Stealth dyslexia

[NeverTalksToStrangers]

My ds2 is 7 and is very bright. He's at a high reading level but makes really simple spelling mistakes all the time. When reading he guesses some words (uses logic rather than sounds them out), misses basic words out (he's in too big a rush) and even now would write some letters back to front at times.

At his parent teacher meeting I suggested to the teacher that he may be dyslexic. Her response was "if he was dyslexic he wouldn't be able to read at the level he is".

I accepted that, but now I realise stealth dyslexia is a thing. Does anyone have experience with this? How do I go about getting him assessed? Is there anything I can do to help him at home in the interim?

I should say, I don't really want to go back to his teacher without knowing more. In every respect in the parent teacher meeting I felt a bit talked over. It's frustrating because i can see him going from the brightest in the class to struggling a bit this year and getting down, probably because he's becoming more aware of his failings.

Did he crawl? One of the common traits of dyslexia is missing out that stage. Straight from dragging themselves to walking. Coordinating four limbs is tricky. They wait until they are able to walk on two,

Yes, he crawled. At about 7.5 months. And then started walking running at 10.5 months.

Well that's depressingly common. Lots of teachers only get a day on dyslexia during training so I try to be sympathetic. We had the same response with DS, he was not failing (because he's bright), but something was amiss. School thought we were mad to get him tested. However, I too am dyslexic and learnt to read easily becoming a fluent reader. I wasn't diagnosed until in my 30s. You need to understand the origins of the problem which is all to do with working memory, my visuospacial working memory is not too bad, but phonological is terrible. I struggle with spelling, grammar, mental maths and verbal lists/instructions (taking down a telephone number is a pain). Ds is the same (and an avid reader). Oh and both FS and I crawled

Oh and schools will not get him tested unless he's failing there is not a point trying to persuade them, there's no money for testing or interventions. You'll have to pay privately. Best thing ever for ds who no longer believes he's stupid and understands his difficulties

My daughter is exactly the same OP. Even down to the conversations with teachers at that age and crawling age (not that I've heard that as a sign). We paid for a private assessment last year when she was 8 and she definitely has dyslexia.

She's way ahead in reading terms but her spelling is way below. The assessor said that it's the discrepancy between one thing and another that can be a sign.

I had a few threads in chat about it but they've disappeared.

DS has just received a diagnosis of dyslexia with dysgraphia. I am dyslexic, and have "known" for a while something wasn't right. His y3 teacher agreeed with me, but a basic assessment by SENCO came back with poor phonics, but nothing else.
Y5 teacher arranged for a private Ed Psyc assessment, and we've just got the above diagnosis back. His writing and spelling is awful. I knew this. Ed Psyc also pointed out poor phonics (just as y3 noted), poor working memory, but very bright - so can compensate for lots of stuff.

We are currently working through Toe by Toe to try and bring the phonics up, working hard at touch typing, and will see what else school can suggest.

Oh, and he crawled at 5.5 months.

Right a bit more information for you:

Our school weren't very helpful in terms of even where to start. I knew something wasn't right and asked about dyslexia at parents meetings from the ages of about 6. Teachers fobbed me off for a few years until she was in the Senco's class when she told me her suspicions. But also said there's no money for the school to do anything about it unless she's struggling.

Anyway for a private assessment you will need an educational psychologist. There's a list of them I think on the dyslexia association website. In the end we went with someone by word of mouth (I can PM her details if you want?). She travelled up and DD1 spent about 4 hours with her. She was at school in a meeting room as I thought DD would be less distracted. The EP was brilliant and DD actually really enjoyed it.

It was pricey (£600) but the EP told me at a debrief straight away that DD was definitely dyslexic, dyspraxic and has attention issues. None of which were a surprise but I was a bit teary finally having things confirmed.

A few weeks later a very detailed report followed giving the results of the tests, strategies to try for spellings, strategies to help with self esteem, ways for the teacher to help her, it recommended extra time in tests and the use of a laptop to help with spelling. It was really thorough. And so helpful for the future.

DD feels vindicated that there's an actual reason why she struggles with spelling. She knows she's not stupid and now is well supported at school and home.

Sorry for the essay!

Yes DD has poor working memory and poor auditory memory (if I ask her to do something it does not go in). She is another avid reader. I suspect DH is dyslexic, but assessments for such things did not happen in his school in the 70s.

This is interesting for me because I am monitoring DD who is 5. I am dyslexic but wasn’t diagnosed til I was 21 and at uni after a self-referral- I am quite clever (not to blow my own trumpet) so I slipped under the radar. Child of the 80s, very few children were diagnosed. I have poor STM which causes me problems. I’m cross lateral and my handwriting is poor. Interesting what SheWoreBlueVelvet says, I never crawled.

Dd’s School are good, they’ve said it’s too early to know if mistakes she’s making are things she’ll grow out of or dyslexic (she’s a good reader but I see her skipping words or reading what she thinks she sees). Her teacher has agreed to keep an eye for now but it’s helpful to see the options for private assessment if we need it. We just encourage lots of story time with her and lots of handwriting and spelling practise at present.

Mine is the same, always ahead in reading, but poor grasp of phonics (very low score im y1 screening) behind in writing, very behind in spelling. I ended up having a private assessment done in year 5 which confirmed dyslexia.

I have already suspected I have dyslexia, I was a bum-shuffler and did not walk until I was 20 months. I also have epilepsy (some links between epilepsy and learning difficulties).

I often miss words out, shit speller, I sometimes do not order my sentences, most of all my grammar is absolutely appalling. Like your DD I was a good reader so never considered a contender for being dyslexic.

I was never diagnosed, rural primary school during the 90s (not in the UK) which low resources (staff etc). I am mid 30s now so its too late, I just double proof read everything but it has not affected my career etc because of my constant proof-reading.

We have a similar story, DS was finally diagnosed with auditory and visual processing difficulties just before his yr6 SATs.

He could read, understood the text etc but hated it- would do all he could to avoid it. However, he would listen to stories and loved audiobooks. His idea of Hell was reading aloud, much happier reading in his head.

Spelling was (still is) abysmal and his handwriting, while legible, is terrible. Lack of ability to follow simple instructions lead to daily rows and meltdowns (shamefully often on my part).

However, he is bright- currently in top sets across the board, albeit in the middle of them rather than at the top- so he coped. He was brilliant at managing to hide what he couldn’t do. He can’t copy the date from a board, but the person sitting beside him can- so he’d copy it from their book. As he was achieving and would pass his SATs (he did, even the spelling and grammar as he can do the grammar) there was no money for assessments. I’m also s teacher- I know that there really is no money in schools, I understand this.

He was assessed and treated privately by a behavioural ophthalmologist. It was the best money I’ve spent, if only to teach me how to work with him better. I was doing it wrong for his brain. The assessments were about £200. Follow up appointments are a bit cheaper. He was review at the start of the year, new tinted glasses, new shade needed as his needs had changed a bit, £360 including 2pairs of glasses. I winced, but I’d been aware this would need to happen so prepared for it!

Like someone upthread said, I cried when he was diagnosed. Not because I’m sad or disappointed. It was sheer relief that someone understood my boy- what life was like. To understand what he genuinely finds hard is a massive relief. There are no excuses, I gave him back some homework last week and told him it was rubbish and he needed to re-do it (he’s in yr9 so old enough to be told these things honestly!). I will back him up completely when he needs support.

Yep. DD has just been diagnosed in Y6, because I pushed for assessment. To be fair to them, school have been good at listening to my concerns and acted but it wasn't picked up by them or her previous school. She's a good but slooow reader with excellent comprehension, totally erratic spelling but usually phonetically plausible. She showed average - good phonetic awareness, good memory but (and this was where the SENCO said alarm bells rang loudly!) very slow processing speeds. She also shows signs of suffering visual stress - a purple overlay and light purple writing paper have really helped her focus.

Is he guessing because he can’t sound out the words or because he’s rushing/lazy? I’d guess it might be masking a poor knowledge of the alphabetic code given what you say about his spelling.

A PP has mentioned Toe by Toe. Another option is Dancing Bears and/or Apples and Pears from Sound Foundations. A&P is the spelling program but it sounds like he might benefit from some reading intervention as well.

Another thing you could try is turning it into a game when you listen to him read. He gets a point for all the sentences he reads accurately (including ones where he’s sounded out words correctly), you get the point if he guesses, adds or misses out words.

Given the teacher’s comment, I’d want to rule out teaching being the cause of some of these issues before anything else.

We're in the same position with DS (5) - we're keeping an eye and have told his teacher about the family history. DH is severely dyslexic (and very bright). He bumbled through school as simply "not very academic" and "a bit of a slow learner" and left at 16 with a mediocre set of GCSEs, because he was able to compensate and develop coping strategies sufficient that both the dyslexia and the abilities flew under the radar. Bluntly, he struggled at school but didn't struggle or fail badly ENOUGH for anyone to think about dyslexia. (Luckily he returned to education a few years later and an FE tutor sent him for assessment which turned his life around.) Stealth dyslexia is definitely a thing.

Anecdotally I think that if children are achieving within the broad range of age-related expectations, it's quite difficult to get concerns heard - and even if teachers accept/share the concerns, you will probably have to pay for any testing privately, as schools are so desperately short on resources.

With DS, we see a child who loves music but was late to "get" rhyme and rhythm; who has a memory like an elephant for people and places and events but has a total blind spot for sequences like the days of the week; who will sit through an entire chapter book and tell you all about the story afterwards, but gives up after a page or two of a "read it yourself" book; who started school confident with numbers, using money, telling the time etc but didn't know the alphabet and said "letters don't stick in my brain"; who has good days and bad days, days when he can read the word "the" and days when he stares at it like he's never seen it before. All things which ring dyslexia alarm bells. The teacher sees an energetic boy who has nevertheless worked hard to learn the letter sounds during the first term (the synthetic phonics is working) and is starting to read short words, which is all within age related norms; who in short, is making slow but steady progress and is no particular cause for concern - though reassuring noises have been made about keeping an eye on things as he gets older.

We're in a similar position although my DS is behind. Can anyone advise what is the best age to get a child assessed? My DS is also 7 like the OP but I'm reluctant to pay £600 if he's too young for a test to be conclusive. Should we wait???

Yes this is DS who was diagnosed year 7 after we paid for private Ed Psych assessment. It was when he was about 7 doubts started creeping in after discussions about messy writing and spelling. There is an incredibly strong family history with one cousin not diagnosed until her final year dissertation and we’d been through similar with DD whose issues were much more pronounced from young age so in comparison things were much more subtle.

Things I noticed were hat8ng reading aloud whilst loving reading to himself, messy writing, difficulties telling time, remembering the months and alphabet and hating learning foreign languages. Also very spiky CATS tests results. I first flagged at First school,so they gave a screening test he cruised through. We had him assessed for dyspraxia at same time which was fine.

Had a few years of feeling things were wrong. He was doing very well at school and somehow pulled off a 6 in the reading paper of the SATs, along with a 6 in Maths but 5 for SPAG paper . Sat Grammar test totally cold but didn’t quite pass by half a mark and again quite big disparity in performance on the 4 papers showed up and we decided time to get proper assessment. No point in involving school so we paid, about £600 I think.

Huge disparity in cognitive profile with 3rd percentile for processing versus 99.8 percentile for verbal. Very helpful report, has extra time for exams if he needs it, though never has yet. Teachers are to recognise that he can be inconsistent and it’s genuine if having off day and make hand outs available if needs be (doesn’t need them).

Huge relief to DS, he’d Worked out his brain worked differently. He spells by muscle memory apparently. Writing still a bit shit and you’ve just reminded to email English teacher and see where we are at now they’ve sat full length GCSE papers as they were concerned how he’ll hold up writing full papers. On target to do very well at GCSE and I’m not worried but glad we trusted instincts and we’re in a position to pay for assessment. Sorry it’s long, hoping there’s something there in amongst it that might help.

Yeah I’d say probably dyslexic. Sounds like me, excellent at everything except spelling and handwriting. The ability to read well means nothing, when I was tested I had a reading age about four years above my chronological age. Oh and I now have a PhD in literature. I’d get insistent with the school. Nothing will change day to day but extra time and use of a computer will really help in exams in due course.

Dyslexia is definitely under recognised in schools. That is due to misunderstanding of the condition due to inadequate training/CPD combined with poor funding for SEN generally. If your son is “coping”, he will not be top of the list for funding and/or extra support.

Dyslexia is characterised by poor phonological awareness (ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in words), slow processing speed and poor short term memory. These difficulties often manifest as poor reading and spelling. Other problems may include things like difficulty following verbal instructions, completing mental calculations or copying from the board (memory); quickly responding to questions or slow writing (processing).

Many people with dyslexia learning to read very well (particularly if they have high cognitive ability). They develop strategies to learn to read, but continue to have other difficulties. I work with many students with dyslexia who are high academic acheivers: Oxbridge and the Russell Group Universities all have many students with dyslexia.

Ceara description of her son clearly demonstrate some day to day markers for dyslexia in a young child.

Problems like letters moving around are NOT dyslexia. This is a visual difficulty that about 50% of people with dyslexia experience; however, it is not picked up in a standard eye test and requires a specialist eye test from an optometrist. Bizarrely, this test is not available on the NHS.

Dinosapple we're in NI, so i don't think they'd come that far. Thanks anyway.

Thanks for all the replies. I can see why these children get overlooked by schools but it's still a shame. I'll need to start looking for an educational psychologist then...

PATOSS www.patoss-dyslexia.org have a list of specialist assessors who can carry out recognised assessments for dyslexia.

They are often cheaper than ed psychs and the report is more in-depth. Rule changes mean that reports carried out prior to 16 years will still be valid for Disabled Students Allowance if your son decides to go to university.

I was diagnosed at 18 as dyslexic. I had an iq of 123 (probably much less now I have children 😅) which apparently masks it

I always loved reading and was at a higher level than most people in my year. Always completing the primary school reading certificate to gold level- only 2 other people in my year (out of 30) got this award (something like read 30 books a term?)