Spelling with dyslexia is not an easy play:

1)  It is difficult for a person with dyslexia to break words into phonemes/discrete sounds.

2)  The more phonemes/discrete sounds a word possesses, the bigger the challenge of deconstructing a word correctly to its phonemes.

3)  It is more difficult for a person with dyslexia to deconstruct the “middle” phonemes of a word, rather than the first and last phonemes.

4)  It is difficult for a person with dyslexia to associate sounds to letters that make up the sound.

5)  People with dyslexia tend to reverse letters in words (e.g. “on” instead of “no”).

6)  People with dyslexia tend to confuse letters that are visually similar (e.g. “bad” instead of “dad”).

7) People with dyslexia tend to confuse letters that sound similar. (e.g. “sity” instead of “city”).

8 ) People with dyslexia do not have strong visual memory for spelling. For example they will not be able to distinguish from memory the correct spelling of the word of “meet” versus the word “meat”.

9) People with dyslexia have difficulty to gain meaning from text.

10) Regular spell checkers are not “optimized” to understand and correct the spelling of a dyslexic.

For a solution, look at Ghotit Real Writer and Reader specifically designed for those with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia.

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5 thoughts on “Ten Reasons Why It Is Difficult for a Person with Dyslexia to Spell Correctly”

  • TheDeeZone
    March 16, 2011 at 1:38 am
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    #9 is not universally true. Dyslexia is more than a reading problem, it is a language problem. Those who have more language issues than reading issues often have no problem gaining meaning from text.

    Another reason for poor spelling is the inability to connect letters with sounds. Letters are viewed more as shapes than letters.

    • Luqman Michel
      April 11, 2011 at 9:56 am
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      Hi DeeZone. I beg to disagree with you. Dyslexia is not a language problem at all. I have clearly explained in detail about this in my blog. All my dyslexic students can read fluently in Malay (one of the many languages in the world). Many of my dyslexic students can also read fluently in Romanized Mandarin. As such dyslexia is not a language problem but dyslexics have a problem reading in the English language.

      I do not agree with your statement that dyslexics cannot connect letters with sounds. This is only true with many English words that cannot be pronounced phonetically.
      Luqman Michel

      • TheDeeZone
        April 11, 2011 at 8:08 pm
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        Luqman,

        That is fine that you disagree with me however you also disagree with many respected sources. Check out my blog for more info.

        From personal experience I know that I am correct.

      • TheDeeZone
        April 12, 2011 at 12:39 am
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        You might want to also check out the research from the International Dyslexia association.

        Also, Dyslexia is manifested differently in different languages. Both of which I have written about in my blog.

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