Looking back on her preschool years, I now recognize the early warning signs. They were there, but I didn’t know. Things such as difficulty hearing rhyming words, like cat, hat, and mat. My daughter couldn’t rhyme, and I didn’t understand why.

As my daughter progressed through Kindergarten, I saw her struggling, but I wasn’t worried. I thought she would eventually catch up, and things would smooth themselves out. But then, I started receiving notes from her teacher that she falling behind. In Kindergarten? Really?

We had a pre-reading assessment completed, and we discovered there were definite signs indicating that my daughter had Dyslexia. The Reading Center encouraged us to advocate that she not be held back, as Dyslexia does not have anything to do with intelligence.

As I have started learning more about Dyslexia, I am much more aware of the signs and symptoms of this language-based learning disability.

General signs can include learning to speak, learning letters and their sounds, spelling, and trouble recognizing words that begin with the same sound. Of course, not all people with Dyslexia will have difficulty with all of these skills. Dyslexia affects each person uniquely.

There are many wonderful resources that extensively list signs to pay attention to at various ages—from preschool to middle school and beyond. A couple that I found particularly helpful include The 1in5 Initiative and Understood.

For a complete list of topics and links, visit the landing page for 31 Days: One Mom’s Journey With Dyslexia or click the square image below.