My DD8 was showing signs of dyslexia around age 4-5... "guessing" at words, frequently misidentifying similar letters like b, d, p, and q, and even writing entire words backwards. We didn't do anything special with her for remediation, and she ended up doing the reading at story time for her pre-K class. She tested at lexile level 1000 at the end of 3rd grade (7yo). She did have phonics videos that she watched over and over, and we did read to her every night, which would have built up her catalog of sight words. But I say "nothing special" because these were activities she actively sought.
I'm currently working with another 8yo gifted girl who has a previous identification of dyslexia and is significantly behind grade level in reading... and honestly, I'm not seeing dyslexia. I am seeing a kid who will guess at a word when she sees it, needs support in sounding things out and blending the sounds, and tries to avoid reading. Those sound like dyslexia. But the major problems here are actually:
1) She prefers whole-word recognition as a reading strategy, which is why she "guesses." My DD did the same when she was starting out.
2) Too many of our basic words violate the rules of phonics, making sight-recognition a better strategy.
3) Blending sounds is actually difficult.
4) This child has missed tons of school, where she would have been expected to do the practice necessary to build up skill at 2 and 3.
In just the few weeks she's been working with me, she's made noticeable progress (even to the point where she noticed it herself). But it's been a major challenge to get her to see herself as able due to the dyslexia label. It really has done this child a world of harm (though maybe not so much as the missing school).
So I would tread very carefully before rushing to use the d-word.
