Early Detection for Dyslexia

Kimberly Stevens 

Let’s talk about the word cat. If we were to make the sounds for the word cat, we would make three sounds   /c/ /a/ /t/. If we are making those sounds very short and we’re doing so correctly, the child can easily detect the three individual sounds. However, if we are adding the /uh/ sound at the end of the letter C and the end of the letter T then we are actually making the sounds of five letters rather than just three letters. When the /uh/ sound is added to the end of consonants, this causes confusion for children with early literacy issues. Making sounds correctly for each one of the letters of the alphabet is so critical at this point. It helps children build phonemic awareness as well as their decoding skills. If you see these errors, please try to make these corrections in yourself and your kiddos ASAP.