PURPOSE: to evaluate the response pattern of dyslexic subjects in the written version of a picture naming task, by analyzing the types of orthographic errors committed. METHODS: the performance of a group of 15 dyslexics was compared to two control groups matched by age and by reading level. RESULTS: the dyslexic and the reading control groups did not differ on the number of submitted errors, but both committed more errors than the age control group. Regarding the types of orthographic errors submitted, the most frequent errors within the dyslexic individuals were: errors of univocal grapheme-phoneme correspondence, omission of segments and phoneme-grapheme correspondence regardless of any rule. CONCLUSION: it is concluded that analyzing orthographic errors is useful for understanding the used strategies and the linguistic processes underlying the writing difficulties in dyslexic subjects.