The majority of children could tackle a question like this with ease. However, to those children with dyslexia, they may stumble over such question. Why is that so?
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Dyslexics tend to think primarily in pictures and images as opposed to words. When they encounter certain symbols (and all words are symbols), they get confused by those whose meaning they cannot picture. These are often high frequency words that we use a lot of in the English language, such as ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘by’, ‘to’, etc. When they cannot begin to think with that word in picture, they do not know how to make sense of a sentence.

So in the example question above, a dyslexic may be confused by the word ‘from’. The child may be able to recognise and pronounce the word ‘from’ when he sees it, but he does not know the meaning and so he does not know what he needs to do to begin to solve the question.

After much drilling and repetition to no avail to help the child understand the question, the child is then told by a well-meaning parent or tutor that whenever he sees such questions, he just needs to take the bigger number and minus the smaller number. By doing so, the child is taught rote learning, rather than have real understanding or true mastery of the subject.

If we could acknowledge the child’s picture thinking style, we can help the child master the meaning of ‘from’ and let him create a picture of what it means. According to the American Heritage Children’s Dictionary, ‘from’ means beginning at, starting with. Once the child understands the meaning, he can now picture what the question is asking him to do.

Subtract 79 from 139 means that he has to begin at, start with (ie from) 139, and then minus or take away 79, in order to derive at the answer. Visually, he would be able to put 139 down on paper, followed by the minus sign and 79 below 139 and then do his workings to get to the answer.

By extension, a dyslexic child very often can’t do problem sums not because he does not have the skill to do arithmetic, but because he does not understand what the question is asking of him in the first place, as he can’t think with some of the words that are in the question.

We recognise dyslexia by the challenges it presents, but we must not forget its strengths. Dyslexics have the ability to think in pictures, perceive multi-dimensionally (using all senses) and experience thought as reality. They have vivid imaginations and heightened awareness of the environment. They are highly intuitive, insightful and more curious than average. Most importantly, they have the primary ability to alter and create perceptions, which make them very creative people.

There are 3 ways people learn - visual, auditory and kinesthetic (tactile). This is different to the 2 thinking styles - pictures or words (or a combination of both).

A dyslexic is primarily a picture thinker, but can be a tactile learner, even though he/she is highly visual, and weak with auditory information.

​This video, which is created by a dyslexic, shows a dyslexic’s way of thinking (not learning). Knowing how their brain works enables us to work with their strengths, not weaknesses.

​Dyslexics think primarily in pictures or images, as opposed to thinking in words, and they learn differently.

Some educators still focus on what dyslexics can’t do, i.e. processing sounds of letters and words, and try to get them to do it through drills and repetitions.

This leads to confusion as they try to figure out the sounds and read laboriously, the end result of which are frustration and lack of comprehension of what they just read.

They need an alternative way of learning. If the current way is not working for your dyslexic child, perhaps it’s time to change.

It is widely believed that human beings think in two different ways, “verbal conceptualisation” and “non-verbal conceptualisation”. Verbal conceptualisation means thinking with the sounds of words. Non-verbal conceptualisation means thinking with mental pictures of concepts or ideas.

Dyslexics are non-verbal/picture thinkers. Very often, when dyslexics look at words that describe real things, they don’t cause much trouble. In non-verbal thought, we can think with the word dog easily if we know what dog looks like. The animal we call “dog” is the literal meaning of the word dog. Seeing its picture is seeing its meaning.

It is impossible for a non-verbal/picture thinker to think with words whose meanings can’t be pictured, such as common sight words ‘by’, ‘the’, ‘if’, ‘to’, etc. These common sight words trigger disorientation in a dyslexic because he/she does not have a picture of the meaning of the word.
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All words have three parts to it: 1) what it means, 2) what it looks like and 3) what it sounds like. To truly master a word is to know all three parts. Dyslexics often have missing picture of the meaning of a trigger word (which is often common sight words), and when that gap is addressed, the trigger word stops causing confusion for them.