Dyslexia

What Is Dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a specific, neurologically-based learning disability. It’s characterized by difficulty with accurate and/or fluent word recognition, along with poor spelling and decoding skills — difficulties that typically stem from how the brain processes the sounds of language, and that often appear unexpected given a person’s other cognitive abilities and access to effective instruction. Left unaddressed, these difficulties can also affect reading comprehension and limit vocabulary growth over time.

Dyslexia can show up differently from student to student, but common areas of difficulty include:

• Phonological processing — distinguishing sounds and matching sounds to letters
• Naming speed — slower processing and word recall when naming objects
• Automaticity — needing more time and practice to perform tasks fluently
• Working memory — holding and manipulating information while working through a task

“I went through school hoping no one found out that I was a little bit dumb.” — Shannon Green, describing how she felt going through school with dyslexia (not diagnosed until college)

How Porter Academy Addresses Dyslexia

Every student’s reading and language instruction is built from a set of proven, evidence-based approaches, matched to how they learn (see our full Reading & Language Arts page for details):

• Zoo Phonics for foundational phonics skills in our youngest learners
• Wilson Decoding/Encoding, a structured, systematic phonics program
• Language & Literacy, incorporating Lindamood-Bell, for language processing and comprehension
• Edmark, a whole-word approach woven into daily classroom instruction

Beyond curriculum, we also draw on techniques developed with guidance from Dr. Gavin Reid — techniques that benefit every student, not just those with a dyslexia diagnosis:

Building Self-Esteem and Empowerment in Learning – Give students opportunities to feel empowered in their own learning — helping them figure things out rather than simply supplying the answer – Provide structure and predictability, while still allowing flexibility and choice – Offer specific praise immediately after a student completes a task

Teaching Students to Learn — Organization and Metacognition – Break larger goals into small, manageable steps, with support at each one – Give students chances to self-monitor and self-correct – Reflect at the end of a task on what was easy, what was hard, and how it connects to other learning – Have students recap what they learned in the previous class at the start of each new one

Classroom Accommodations – Multi-sensory, experiential learning wherever possible – Visuals, graphic organizers, and easy-to-read fonts and formatting – Explicit, structured spelling instruction (Wilson Language System) – Sensory-motor and cerebellar development support through iLs and Occupational Therapy

Learn More

For general background on dyslexia beyond what’s specific to our program, we recommend the International Dyslexia Association.