with dyslexia often struggle with brainstorming ideas, organizing thoughts logically, and composing paragraphs coherently. Mild dyslexia shows itself in more vague, disorganized writing.
Avoiding saying words out loud when unsure of pronunciation
Children with dyslexia tend to avoid attempting words they don’t immediately recognize. A student with a mild case may skip over words without trying to sound them out while reading aloud. Teachers may not realize this signals reading difficulty.
May do better with sight reading music than peers
Interestingly, some individuals with dyslexia excel at sight reading music even as beginners. The right to left flow of musical notes may fit better with dyslexic visual-spatial learning styles. Musical notation can play to strengths.
Difficulty remembering sequences like days of the week
Learning the routine sequence of the days of the week, months of the year, and seasons often takes longer with dyslexia. Weaknesses in memorizing and mentally ordering sequences persist even with milder forms into adulthood.
Letter or number reversals persisting too long
Most young kids reverse some letters and numbers initially before cementing directionality. But children with dyslexia continue making letter or number reversals too frequently and for too long. These errors may still pop up in milder cases in upper grades.
Trouble rhyming
Rhyming skills predict later reading success. Weakness in recognizing words that rhyme is characteristic of preschoolers with dyslexia. Even mildly affected children commonly struggle with nursery rhymes and rhyme-based lessons.
Weak vocabulary knowledge
Building a strong vocabulary happens largely through reading. Children with dyslexia characteristically have weaker vocabularies that gap further from peers as academic demands increase. Even a mild difference hinders comprehension.
Poor comprehension but retains what is read aloud
A student with mild dyslexia may have relatively good listening comprehension but limited reading comprehension. When the same text is read aloud they retain and understand much more of the content.
Difficulty learning to tell time
Learning to tell time on analog clocks is related to how the brain interprets spatial relationships. Many with dyslexia struggle with learning to tell time. Mild difficulties may mean just needing more time and practice to master this skill.
Complaining reading tasks are too hard
Kids with dyslexia are acutely aware reading is far more difficult for them compared to peers. A grade schooler with mild dyslexia may frequently insist reading assignments are too hard or impossible when struggling.
Comprehends better listening than reading
Typical readers comprehend just as well listening versus reading text themselves. But students with dyslexia get more meaning from listening than reading alone. Comparing listening and reading comprehension can help identify milder cases.
Frustration with amount of effort reading takes
While peers read smoothly with ease, those with dyslexia must slog through text. Even milder forms mean reading takes way more conscious effort and energy. Kids get understandably annoyed that reading is exhausting.
Difficulty learning lyrics
Memorizing song lyrics is far more challenging for those with dyslexia. Even teens or adults with milder forms often struggle to remember lyrics as quickly as peers. Following and analyzing rhyme schemes taxes the dyslexic brain.
Conclusion
In summary, mild dyslexia involves struggles like phonological processing weaknesses, slower reading speed, trouble decoding unfamiliar words, and poorer reading fluency and comprehension. But those with milder forms have less severe and pervasive difficulties than those diagnosed with severe dyslexia. Early support at home and school can help students with milder dyslexia skillfully manage challenges and maximize strengths.
