Has an anyone had experience of a 4 year old being diagnosed with dyslexia?

[debbiepmr]

My son has just turned 4 and have been convinced for sometime that he is dyslexic and he is starting in reception. We have dyslexia in the family and when i have brought it up to a number of professionals at nursery and school etc they have all said it is a strong possibility but it is too young to diagnose. However when i speak to the dyslexia assoc they say this is the best age to catch it and help their self confidence and educational programme from the beginning.
Has anyone managed to get their school or SENCO to administer an assessment this age and what was the result...
I am really keen to get this sorted as he is already saying things like he is stupid and is starting to really become a bit of a clown in the class room to digress away from feeling silly. I dont want to get him labelled the naughty boy and more importantly really want to help him :-(
Any advice gratefully received!

[missymoomoomee]

They can treat him as if he is dyslexic but they can't actually diagnose it until later, my son got dignosed at 9 although they had treated him as such since he started school (he had been tested several times over the years but it was inconclusive). At that age they are too young to do the testing.

I used the coloured film (yellow worked best for us) and the school (when he was a bit older) let him do his homework on yellow paper which helped greatly. They also had little games at school that helped I think at that age there was a little teddy bear game they gave us. I also bought a karaoke machine and a kids cd for it with songs he knew and it helped him recognise the patterns of the words without it feeling like work iyswim.

I had to keep on at the school about testing him and I made sure I saw the teacher every 6 weeks or so just to see about his progress and their thoughts and make sure they were doing as I asked with regards to his reading etc.

I don't really know all the technical stuff about the tests and how they work etc I hope someone will come along soon and explain it better but thats just my personal experience.

[katcatkat]

We had dyslexias diagnosed at 6 years 11 months which we were told was the earliest the tests will be conclusive but we knew a long time before that and it had been treated as dyslexia from 5.
Treating a child as dyslexic wont harm them even if it is disproved later.

[nooka]

We had the same experience (lots of dyslexia in our family too), and ds wasn't formally assessed until he was almost 7 I think. Although it made very little difference at school I'm afraid (and neither the teacher nor the SENCO will have the ability to administer dyslexia tests, you need an Educational Psychologist for that). We had to arrange tutoring ourselves.

[debbiepmr]

Its all just such a mind field and i am feeling really helpless...is there a society i can contact to find out how i can help him in the meantime :-(
thanks for all your advice so far

[Ineedalife]

Hi debbie why dont you pop over to the special needs children board, there are lots of people over there with experience of dyslexia and someone might be able to give you some more advice.

It is really friendly over there and everyone supports each other

[debbiepmr]

thanks so much ineedalife I will and see what info anyone can offer..thanks again :-)

[Startailoforangeandgold]

As others have said you will be very lucky to get a formal DX before 6-7.
DD1 was 11 even though it was totally obvious from Y1 that her reading ability lagged her oral and numeracy skills by some considerable amount.

Personally I'd concentrate on making letters concrete to him.

It took a long to realise that DD didn't know her letters, not obvious ones, like bd, but strange pairs like I and L .

There are loads of games making play doh or pipe cleaner letters, writing big letters with squinty bottles water outside. Tracing sand paper letter shapes. Making letters with your fingers. All things that make letters real.

I think these would have hugely helped DD of I'd known them when she was small.

[debbiepmr]

Starailoforangeandgold thank you so much that is def the same as i am hearing from others and i am just so pleased that i can start to help him even if no one else can in school. It is such a shame that if you are not a square peg that most schools just dont seem to be able to help until much older, by which time i am sure my sons self esteem will be rock bottom.
I actually bought a game of alphabet snap from ELC yesterday which he really enjoyed and would love to hear about any ideas that have worked in helping learning come alive :-)
thanks again x