He has difficulty in connecting the sounds of letters to their symbols and can't divide words into syllables. Jake is saving his money to buy Pokemon figures but hesitates to go into a store because he can't figure out how much change he should get. Multiplication tables are a mystery to him. Rena is a talented storyteller but she can't write her ideas down. Her language is rich and varied when she speaks, but when she writes her sentences are short and her punctuation is unreliable.
Some kids do well in some subjects and poorly in others.
Matthew, Jake and Rena have mistakenly been called lazy, or stupid, poorly motivated or slow learners . Kids who have intelligence that's average or above but have a deficit in a particular academic area may have a Learning Disorder. Diagnosis also takes into account whether the achievement scores are based on individually administered, standardized tests and whether the disturbance interferes with the child's activities of daily life and her ability to express what she learns. Major types of Learning Disorders Reading Disorder - A child with a Reading Disorder reads significantly below the expected level. Symptoms such as inability to distinguish among common letters or to associate common phonemes with letter symbols may be apparent as early as kindergarten.