4. The Language Gap

By late childhood, the signs of dyslexia change. You likely won't see the simple letter reversals common in first grade. Instead, because your child is working twice as hard to keep up, the symptoms often look like inefficiency and exhaustion.

• The "Big Word" Stumble: In 4th and 5th grade, vocabulary explodes. You may notice your child tripping over complex, multi-syllable words in conversation (e.g., saying "aminal" for "animal"). Research shows this is a lingering sign of the underlying phonological deficit (Cabbage et al., 2018).

• The "Clogged Funnel" (Executive Function): Dyslexia is rarely just about reading. Research shows that children with dyslexia often struggle with Working Memory (holding information in their head) and Focus (Farah et al., 2021). This can look like forgetfulness or getting overwhelmed by multi-step projects. It’s not carelessness; it’s cognitive overload.

• The "Fourth Grade Slump": While peers begin to "scan" text to learn, the dyslexic student must manually decode every word. This lack of automaticity drains their mental energy, leaving little fuel left for comprehension (Adlof & Hogan, 2018).