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Here you'll find advice from parents and teachers on special needs education.

Original poster

can a 'good' reader be dyslexic ?

31 replies

hotpotato11 · 05/10/2009 22:14

I have a DD of 8 and my gut feeling is that she has some kind of problem connected with literacy.Although she knows and understands phonics patterns her spelling is apalling.She can say what sounds she needs but write them down in the wrong order and can'tt see that it is wrong unless you make her touch each one and sound it out.School think she is a good reader because she was at level 4 in Y3 SATS.But she isn't. She relies on recognising the shape of a huge number of words but when confronted with an unknown word has no idea.
I have just realised she can't even easily read out the letters because she says she can't see them properly because they move about too much.She has had a recent eye test
She scored 3a in yr 3 in literacy although her spelling age was very very low.
She has recently done Verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests at school and came out in the extremely high bracket only dropping one mark on each paper putting her top of her year.So she isn't daft
I don't know anything about dyslexia but I wonder whether there is a possibility DD could be affected.
Are there any simple tests we could do at home to give us an idea if it is worth putting her in for an assessment.
Finally would the school help her even if she was diagnosed ?
Any replies would be most gratefully received

OP posts:
LissyGlitter · 06/10/2009 09:35

I am studying for a degree in English Literature (and doing pretty well!) and would have laughed if you had suggested I was dyslexic. However, I am obviously dyspraxic, and when i went to get formally diagnosed, the woman said I was clearly dyslexic too. She put a filter over a page and suddenly all the words "stuck" to the page! I had just been thinking everyone got that moving words thing and had been compensating for it. I had been preferring to read old books because of the yellowed pages making things easier without even realising.

Original poster
hotpotato11 · 06/10/2009 09:34

Thankyou very much for your replies.The first thing I will do is talk to the school about it.TBH I am shocked that they are not being pro active
the more I think about the effects of dyslexia , the more worrying it seems.How will she cope with learning foreign languages and chemical equations at secondary school ?

OP posts:
FaintlyMacabre · 06/10/2009 09:10

A friend of mine was only diagnosed as having dyslexia when she was about 19, partly because her reading skills are so good. She is the fastest reader I know and can read a novel in a hour or so (and talk about it intelligently afterwards!). I think what triggered the diagnosis was her writing skills and possibly sequencing difficulties.

3littlefrogs · 06/10/2009 09:08

You might also consider asking the optician about coloured filters. My nephew is severely dyslexic, but can cope very well with a blue filter.

Dd had awful problems with the non verbal reasoning papers for 11 plus. The black and white patterns jumped all over the page. A blue filter cured this instantly. It has to be exactly the right shade though. Luckily our optician is something of an expert in this field. She also gave dd some exercises to do which helped.

It is worth asking for a proper assessment though, because dyslexia is a very complex thing and every child is different.

yesitsme · 06/10/2009 09:05

Dyslexics are very good at compensating for their dificulties, which is why so many dyslexics slip through the net, if they are highly intelligent which I suspect your DD is then they find a different way to read, my DS who is severley dyslexic amazes us sometimes by reading large words but cant read words like saw,was, there,where because he learns to recognise large words by their shape! My DS describes the letters jumping round the page aswell.

We took our son to Dyslexia Action to have him assessed, it was only once we had the report from them, was school then able to put the wheels in motion to get him all the extra help he needs.

Due to the fact your DD is performing so well in her test results you may struggle to get any extra help from school.

Dyslexia Action do have a literacy program that we use that helps with spelling, my DS does it at home and in the holidays.

maverick · 06/10/2009 09:02

I have many children like your daughter coming to me for tuition.
Do have a look at the following for an explanation:
www.aowm73.dsl.pipex.com/dyslexics/spelling.htm

HTH