What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is when your brain has trouble reading words because it sees them differently than most people.

Imagine you have a favorite toy box. When you look at it, you know exactly where everything is, the red ball is on top, the blue blocks are in the middle, and the green car is on the bottom. But if someone jumbles up all the toys and mixes them around, it might take you longer to find what you're looking for. That's kind of like dyslexia, your brain sees letters and words in a mix-up, so reading feels harder.

When most people read, their brains quickly match letters to sounds. But if you have dyslexia, your brain might see the letters in a different order or have trouble blending them together. For example, "cat" might look like "tac" at first, it's not that you don't know what the words mean; it’s just that they seem jumbled up.

It's like trying to read a book when someone keeps swapping the letters around before your eyes. Sometimes you guess the word, sometimes you skip it, and sometimes you read it backward, but with practice, you can still understand what the story is saying!