4 Y/o Dyslexic??

My kids did that, especially with the numbers. Double digits were usually backwards. Until one of my girls was in 2nd or 3rd grade, she mixed up "d" and "b" all the time. She and my son would write "e" backwards. This is totally normal and kids tend to have different degrees of the problem if you want to call it that. My kids are all in high classes, now in 6th grade.

First off, what you are discribing is not dyslexia. Dyslexia is the inablity to understand, decode, and manipulate phonemes, at the most basic level. This effects spelling and reading for most dyslexic children. In order for your sone to have an issue, he would have to be beyond the developmental level that it would no longer be typcial for him to make order subsistutions, reversals, and transpositions, and he is not nearly there yet. So, short story, way too soon to worry, long story, if this continues, it may be a processing issue, but not necessarily dyslexia.

Actually, that he can identify the phonemes c a and t and identify the sound symbol relationships that go with them, and has a strong ordered memory for one through ten are good skills.

One thing all parents should know is that there is an order to how kids learn things, and all children have relative streanths and weaknesses that are all within the typical range, but sometimes one skill is more advanced than another (like recall or sound symbol phoneme identification) while another skill, like sytanx, sequence, or visual perceptial or visual foreground (seeing the word as one group in order) is less strong, but not out of the normal range for his age, and that will present as minor glitches as he learns. It is generally nothing to worry about. It makes for an uneaven learning profile, and just about every child experiences this to some degree.

M.

I am dyslexic. My parents didn't tell me this until I was in high school. My grandmother who taught remedial reading taught me how to read and my father taught me concepts of numbers which is basically a different method of teaching math to kids who are dyslexic or have some other thing that makes math hard. I'm smart, cute, and am really quick with the spell check. As long as I have my calculator handy I'm in great shape. Dyslexia has not made much difference to my life as an adult. Sometimes I tell people and their response is 'oh you're smart' Duh! If your son does have dyslexia it's important that you keep in mind that it has nothing to do with intelligence in any way. It has more to do with understanding concepts than the letters or numbers. I am unable to memorize things like names and phone numbers which honestly I think a lot of people have a hard time with! When I learned to read I learned to read a whole word at a time instead of sounding it out. It's exactly like the 'cat' incident you described. The result is that aI actually read extremely quickly having learned to read in much the same way as people are taught to speed read.
Now, does your son's difficulties indicate dyslexia? It's hard because at 4 many kids don't link things together well. They know the two numbers you write that makes seventeen but they don't put them in the right order because they don't yet get the concept. They are memorizing and they remember that they need a 1 and a 7 but they don't see the importance of their order. You could have him evaluated to satisfy your concerns and educate yourself on how to best help him as he begins to read and write. I strongly suggest NOT telling him while he's this young. Dyslexia is like a curse word. It's like calling someone stupid in a child's mind and you can't convince him otherwise. The social stigma can make a student feel like they're not as good or smart as the other kids and they will not push themselves because they've already lost...they are the 'dumb' kid. Dyslexic people are most often more intelligent. Dyslexic people get the concept of multiplication but can't remember the times tables. My math teachers would get furious with me because I didn't write my work out. I couldn't! I took AP algebra 2 and had the highest grades in the class because my ability to understand the complicated process with which to get the right answer...I just mixed numbers all up so if I'd write it out I'd surely goof it up. I was very successful in school and I really believe it was because my parents didn't tell me I was different but made sure I had all the tools to learn in a way that worked for me. There can be nothing worse to a kid in school than being different! They educated themselves on how to help me learn and taught me these things while helping with my homework. I had no idea I was different. 4 is too early to get an absolute diagnosis and there are varying degrees. I'd wait for some unprompted feedback from his teacher. If you ask her if she thinks he's dyslexic she'll start looking for signs and won't be objective.

It is very typical for a 4-year old to reverse letters and numbers. Children see a b and d the same at this age. Not reversing numbers/letters is a developmental stage which comes about when the child begins to get left from right.

Our older son is almost 8 and still reverses his letters and numbers. He's had an IEP for 5 years, so under close scrutiny of special ed people. He's left handed and often lefties take longer to overcome reversals so they thought it was a delayed developmental issue. Now that he's almost 8, they are concerned he might have dyslexia, so they are planning to give him a series of assessments to determine if he has it. He was screened for dyslexia when he was 6-1/2 by an expert on the subject, and it was determined that he does not have it. He may just be delayed more than they realize.

There is a screening that can be done to determine if the issue is developmental or dyslexia. It's called the Jordan Left/Right reversal test: http://portal.wpspublish.com/portal/page?_pageid=53,69195... You might ask your school district to provide it just to be sure.

I think that he's fine too. My four year old likes to do the same thing. His name is Sammy and sometimes he insists on writing it Asmmy because A comes first (in the alphabet). And numbers sometimes he wants 12 to be 12 and sometimes 21. I think that it is him learning about the order that things go in and not dyslexia in any way. Four is early to know and identify all of those numbers and all of the letters anyway. He's ahead of the game! Don't worry, just keep encouraging him to learn especially if he likes it! :) Good luck!

Hi L.,

PK from Las Vegas explains her experience very well. As a reading specialist, I have read all the latest research on dyslexia, and a study in England showed that 60% of children who had 1 or 2 parents with dyslexia were also dyslexic. Also, a recent study by Johns Hopkins Univ. showed there is no such thing as "reading readiness" like teachers will tell you. Reading problems stem from basically only a couple of neurological sources, dyslexia being one of them. PK learned to read whole word, that works with dyslexia children. They don't learn phonetically, and this is the problem with public schools, they will retain a student who didn't learn to read phonetically or with the prescribed reading program that failed an intelligent kid in the first place and do the whole process over again with little or no gains. Then by 3rd grade tell you he has a "processing" disorder and then your son is so far behind they suggest an IEP.

The students I've worked with need at least 4-5 hours reading a week besides the reading program. The process involves you sitting down with your little boy, reading the same book over and over, pointing to the words as you see them. As he reads, show him words that repeat like "the" "and". When you come to the words he recognizes, have him read those words. Have him count how many "the"s are on the page. Increase these sight words and others until he can read most of the book. Make sure he chooses the book and he also points to words as you say them.

All my students who have had this intervention keep up fine. However, dyslexia is a life time problem so there is no cure, only understanding and helping strategies to help them function successfully.

I commend you for being so observant with your son and asking questions. Yes many of the mothers are right, reversing letters is common, however, the kids with reading problems reverse for many years not just months, and most kids do not reverse letters, only "b" and "d" for the most part in the beginning.

Good luck,
Wendy

that all sounds developmentally appropriate for a 4 year old. just ask his teachers to keep an eye on him as they get more into the academics as the year progresses.

While it's entirely possible that you're onto something, it's also possible that he just hasn't got a clear understanding yet of the importance of reading and writing left to right. As far as your "cat" example, it reminds me of our daughter. She can "read" entire books... however, she's not really reading, she's repeating what she's heard us say over and over again. Perhaps that's what was happening with your son? Just some ideas.

Is he left handed? My son is and sometimes he messes up the order of things he is writing because of it. His kindergarten teacher told me not to worry when I see him do it, it's not dyslexia its just something left handed kids do sometimes. But he usually catches himself and corrects it.