5 Key Signs of Dyslexia in Children and Adults

Grace Hedgecock
Jun 3
3 min read

Updated: Jun 5

Slow Reading
People with dyslexia often take longer to read because their brains have to work harder to process written language. Blending words (c-a-t spells cat) requires more effort, which can make reading feel laborious.
Reading Makes You Sleepy
Because reading takes more mental energy, individuals with dyslexia may feel tired after just 5–10 minutes of reading. It’s common to feel drowsy or even want to take a nap afterward.
Guessing Words Instead of Sounding Them Out
Rather than blending sounds together, those with dyslexia often memorize words. This can lead to guessing based on what the word looks like instead of what it says. For example, they might see the word horse and guess house, especially if they’re reading quickly.
Frequent Spelling and Grammar Errors
Since words are memorized as whole units, it’s harder to recall the specific order of letters. Individuals might remember the first and last letters but mix up what’s in between. This can lead to inconsistent spelling and grammatical mistakes.
Mispronouncing Words in Conversation
Difficulty spelling often goes hand-in-hand with mispronunciation. When someone hasn’t internalized the individual sounds in a word, they might rely on memory rather than decoding. If they forget how a word sounds, they may struggle to retrieve the correct pronunciation.

Dyslexia Is Not Reversing or Mixing Up Letters

Many people think dyslexia means reversing letters or numbers — for example, confusing b with d. But that's not what dyslexia truly is. What's often happening is that the person has difficulty remembering which sound goes with which letter. For instance, they might mix up the /b/ and /d/ sounds because they haven’t yet solidified the connection between the sound and the letter (a phonogram-sound correspondence).

With extra practice and repetition — seeing the letter and practicing the sound it makes — this confusion often improves. Dyslexia is not about "seeing letters backwards"; it’s about how the brain processes written language, especially the connections between sounds and symbols.

What Else Contributes to Dyslexia?

In my experience working with individuals with dyslexia, many were not explicitly taught phonics—the system that explains how letters and combinations of letters represent specific sounds. While there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, they make up around 45 distinct sounds. These sounds are represented by 70 basic phonograms. A phonogram is a letter or group of letters that stands for one or more sounds in speech.

For example, the letter A is one phonogram but can represent three common sounds:

/a/ as in apple
/ā/ as in apron
/aw/ as in wasp

Most people with dyslexia are only taught the first sound (/a/), which limits their ability to decode unfamiliar words.

Another example is the phonogram OUGH, made up of four letters but capable of representing six different sounds:

/ō/ as in dough
/oo/ as in through
/uff/ as in rough
/off/ as in cough
/aw/ as in bought
/ow/ as in bough

Not being explicitly taught that letter combinations like OUGH can have multiple pronunciations is often a key reason why reading feels difficult and inconsistent for those with dyslexia. They benefit greatly from structured, multisensory instruction that explicitly teaches phonograms and their associated sounds.

Some children learn to read naturally with minimal instruction, but others—especially those with a genetic predisposition for reading difficulties—need more support. If a child has a genetic predisposition for reading difficulties, and they aren’t given direct phonics instruction early on, they are much more likely to have difficulties with reading. Most dyslexia individuals can learn to read, spell and pronounce words correctly with the right support.

Written By: Grace Hedgecock, M.S. CCC-SLP, ASDCS

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