How can I identify secondary students with dyslexia?

Although teachers will need a special education specialist to properly identify a student’s learning disability, indicators to look for might include (Pollock, Waller, & Politt, 2004):

• Discrepancies between test scores on reading tests with graded words or that are of a narrative form with contextual clues
• When observed while reading, the student acts anxious, fidgety or unwilling
• Student relies on pictures and contextual clues in reading
• Student shows signs of having memorized the text after hearing a peer or the teacher read it
• While reading, the student has difficult identifying letters and keeping his or her place on the line
• The student omits or adds words to a sentence, and confuses certain letters including b and d, p and g, and u and n
• The student has trouble reading consistently in a left to right direction
• The student gives little attention to punctuation
• The student has a lot of difficulty understanding what he or she has read