A lot of people suffer from reading difficulties or dyslexia. Reading difficulties appear as having low reading speed, inability to read a lot of words, or inability to understand similar words, and other signs.
Dyslexia can be a big problem that hinders academic progress, and career development. For all previously mentioned reasons, overcoming reading difficulties is an important demand for the development of your academic and career pathways.
In this article, we will talk about overcoming reading difficulties, reading difficulties symptoms, reading problems solutions, and how to help your kids with activities to treat reading difficulties.
What are the reading difficulties or dyslexia?
Reading difficulties are a problem classified as one of the learning difficulties. It begins in childhood, and the affected people find difficulties in reading, spelling, and writing, they may also suffer from speaking difficulties. People suffering from dyslexia have normal intelligence and smartness, but the affected people need overcoming reading difficulties to achieve progress in their lives.
What are the reading difficulties symptoms?
Reading difficulties symptoms differ according to the age group, each age has its reading difficulties symptoms different from the other age. The reading difficulties symptoms according to the age group are as follows:
- Children less than 5 years (before school age)
- Late development of talking skills
- Wrong pronunciation of a lot of words
- Difficulties in learning numbers and letters
- Inability to remember what they have studied, like inability to remember the names of animals, fruits, vegetables, and other things
- Inability to express themselves correctly
- Inability to remember the learning rhymes
- Children of 5-12 years old (at primary school age)
- Difficult spelling a lot of words
- Wrong pronunciation of a lot of words
- Spending more time on activities that require reading or writing
- Inability to know the correct arrangement for the words in the sentences, and letters in words
- Bad handwriting
- Spending a lot of time on the writing tasks
- Teenagers and adults
- Spending a lot of time on writing tasks
- Reading slowly, and spending more time than normal on reading texts, especially when reading in a loud voice
- Difficult spelling, and making mistakes in the arrangement of letters in the words
- Difficult learning new languages
- Difficult summarising texts, and avoiding activities that contain writing
Diagnosis of reading difficulties
According to experts, diagnosis of reading difficulties or dyslexia should be done by psychotherapists. The first step in the diagnosis of dyslexia is the observation of the signs by the parents, then the psychotherapist will make some tests and questionnaires to assure the diagnosis of dyslexia. Reading difficulties should be diagnosed after observing the signs to assure overcoming reading difficulties without affecting the school level, and the academic achievements of the child.
How could reading difficulties be diagnosed?
As we mentioned before, reading difficulties should be diagnosed by the psychotherapist after observing their signs to assure overcoming reading difficulties. The different diagnosis steps will be:
- Taking case history, includes the signs that have been observed by the parents, the academic achievements of the child, and the history of dyslexia in the family.
- Making clinical examinations for the brain functions, eyes, and ears to assure the absence of any other problems that can cause other learning difficulties.
- Examination for the presence of other learning difficulties and problems, like attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and other problems that cause learning difficulties.
- Asking some questions the teachers of the child, about his school level in comparison with his classmates.
- Making reading difficulties tests should be done by the child to know his dyslexia level, example of this rest is the Arabic dyslexia test, which resembles its English version.
Arabic dyslexia test
Arabic dyslexia test is a test designed by experts to diagnose dyslexia, and reading difficulties. Arabic dyslexia test measures some skills as follows:
- Measurement of the reading speed
- Measurement of the speed of comprehension of the sentences and complicated words.
- Spelling ability, especially spelling of complicated words
- Ability to express himself in different words
By measurement of the previous skills, the psychotherapist can determine the level of reading difficulties, and according to it he can determine the treatment strategy.
Reading problems solutions
There are a lot of strategies that have been used by psychotherapists to treat dyslexia since there is no medicinal treatment for dyslexia. Some of these strategies are as follows:
- Give the child with dyslexia extra time to finish his reading or writing tasks.
- Train your child on new reading strategies, to help him fasten his reading speed.
- Intensive training in reading, and comprehension
- Intensive training on the formation of sentences from simple words
- Give the reading training with pictures, to connect the word and its picture.
- Try with them different activities to treat reading difficulties.
The goal of reading problems solutions is to help improve the different reading and writing skills and reach them to the best possible level.
Activities to treat reading difficulties
Experts have designed many activities to treat reading difficulties. Some activities can be part of the reading problems solutions, and others can be for fun only. Some of these activities are as follows:
- Make some coloring shapes with letters and words, to help your child remember the writing of the different letters, you can focus on the words and letters in which the child has a problem.
- Use reading applications, which can help your child to improve his reading method. These applications help the improvement of reading skills for all children, not only children with dyslexia.
- Use the flashcards that contain pictures and words, to help connect the pictures with their words.
- Use songs and rhymes that help differentiate between similar words.
Reading problems solutions need a lot of care and effort, in order to reach the specified goal which is overcoming reading difficulties. Overcoming reading difficulties comprises the improvement of reading speed, reading loudly without mistakes, and achieving improvements on academic levels.
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