Dyslexic students in english language classes

The proposed definition

The definition, proposed for a wider audience, is therefore:


Dyslexia is a difficulty in the acquisition of literacy skills that is neurological in origin. It is evident when accurate and fluent word reading, spelling and writing develops very incompletely. It may be caused by a combination of difficulties in auditory and visual processing, working memory, storage and retrieval in the lexicon (word banks) and motor difficulties. The manifestation of dyslexia in any individual will depend upon not only individual cognitive differences, but also the language used.

A single generally agreed definition could provide the unity this field has been seeking for many years. As Karl Popper would argue, this should be considered a hypothesis that is capable of being disproved. In considering its merits, it should be noted that this definition provides an understanding of many issues, including an understanding of how items in a checklist may be related to the difficulties associated with dyslexia, even though they may not be obviously related to reading and writing. This will be demonstrated in later sections.

Differential dyslexia

Surprising as it may seem, it is possible to be dyslexic in one language and not a second language. But of course it is not that simple.

A number of researchers have found that some bilingual individuals learn at different rates. For example, in Canada some children were found to have “dyslexia difficulties” in English but not Chinese, while others had “dyslexia difficulties” with Chinese but not English. Furthermore, differential dyslexics

have been found who could read English from left to right, but had trouble with Hebrew, reading from right to left, as well as a bilingual who had no trouble in Japanese but was “dyslexic in English”. Finally, a research project found who were able to learn to read and write in English much better relatively than Swedish, even though Swedish, a reasonably transparent language, was their first language.

This research, as well as highlighting the possibility of “differential dyslexia”, challenges the notion that if a dyslexic individual has difficulties in their first language, they will have difficulties in their second language. This is understandable when it is acknowledged that different languages have different cognitive demands.

But of course dyslexia is more than just about reading and writing. For example, if you have trouble getting your thoughts down on paper in one language, you will also have trouble in a second language. And if you have a short term memory problem, then it remains no matter what language.

This issue becomes particularly important when attempting to investigate the history of some multilingual students, and why they may be appearing to be dyslexic now, but were not previously diagnosed. Thus the language demands may also mean that their specific cognitive difficulty was not apparently impacting in their first language, but is now making it difficult to acquire literacy skills in English.