Is poor written work alone ever a sign of dyslexia?

[Mymadworld]

Ds (12) is generally able and bright (in a good average way not normal Mumsnet bright ) however his written work is shockingly bad to the point where I'm wondering if there's more going on than just being rubbish at English.
Ask him to tell you a story and he speaks beautifully using correct & expressive language but ask him to write a story and it barely makes sense! He does have a tendency to rush his work and had yet to appreciate the merits of reading it back at the end but I would say it isn't much better than his 8 year old brother's work
His spelling is atrocious - I've realised it's often simple words & if you ask him to spell aloud he will do so correctly eg friend, believe, because. His punctuation is poor, never uses capital letters and seems to have little concept of paragraphs or general sentence structure and has a total mental block on parts of speech (couldn't remember the difference between a verb & noun the other day!) Recent mid-term exam results show he is below where he should be (36% creative writing, 39% SPaG - all other subjects in the 50's &60's with maths & IT in the 70's)

He also seems to have a mental block with French spelling now too although he only started learning the language in September so less concerned about this.

Should I be looking at Extra tuition, speaking to the teachers, considering an external assessment or accept that English isn't his thing!?

[BuffyandHen]

My son has dyslexia and also has some of the signs you have noted. My suggestion would be you speak to the SENCO and see if you can get a dyslexia screening done

[Goosegettingfat]

Hello, I'm a teacher who specializes in dyslexic students. Yes you should get a screening done. If you have no joy with the school, you may wish to consider paying privately

[Mymadworld]

Thanks both of you I'll start with school then considering our options if they can't advise.

[Goosegettingfat]

You're welcome. Good luck

[Tomorrowillbeachicken]

Dysgraphia?

[GreenTulips]

Goosegettingfat

Would you mind if I messaged you please?

[Goosegettingfat]

Greentulips no problem :)

[Harperhan]

You could be writing about my 12 year old son. He has just completed his end of year exams and the overwhelming theme is that he is bright but cannot answer extended writing questions. In his History he got 13/16 on the multiple choice questions, but couldn't write something that made sense when it came to the extended writing. He has been screened for everything but nothing specific comes to light. They did though let him have 25% extra time and a lap top but that hasn't seemed to help. We are at a lose where to go with it as in his eyes what he is writing makes complete sense.

[Laura0806]

screening unfortunately misses dyslexia and other conditions. If it is possible a private full assessment would be the way forward although they are costly. Could school not treat as if dyslexic anyway?

[Tomorrowillbeachicken]

Harperhan did they screen for dysgraphia?
Sounds similar to DH who we suspect was dysgraphia.
Could your son use voice to text then edit it after?

[Goosegettingfat]

Although screening can miss things, I'd be surprised if op's Ds is able to slip through the net in view of her description.

Trying to get screening in a state school can be an obstacle course, but depending on your financial situation, op, I'd give it a shot before paying for assessment

[Laura0806]

A dyslexia screen in most schools would miss those problems with writing. It did for both my children

[Laura0806]

Both children are in different school as well and I regularly work in schools where I hear ' but he can read/ he passed the phonics test/ she's bright'.....

[chickenmayhem]

My daughter is moderately dyslexic but with very high general ability which masks some of her problems. Your son sounds dyslexic to me. I'd definitely have him screened or even fully assessed. My daughter's screen wasn't that helpful to be honest. We waited another year before having her assessed because the screen wasn't conclusive at all. Her full assessment told a totally different story. I was really shocked by lots of her scores and her profile was incredibly spiky. Her school wouldn't assess her because she was scraping through the expected attainment targets so we had her privately assessed. It was £300 and has probably been the best £300 I've ever spent. It's made such a massive difference. Good luck. I hope you manage to get some answers soon.

[chickenmayhem]

And as mentioned above, she scored 39/40 in her phonics test. I was told by school that this meant she wasn't dyslexic. When we got her assessment through it showed that her ability to blend was very high at the 90th percentile. The rest of the reading scores were very low, with some as low as 5th percentile. I don't think you can draw much from the phonics test alone.

[GreenTulips]

Dyslexic children have 'ceilings' which is why some hot targets and others don't

DS's literacy scores haven't changed in 4 years - he's not moved one jot. Poor teaching is frustrating.

Blame the education system not the child

[mrsglowglow]

Wow this is my Son who has just turned 12. I first raised concerns in year 6 but was told by school that there were no problems. He passed sats with high marks. At the start of year 7 he did the school cat tests and scored highly in certain sections. As a result was set high target grades. He has had a miserable year. Constantly told he's not putting effort in etc. He just cannot produce the written work they expect of him. I met with the school senco and various screenings were arranged that did not flag up dyslexia. The school have arranged for an assessment with an ed psych and we are now awaiting a report. We are also going to see about a vision assessment but I need to investigate the best place to go.

[notnearlythereyet]

I am a specialist dyslexia assessor and a Senco and my advice is - get him tested asap! Phonological processing covers a range of different skills and that is why certain screeners have so many false negatives- they only test blending for example.

Someone upthread mentioned speech to text-I second that. Dragon Dictation costs quite a lot on Amazon, but is worth it.

At school he could try typing and using headphones to listen to what he wrote to check if it makes sense. You do not need special software, voiceover is a common feature of accessibility settings in text processing softwares like Word.