From Visual Attention to Literacy: Symbol Search Deficit Predicts Future Reading Difficulties From Age 3

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Poor reading has been associated with impaired simultaneous visual processing of multiple graphic symbols composed of separable features, a behavioral marker of reduced visual attention based on parietal dysfunction. We designed a visual search screening test, consisting of finding the (unique) black circle among circles combined with a bar of various length and location (black symbols) versus among circles of various colors. The temporal Gap between these symbol and color search conditions was previously validated as a significant visuo-attentional contributor of reading between ages 8 and 11, predicting its performance with moderate sensitivity, as reading difficulty is multifactorial, but high specificity. Here, we established its good positive predictive value in a longitudinal study with the same children being screened in kindergarten (at 3, 4, or 5 years old) and later assessed for reading performance at the second semester of third grade (at 8 years old).

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Senate Panel Advances Science of Reading, Dyslexia Bills 

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A bill that would require states to only use the science of reading in classrooms in order to qualify for a multi-million dollar funding grant passed with bipartisan support from a committee of federal lawmakers Thursday morning.

The READ Act (S.4689) would strengthen the federal government’s oversight of the science of reading through amendments to the Comprehensive Literacy State Development grant, which currently provides $194 million to aid literacy instruction in 23 states. 

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Be different: Dyslexia’s superhuman upsides

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I didn’t realize my ability until I started Politico and Axios. I’d been very successful in sales and consulting, but I hadn’t realized exactly why. Then I learned that dyslexic thinkers tend to be great at understanding complex issues and boiling them down to something most people can understand. This helped me in sales, management and, most importantly, leadership.

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How are dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and dyslexia related?

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When dysgraphia and dyscalculia appear alongside dyslexia, the effect isn’t simply additive — it compounds. Writing by hand already overloads working memory; add the demands of manipulating numbers, and a student can easily lose track partway through a problem. Dysgraphia makes it hard to *show what you know* in language arts, and it also swamps working memory during any pencil-and-paper task, including math and science. Dyscalculia, meanwhile, can obscure a student’s genuine talent in math reasoning and problem-solving.

The single most important thing to understand is this: for a long time, a child’s work production may dramatically underestimate their actual understanding. Progress in math with this combination is often non-linear — impossible one year, suddenly effortless a few years later, especially as working memory expands with age (which it does considerably for dyslexic learners). What is *not* usually weak is math reasoning itself. In fact, for many dyslexic students, reasoning and problem-solving are real strengths — they simply get buried beneath slow fact retrieval and laborious handwriting.

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