Dyslexia Screening: Help for Parents

If a parent has a significant history of reading difficulties, their child may have a higher risk of developing a reading disability.

The International Dyslexia Association provides information about a parent questionnaire called the Adult Reading History Questionnaire (ARHQ). The questionnaire was originally developed to identify the risk of reading disability in adults. It can also be used to help estimate a preschool child's risk of later reading difficulties by looking at the parent's own history with reading.

The parent questionnaire asks about the parent's own experiences with reading and related difficulties. The results can then provide an indication of whether a child may be at greater risk.

You can access the International Dyslexia Association's preschool parent screener here.

This is a screener, not a diagnosis of a learning difference.

A higher than normal score does not mean that your child has dyslexia.

It means that there may be enough risk factors to justify paying closer attention to the child's early literacy development and, where appropriate, seeking further evaluation.

What should you as a parent do with the results?

Don't panic and don't assume that a high-risk result means your child will definitely develop dyslexia.

Pay closer attention to how your child develops skills such as:

1. learning letter names and sounds

2. recognizing and playing with sounds in words

3. remembering new words

4. recognizing rhymes

5. learning sequences

6. connecting spoken language with print

If your child attends an international school in Tokyo and you're concerned about their early reading development, I’m happy to talk through what you're seeing and discuss possible next steps. Kinota Braithwaite - Learning & Assessment Specialist

More Than Just Tutoring Tokyo

kinota@morethanjusttutoringtokyo.com

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