8yo misreading monosyllabic words but otherwise reading age of 13...cause for concern?

[ohdearlord]

Dd is bright but I wouldn't say off the charts. The school decided to move her up a grade (we're abroad, she's in an international school using the international primary curriculum) after placement assessments when she joined the school. She was previously in a local school, where they don't start formal teaching until age 7 - so in comparison to her new classmates she has had a couple of months instruction vs. their 3 yrs. I had been doing some work with her at home to alleviate boredom, and letting her play on the bitesize site but largely no real teaching. At the end of term, having joined in November her teacher said she was well toward the upper end of her class.

She is just about to turn eight. At the end of last term her report said she has a reading age of 13. There were also DIBELS results which I don't remember exactly but were high, but not as high for accuracy. She reads confidently and independently silent and aloud books like Harry Potter (the early ones), Famous Five, The Chalet School books. Her comprehension is really very good, and she can hold quite an interesting conversation about the whys and wherefores of a text for a nearly 8yo.

Whilst there are few words she struggles with these days, and when there are she can sort it out by herself almost always, she consistently misreads things like On and An, I and It, Then and When, Who and How, At and A. P, b and d also still sometimes cause some problems - also in her writing though this is decreasing quite markedly. When asked to re-read it she becomes incredibly frustrated with herself, sometimes initially insisting she's right, but nearly always just getting cross she misread it. In her maths her numbers (3,6,9 and occasionally 7) are reversed - especially when in the initial phase of learning a new procedure or skill. Sometimes she notices herself, sometimes not.

She was screened for dyslexia when starting the school and they said not. She does have atrocious eyesight but a recent trip to the opticians confirmed that with her glasses she reads just fine. She says it is easier with her patch on but I don't notice it changes these problems especially. She is very much a perfectionist, and whilst I reassure and encourage that it's perfectly fine not to know everything before you even start and that mistakes are all part of the process she does get very frustrated and upset with herself which is rough to see.

Are these sorts of errors at this age (is it age that is important or years of formal education?) or stage normal or something to be concerned about? If it's normal does it just work itself out with time?

I don't give a jot about test results. They have no meaning here for many years to come and her teacher has an accurate picture of her ability, work seems very well pitched etc. She loves school and her report describes a very happy, socially competent, composed child. I'm more concerned at how frustrated she gets with herself.

Sorry for the long post! I know nothing at all about primary ed so have no idea what is relevant or not!

[kippersyllabub]

One of my dc went through a phase like this at about the age of seven. I got him to slow down and asked him to read me a page error-free every night. He was reading fine after about a week but we carried on for a few weeks with the reading aloud with the emphasis on accuracy.

I think it was just his brain getting ahead of his mouth! His reading is very good now although occasionally I have to get him to slow down and re-read a particular word.

[user789653241]

My ds does this too.
He can read complicated words properly, but makes silly mistakes or mislead or skips simplist words.
I agree with Kipper, seems like his brain is getting ahead of his mouth.
I asked him to slow down as well, and gone back to routine of "read to me" every night.( He prefers to read to himself, and I let him do it for while.)

[RainbowDashed]

My dd does this too, she's not quite as old or advanced with her reading as your dd (she's 6, not sure of her reading age but ahead of the average). Her teacher and I both believe that it's an issue around concentration and complacency - basically she isn't bothering to read the word properly as she thinks she knows what it should be, if you ask her to go back and do it again and look at it properly she gets it right.

Could it be as simple as that do you think?

[user789653241]

"basically she isn't bothering to read the word properly as she thinks she knows what it should be"

This really makes sense. I agree, it's same for my ds. And "misread", not "mislead"

[ohdearlord]

That's really what I was suspecting too - a bit too eager plus some complacency! We still do the reading aloud every night as she can come up with rather peculiar "Swenglish" pronunciation left entirely to her own devices :-) I try to do Swedish reading with her in the morning before school and English in the afternoon to break it up a bit for her. The "error free" page sounds like a great idea.

Has anyone else noticed reversing of letters/numbers too? Or this a distinct issue?

[horsemadmom]

Hmmm. She reads better with her patch? Did her optometrist test for visual convergence with a visiograph? DD2 was diagnosed with visual perceptual issues and lack of convergence at 6 and one of the big clues was exactly what you describe of your DD. If it is a convergence problem, she won't be aware that she intermittently loses convergence, only that reading is easier when only one eye is doing the work. DD2 had special glasses with a prism and regular monitoring/changes to prescription and the improvement was very fast.

[horsemadmom]

BTW- dyslexia is a very broad umbrella term. Visual Perceptual dyslexics (especially very bright ones) can be missed. DD1 had a friend who had great coping strategies and was only picked up at age 10 when she began reading books with words that she had never heard before in conversation and began ad libbing as she had always figured out words through context before. It's very subtle on the dyslexia scale. DD2 is also ambidextrous and this was a big flag but could easily have been missed.
You may need a specialist optometrist and ed psych.

[ohdearlord]

In all honesty I have no idea what that means. She was seen at the eye hospital here and has all her check ups there. The patch was for "lazy eye" which at the last check up they said had corrected itself. She has been referred to what I can only translate as an "eye physio" to train her eyes though. The test they did was an image about the size of a regular game die on a stick moving gradually closer to her. Whatever the result was the doctor said that she needed to have physio to train the muscles to be better at it. Intuitively that sounds like it could be convergence?

Was it the reversing letters/numbers or the misreading simple words that your DD had issues with? Or both?

[ohdearlord]

X posted. Sorry for my ignorance. What is Visual Perceptual dyslexia?

[JoandMax]

Lots of that sound similar to my 7.5 year old DS1!

Exactly the same for reading, he's way ahead in age levels and can read all the long, complicated words perfectly but makes silly mistakes on the little connecting ones. I've had discussions with his teacher and she doesn't see it as anything to worry about as if you make him slow down and say each word in turn he does get them right, he just gets excited and carried away with the story!

He also inverses numbers/letters sometimes although this has got better over last 6 months but when he's tired can slip up again. This was highlighted to us about 18 months ago as an area to watch and the school tested for dyslexia then and also last October but both times he's come out as not having it. His writing is messy so I think he sometimes is concentrating on being neat and the content so little mistakes slip through! School also sorted an eye test but again that was all fine.

He'll be assessed for dyslexia once a year for the next couple of years just to make sure

[horsemadmom]

Last Q first-
Visual perceptual dyslexia is when the brain has not wired to interpret visual information properly. This effects reading because, past the sounding out phase, we read by recognising words as a whole picture. If a DC has this deficit, every word is encountered afresh every time. Clever ones develop a method of sounding out in their heads very quickly but may trip over small words because they are decoding the next big word in the sentence. The same happens when writing. All the attention is focused on spelling out, letter by letter, the long words and the small ones attract the errors and reversals. It needs sorting early because reading and writing become increasingly labourious as the size of the text shrinks and becomes more dense in later years. Also, graphs and long mathematical calculations become problematic. Other problems go with this type of dyslexia such as problems with print over pattern (visual noise) and even excessive talking or humming while concentrating on a task (deficit of visual info compensated for with aural stimulus).
This often is a by product of convergence issues but it's chicken and egg. A die on a stick will tell you nothing because it doesn't measure eye behaviour when reading. DD2's visiograph revealed that she was unable to read a line of text without her eyes flicking back to words she had already read, skipping lines of text, taking too long to accurately find the next line etc. She was unaware that she was intermittently seeing double. Under the strain of reading, one of her eyes behaved.....just like a lazy eye. But it wasn't muscular, it was neurological.

[horsemadmom]

contd...
The eyes see two distinct images and our brains superimpose the two. Convergence problems mean that that superimposition is imperfect. Treatment with patching and special glasses pulls the eyes into working together and brain plasticity does the rest by resetting the neural pathway. It doesn't fix the problems entirely if there is visual perceptual dyslexia because DCs will also have some of the 'mental picture' problems and often typical dyslexic traits in tandem (ambidextrous, L/R confusion, visual noise etc).

[horsemadmom]

sorry- visual glare. Typing too fast.

[ohdearlord]

She does sing constantly. But she sings in a semi-professional choir and does absolutely love it so I don't know if it's compensation or just a love it. Her singing is utterly constant - chores, bath, riding the bike, lego, even whilst watching TV which I'll never understand!

She doesn't seem to have any problems at all with reading music.

Who would she need to see to be assessed for this? The Eye Center or the school?

[horsemadmom]

Behavioural optometrist. Look for one who doesn't go in for 'vision therapy' which is an expensive waste of time. Accurate diagnosis and corrective lenses do the trick. Mine is just ouside London but has a 6 month waiting list for new patients.

[ohdearlord]

We are in Sweden so I'll need to try and figure out what that is here. I'm guessing the Eye hospital would be my best bet. I'll ask them at the end of the month when we are next there.

I'm hoping it is more that she's not really concentrating properly and that with practice focussing on accuracy rather than speed she will improve.

[riodances27]

My dyslexic daughter read monosyllabic words better at age 8 than her older brother (by 2 years) because she was taught on the new phonics system. I would say that none of it really matters because they all get there in end once they find a book they really enjoy.

[maizieD]

DD2's visiograph revealed that she was unable to read a line of text without her eyes flicking back to words she had already read, skipping lines of text, taking too long to accurately find the next line etc.

Interesting. That sounds just like poorly developed tracking muscles to me. Why was the judgement made that it wasn't muscular?