Dyslexia

How Does Reading Happen?

To understand dyslexia, it helps to understand reading. Reading is a real workout for your brain. You need to do the following steps — and all at once:

1. Understand the way speech sounds make up words.
2. Focus on printed marks (letters and words).
3. Connect speech sounds to letters.
4. Blend letter sounds smoothly into words.
5. Control eye movements across the page.
6. Build images and ideas.
7. Compare new ideas with what is already known.
8. Store the ideas in memory.

Phew! Kids who have dyslexia struggle with the beginning steps, so that makes doing the rest of the steps even harder. It's no surprise, then, that trying to read and dealing with dyslexia makes a kid's brain really tired really fast.