Worried about my 12 year old’s education - not virus related.

[Dontbetardy]

Well, I suppose it is slightly as he is learning at home however, my son is 12, 13 in the summer so S1 here in Scotland. Not sure what that is in England. Apologies if this is long!

He is Dylsexic and we were told this when he was about 9. For him possibly one of the worst things to say because since then and due to a short lived amount of bullying about it he just sees himself as stupid and unable to do work.

Last March during lockdown, it became very apparent with the work he was doing at home (minimal set by school) that he was struggling with maths and English. Writing really is very poor. Attention very short. School just said he’s a good pupil and that he can see he tries his hard to and has improved. This was P7 in Scotland so his old primary school.

This week we’ve started home learning again and it is evident that he cannot write and spell and nor can he form proper sentences.

As an example, he was asked to describe scenes using just his senses and two pictures were given. One of a forest and one of a fire. He said I see a forest. I see a fire and that was it. He has also struggled with basic subtraction. If he were to write a piece of work it would be something like The cat sat on the mat and wanted to come in for his tea. There is no story telling.

I am not sure how to support him. I thought about a tutor and he did see someone a couple of years ago but he refused to engage. I offered this support to him again last night and he’s completely refused it. We can’t get a place with that tutor just now as there is a waiting list, along with the other good ones local to us.

Can anyone help me help him or offer any solutions. I am going to look at BBC size about sentence forming today.

Just another point, there is a project home from Geography which is to take a couple of weeks. It’s about forming a country, it’s laws, politicians etc. He drew it in pencil in about 20 minutes and said it’s done. he doesn’t want to be last to finish something because he sees it as being stupid and not keeping up. I am hopeful his teacher will send it back. Maths and English were both a struggle yesterday.

Op can you go back to basics with him, get the first 100 high frequency word flash cards and incentivise him to learn them? Screen time, money for games, xbox etc.

Those words are the building blocks.
Get a cheap white board and pens for him to practise.
Explaining root words and pre fixes and suffixes are also useful to show how words are made.

There are some really good, how to write a story books from usbourne which support story writing step by step.

And yes definitely tutors but he has to get on with the tutor and they should have experience in dyslexia.

Sorry for multiple posts, remember, during lock down many tutors are on zoom anyway.

I'd ask locally for tutors with these specialisms eg my dd needs specific help and normal primary teachers contacted me who said she was fine. However one with actual dyslexia experience told me areas of work from the first meeting, normal teachers won't see this (and it's not their fault but this is part of the wider problem because they can't spot it).

First, can I say dyslexia doesnt have to mean stupid - and I say that as a dyslexic adult who has a degree. I'd work on his confidence and self esteem as well as the accademic work.
What is he good at? If you can get a pass in English and maths at GCSE, suddenly doors open, and you can focus on stuff you have a talent for rather than endless essays or sums (although maths is a strong point of mine, once you ignore the fact I do addition and subtraction on my fingers, and my tables suck).

Also, scaffolding. I wont do my dyslexic 11 yr olds work, but in the forest example, I'd say they are asking for senses, you've picked up sight, what are the other senses? What might you hear/smell/feel/taste? Its taken a long time for me to be able to partly scaffold answers - and I'd really struggle with the three examples you've given (forest, fire, geography) as to me they arent very specific. And I'd know that 5 sentances (well, 4, because taste a forest, wtf?!) for the forest wouldn't be what they were after, but wouldnt be able to expand it much further.

If you join a dyslexia group on Facebook, there will be lots of suggestions about how to get basics of reading/spelling/maths which could be worth following up.

A tutor could be ve a medium term solution, but its unlikely to help in this half term.

Good luck!

Can he tell a story without writing it down?

It can be very tempting to children with spelling/writing difficulties to minimise what they write to avoid the difficulties. With DD we found that decoupling the writing from the telling helped a lot. e.g. She dictated, we wrote down, and then we dictated back to her.

With the project, does he need help breaking it down into sections, talking what is needed in each section with a timescale for each?

DD with dyspraxia really struggled to add detail to things, but if asked questions to prompt she could do it. It was a massive uphill struggle though.

If the English is like the English-GCSE-curriculum stuff you are meant to use the picture as a starting point and then go full on with imagery.

e.g.
As I walk through the forest I can see the sunlight dancing through the trees as the branches wave merrily at me. The dried autumn leaves crackle underfoot like fragile porcelain. I pick and eat one of the last blackberries of the season and it tastes like nectar on my tongue. As I hang on to a branch to steady myself if feels rough like the hands of my builder uncle. I the air I can smell the smoke of a bonfire where a nearby gardener is clearing the last of the autumn waste. As I walk I think how happy I am to be in a place as quiet and peaceful, like a fleecy rug wrapped around me.

@TierFourTears

First, can I say dyslexia doesnt have to mean stupid - and I say that as a dyslexic adult who has a degree. I'd work on his confidence and self esteem as well as the accademic work. What is he good at? If you can get a pass in English and maths at GCSE, suddenly doors open, and you can focus on stuff you have a talent for rather than endless essays or sums (although maths is a strong point of mine, once you ignore the fact I do addition and subtraction on my fingers, and my tables suck).

Also, scaffolding. I wont do my dyslexic 11 yr olds work, but in the forest example, I'd say they are asking for senses, you've picked up sight, what are the other senses? What might you hear/smell/feel/taste? Its taken a long time for me to be able to partly scaffold answers - and I'd really struggle with the three examples you've given (forest, fire, geography) as to me they arent very specific. And I'd know that 5 sentances (well, 4, because taste a forest, wtf?!) for the forest wouldn't be what they were after, but wouldnt be able to expand it much further.

If you join a dyslexia group on Facebook, there will be lots of suggestions about how to get basics of reading/spelling/maths which could be worth following up.

A tutor could be ve a medium term solution, but its unlikely to help in this half term.

Good luck!

Thanks. Yes, I’ve done the basic questions and structure of the senses with him but he just said I’ve answered what has been asked. He is right in saying that however, I know school will have wanted more and for him to expand but he’s of the opinion I’ve answered what I have been asked.

@TeenPlusTwenties

Can he tell a story without writing it down?

It can be very tempting to children with spelling/writing difficulties to minimise what they write to avoid the difficulties. With DD we found that decoupling the writing from the telling helped a lot. e.g. She dictated, we wrote down, and then we dictated back to her.

With the project, does he need help breaking it down into sections, talking what is needed in each section with a timescale for each?

DD with dyspraxia really struggled to add detail to things, but if asked questions to prompt she could do it. It was a massive uphill struggle though.

Thank you. This is helpful. We’ve broken down Geography today. I’ve given him a few basic openers and he’s followed through with some more ideas and questions to me so that was good. He doesn’t get that 1-1 in school though.

@TeenPlusTwenties

If the English is like the English-GCSE-curriculum stuff you are meant to use the picture as a starting point and then go full on with imagery.

e.g.
As I walk through the forest I can see the sunlight dancing through the trees as the branches wave merrily at me. The dried autumn leaves crackle underfoot like fragile porcelain. I pick and eat one of the last blackberries of the season and it tastes like nectar on my tongue. As I hang on to a branch to steady myself if feels rough like the hands of my builder uncle. I the air I can smell the smoke of a bonfire where a nearby gardener is clearing the last of the autumn waste. As I walk I think how happy I am to be in a place as quiet and peaceful, like a fleecy rug wrapped around me.

He wouldn’t be able to form a paragraph like that.

Dyslexia doesn't mean stupid at all - I have dyslexia and a doctorate in a STEM subject (and now, I am one of the best writers I know, however, it was definitely not always this way).

Some things that helped me - story telling and vocab without writing. Actually I did this with my ex-partners child last year due to suspected dyslexia. You can use puppets, play the one line of a story, get him to describe the scenes in videos and games, play ends with/starts with games.

Fidget Toy - sometimes I find it easier to write without having to think to closely on it - my entire PhD was written up whilst playing with fidget toys.

It doesn't have to be perfect - we tell our kids constantly not to make mistakes but in reality in the adult world - most of the important pieces of writing we do are checked by multiple people.

Dictation software. If he's doing Highers he will be allowed to dictate his exams probably - get him practicing this now though, and request school put suitable measures in place to support him. Does he get his extra time allowance?

Study skills - mind mapping, flow drawing, to do list, motivational timers etc.

BUILD CONFIDENCE

Thanks Globe. Very helpful. He has fidget toys but mainly uses a ball of blue tac.

DD was very much 'I've answered it'. We really had to go through how a question worth say 8 marks wasn't going to get full marks with a 1 sentence answer.

So for science we had to say if it is worth 6 marks you must give 6 facts at least. If you think you've answered it in 1 fact, write down what else you know about the topic until you have got to 6.
e.g. Describe the structure of an atom:
Not 'It has a nucleus and electrons orbiting it'.
But 'It has a nucleus containing neutrons (zero charge) and protons (+ve charge). It is orbitted by electrons (negative charge) in shells. The innermost shell has 2 electrons, then 8 then 8.

So for your DS. 5 senses, so one sentence per sense. Then also a tick list of things to include, 1 simile, 1 metaphor, 1 use of onopatopaeia etc. Start with the sense, then add in the imagery.

Ridiculously with DD we found that doing things as individual sentences and then rewriting as a paragraph helped.

Similarly with more factual things like history using Point, Evidence, Explain as separate bullets helped and only then merging into sentences.

(She had a habit of giving her whole argument in the introduction in one sentence, then nothing left for the rest of the page!)

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