Five Common Dyslexia-Related Reading Errors

Here are five of the most common reading and spelling errors you might hear or see your child with dyslexia make (or make yourself if you are an adult with dyslexia):

1. Substituting or skipping connector words (e.g., the, a, an, or, but). It can be confusing to hear someone read a series of longer words accurately, but then substitute or skip smaller “function” words. On the surface, it seems that these smaller words should be easier to read. Here’s what’s happening for the dyslexic reader (beneath the level of conscious awareness): their brain is searching for meaning in the passage and it is focusing all of its cognitive resources on the meaning-full words, with little to no decoding resources left to spare. So when it encounters a small connector word, the brain will often either skip or guess at that word in an effort to preserve energy for the a) more taxing and b) more important work of finding meaning in the passage.  
2. Whole-word guesses (e.g., tired for tried). What’s happening here is that the brain is relying on the visual of the word, rather than the phonological code. These types of errors are really common and are reflective of the natural (and sometimes encouraged) method of “whole word guessing,” in which readers guess the word based on its visual features because they have not yet developed automaticity or reflexive mastery of decoding its individual phonemic components.
3. Lexicalization of non-words (e.g., clip for clup). When given a series of non-words to decode, a dyslexic reader will often substitute a real word, as if they do not notice the slight alteration in spelling that makes the close-to-real word a non-word. This type of error is also reflective of the subconscious tendency to guess at words (meaning-searching) rather than decode them first and then connect them to their meaning.
4. Dysfluency. The pace of reading can differ in dyslexic readers. Some read at a high rate (fast) but make frequent errors, self-corrections, or skip words. Some read at a slow and halting pace, more clearly reflecting the amount of effort required to decode the words. It should not be assumed that all dyslexic readers will read slowly. 
5. Reversals. This is the old classic take on dyslexia, that people with dyslexia “see” letters or words backwards. We’ve since learned that this is not true. People with dyslexia do not see letters or words backwards. What is happening is that the visually similar letters that are the “reverse” of each other (e.g., d/b, p/q, sometimes even capital E/3/S) are not solidly connected to their associated sounds in the dyslexic brain, and the brain is processing those letters as if they were “shapes” not symbols (a shape does not become a symbol until it is reflexively connected to its meaning). The brain is actually designed to automatically reverse shapes and objects so that we are able to recognize them no matter what direction they are facing (e.g., think of a dog facing two different directions). So the brain of a young dyslexic reader just preserves that built-in flexibility of processing for shapes/objects and applies it to letters if the letters have not yet been established as meaningful symbols. Reversal errors are developmentally normal/expected in all readers up to about age 7-8 (about 2nd grade). Reversal errors that persist after age 9 are very likely harbingers of an underlying dyslexia.