Vocabulary of Dyslexia
Dyscalculia: A learning difference that causes trouble with making sense of numbers and math concepts.
Dysgraphia: impaired ability to organize and express thoughts in writing including impaired handwriting and/or impaired spelling.
Dyslexia: Dyslexia is an unexpected difficulty in reading for an individual who has the intelligence to be a much better reader. It is most commonly due to a difficulty in phonological processing (the appreciation of the individual sounds of spoken language), which affects an individual’s ability to speak, read, spell, and often learn a second language. Dyslexia is highly prevalent, affecting 20% of population. Dyslexia represents 80-90 percent of all learning disabilities and differs from the others in its specificity and scientific validation. While those with dyslexia are slow readers, they also, paradoxically, often are very fast and creative thinkers with excellent reasoning skills. (dyslexia.yale.edu)
Dyspraxia: a developmental coordination disorder that impacts fine and gross motor skills.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): The IDEA is a federal law that sets specific standards for the education of those with learning disabilities, including dyslexia. (dyslexia.yale.edu)
Individualized Education Program (IEP): An IEP (part of the IDEA) is a document developed for each public school child who needs special education, usually by a team consisting of the child’s parents, teachers, and school administrators. (dyslexia.yale.edu)
Orton-Gillingham: A highly structured approach that breaks reading and spelling down into smaller skills involving letters and sounds and then builds on these skills over time. (orton-gillingham.com)
Phoneme: Phonemes are the units of sound that distinguish one word from another. Phonemes are critical to reading and understanding language, but dyslexics often have trouble recognizing and differentiating between them, which can make it difficult to learn to read.
Phonemic awareness: Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds or phonemes in spoken words. Before children are able read print, they must be aware of how the sounds in words work. Dyslexics often struggle to develop phonemic awareness.
Phonological awareness: Phonological awareness, a more general term than phonemic awareness, refers to the brain activity that allows one to understand, distinguish and recall sounds at the sentence, word, syllable and including phoneme, level.
Reading Fluency: Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, rapidly and with expression (prosody). Fluency allows readers to progress from mere word recognition to full reading comprehension. When readers are fluent, they can recognize words automatically and group words quickly for comprehension.
Structured literacy: structured literacy approaches emphasize highly explicit and systematic teaching of all important components of literacy. This includes foundational skills such as phonological awareness, print concepts, phonics, and fluency, as well as higher-level literacy skills such as reading comprehension and written expression. Explicit teaching means that teachers clearly explain and model key skills. Students are not expected to infer these skills from exposure.
504 Plan: A plan developed to ensure that a child with a disability identified under the law and attending an elementary or secondary educational institution receives accommodations that will ensure their academic success and access to the learning environment. (washington.edu)