•  Does your child have difficulties with reading aloud?

•  Does your child miss out words when reading?

•  Does your child have difficulty spelling words?

•  Does your child sometimes skip lines when reading?

•  Does your child experience difficulty copying from the board?

•  Does your child get confused about following instructions, for example when playing a game?

•  Is your child unable to count backwards from 100 down to 0?

• Is anyone in your family left-handed?

• Does your child write his or her letters "backwards"?  look at how s/he writes an "a" for example
•  Does your child tend to use his or her finger or a place marker to keep track after, say, year 4? By the way, this is not a bad thing and shouldn't be discouraged!
• Does your child "transpose" letters from within the word to the beginning, or does s/he read or write was as "saw" for example, or "now" for "won"?
• Does your child have difficulties understanding how sequences work in a story?
• Does your child find no difficulty in remembering oral facts but perhaps find it difficult to understand the "subtext": what we might call "reading between the lines.
• Is your child a "big picture thinker" who finds the nitty gritty of working out individual details taxing?

If you answer five or more of  these questions with "Yes", the chances are your child may be working within some avenue of dyslexia.  Often, likely dyslexic children are not diagnosed as such until they have to take formal exams such as the Key Stage ("SATs") tests or even later with such exams as the GCSE's when extra time might be needed and applied for with the help of a professional psychologist. Why wait until their frustration level turns them off all the possibilities, potentials, and joys that school offers?

If you are wondering "Is my child Dyslexic?" then don't hesitate to have him or her tested.  Headstart Learning Centre has many affordable tests and programmes which can identify and help potential learning disorders such as dyslexia and in some cases can provide documentation for exam boards which will allow your child extra time or special provisions for crucial exams.

There is no "cure" for dyslexia, (See  Ron Davis' website http://www.dyslexia.com/ for information about the "Gift of Dyslexia" a book every parent of a dyslexic child should read) but early intervention and special programmes designed specifically for your child can help your child to progress along with peers at school. Dyslexia can often indicate a high range of intelligence! Why assume it is a "disability"?

Call Tracy Saunders today at

(0034) 951 896 041 or (0034) 686 315 328 to arrange for a formal assessment or just to chat.

headstartlearningcentre@yahoo.com