Is it possible for a dyslexic child to also be an early reader?

[Theguiltyfeminist]

Am hoping to pick the brains of the wise women of Mumsnet… Really sorry this is so long. I’m feeling like the worst parent in the world this evening, so please be gentle.

DD is 8 and really struggles with writing, spelling and grammar, in particular. She doesn’t have any trouble with maths and is good at the piano, so I don’t think it’s linked to hand muscle strength, etc. I am ashamed to admit this, but I started by telling her off over and over again for not paying attention but this is now so persistent that I’m wondering if there’s more to it. She does check her work but just can’t “see” that she has left out a capital letter or has spelt words wrong that she only learned last week for a spelling test, or hasn’t followed a spelling rule. Once I point it out, she groans and can absolutely see what she should have done, but she can’t do it herself. I think now that she really is trying hard.

In some ways, she fits the profile on the NHS website for dyslexia quite accurately- she struggles with handwriting and is very slow to produce any written work. However, she’s never had any trouble with reading. In fact, the opposite- she started to read simple CVC words on the day she turned (?) two and a half. I was a bit stunned and thought I had some kind of genius on my hands, although now I understand that these things generally even out within a few years! Does this mean that the problem isn’t dyslexia? I don’t want to bark up the wrong tree (or, to be absolutely honest, give DD false hope that there is a magic solution) if in fact she’s never going to be given a diagnosis on these facts.

Thanks very much for your help.

My son thought himself to read at 3, was reading long prose novels fluently by 4 and he is studying maths in one of the top universities in the country. He is dyslexic.

Have her tested, the school might not agree to that if she is not massively delayed but, IMO, the cost of the private test was absolutely worth it both to protect DS’ self esteem and get him the extra support he needed.

Taught, not thought 😁 (he may got it from me no doubt!)

Yes, my daughter is dyslexic and was top of the class for reading . I’m also a primary school teacher and knew there was something wrong- school didn’t take me seriously as she has always been in the top groups- I got her tested privately and it was very clear she was dyslexic- intelligence very high- so that kind of masked it.

Yes DS is a good reader and got a 6 in the old reading SATs but has a diagnosis of dyslexia.

Yes. Hyperlexia is a thing and dyslexia affects more than just literacy

This is interesting as I'm wondering the same about DD. She's always been top for phonics / quick to be a free reader etc but her handwriting and spelling are terrible compared to everything else.

My daughter didn't have any trouble learning to read, but spelling was a huge effort. Her grandmother showed her how to learn them for tests but it didn't carry over to her writing. I was so relieved when a teacher in yr 7 (I think) finally considered her spelling was an issue that needed to be sorted!

She has to pay much more attention to what she's written to avoid problems; is good on computers but is also aware that spellcheck isn't enough on its own, as it's common for her to write homonyms especially if she's tired. She's just started an English degree ...

Of possible relevance is that she has a very poor visual memory.

This is so strange. My DS age 13 has similar issues but I have never considered the possibility of dyslexia as he is such a strong reader. I thought dyslexia was specifically about difficulty reading but all gis difficulties are with writing. Can anyone direct me to links/research about this?

www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/

This is really interesting - thank you. We think it’s very likely that DH and MIL would have been diagnosed with dyslexia if they were starting school today, so perhaps it wouldn’t be a huge surprise. DH has “masked” it in the sense that he went off and became an engineer, and so was able to write equations all day, but he was perhaps lucky that he just really loved taking things apart and rebuilding them. DD is as yet not showing any interest…

Dyslexia for adults is about difficulty with processing information, lack of organisation, difficulty following instructions, struggle with time management and project management, feels overwhelmed by work easily, can't retain information like dates, times, formulas....

But the positives are dyslexics are incredible problem solvers and creative thinkers

I know nothing about this but I think printed text is easier than writing as they are looking at the shape of the word as a whole to read it rather than each individual letter. A long time ago I saw an example of a paragraph written with completely jumbled letters apart from the first and last letter of each word, weirdly you could still read it fluently 🤷 the brain is amazingly complex!

Teacher- here
My DD read from the age of 3
Started to struggle in Y2- turns out it was totally sight and no phonic understanding
Dyslexia diagnosis in y3, my DHs family has a lot of dyslexia.

Times Tables were the clue. She couldn't learn them in lists which apparently is a sign.

Two of my dc are dyslexic and reading isn't an issue for either of them, spellings and handwriting, and organising their thoughts and ideas on paper are the areas that they struggle in.

It took me years to learn to read but when I did I learned quickly and soon excelled in it.
I couldn't learn phonics though.
I now read quickly and fluently but no phonics.

Sounds dyslexic to me. My own dyslexic DD read early, was good for age until about year 3 then stopped developing in that direction quite so rapidly. She was assessed and the assessment gives you an insight into areas of strength/weakness. She's OK (ish) at reading but struggles hugely with retaining info, decoding new words, retrieving words, organisation...all sorts really. Nice handwriting though!
I suggested dyslexia but the school felt it wasn't worth investigating and she went all the way through to year 7 without a formal diagnosis.
HOWEVER, DD also v V musical which sort of masked it I think, and has been her main focus instead. She's now a string player at the Royal College. Keep going with the piano OP!

OP I see similarities with mine who are both dyslexic. They were both reading well early, but these are possible things to watch out for:

• avoids reading (reading can take 5 times the mental energy for a dyslexic - it's not that they can't, often, it's that it is so exhausting)
• makes mistakes or tires quickly into written work or comprehension or homework for the reason above
• gets spellings right in a test then forgets the words almost straight away (processing issues, memory)
• capital letters in odd places, weird spacings, forgetting grammar rules that are basic like omitting full stops regularly even though you know they know those kinds of basic rules
• great visual learner
• underperforms in tests (processing speed usually)
• school says she has poor comprehension but you know she understands the things she reads (often the act of reading is so tiring the child doesn't focus on the meaning behind it)

Yes. DD1 has dyslexia. Top of the class reader from Yr2 onwards. Her reading age was 11+ from that year. But... she couldn't reliably spell her own name even aged 8. Hand writing and spelling atrocious. Classic spikey profile.

School weren't great tbh, although one teacher did say it was an enigma but there was no money to test her so I paid for an assessment.

It was worth it though as picked up dyslexia and dyspraxia. And her diagnosis means she gets extra time in tests and exams in secondary school, whereas without she'd struggle to finish.

She still loves reading, it's her go to pleasure at 13.

Oh goodness now that's a sign, dyslexics are majorly over represented in engineering and science! NASA hire a lot of dyslexics And it's genetic.

If they are dyslexic do they get to use spell check in exams? Ds is diagnosed as having a visual processing disorder. He gets extra time in exams and uses a laptop. But he just can’t see the spelling mistakes and missed capitals etc. He was also a very early reader at age 2 but really struggles with all the things people are talking about above. I’m now wondering whether he is also dyslexic

I’m an Educational Psychologist so I diagnose children with dyslexia. It’s definitely possible, particularly if your child learnt to read using what we call sight reading. There are lots of different definitions about what dyslexia is but ultimately most definitions say it is, at its core, a problem with phonological processing. There are other linked elements too, as other posters have mentioned, to do with organisation and planning but ultimately the definition used most commonly for diagnosis is about a deficit in phonological awareness - a child’s ability to use phonics to read and spell.

If your child could read early but seemed to just remember the words by sight, rather than sound them out, it’s possible they do have this phonological difficulty and basically found a ‘work around’ to be able to read - memorising words by what they look like. Interestingly some children with ASD are incredible at this as can read by sight from a young age. A good way to check this is ask the child to read ‘nonsense’ words using phonics skills - children who read by sight will find this very hard and often try and guess real words. Also consider how they approach words they don’t know now - do they guess at a similar ‘looking’ word, such as a word that starts and ends with the same letters and is a similar length, or do they try and sound it out? Are they any good at sounding it out if they do try?

If your child has always been good at reading using phonics and can sound words out no problem, it’s possible it could be something else. Dysgraphia for example is around specific difficulties with writing, including poor handwriting, struggling to leave spaces, poor spelling and unfinished words. It can also affect children’s ability to plan out and structure their writing and they’re thinking so much about what they want to write. Controversially I think many children with dysgraphia are misdiagnosed with dyslexia when they do not have the fundamental difficulties with phonological processing, but that’s just my view!

Another possibility is your child could have working memory difficulties - this means that they struggle to remember things while doing something else. So for example, remembering to include full stops and capital letters at the same time as writing a story, because they are thinking about writing the story. These children often struggle with multi step instructions or forget their equipment, for example. Lots of children with dyslexia also have working memory difficulties, but you can have working memory difficulties and not have dyslexia.

If you can share a little more about how your child learns best, I might be able to give some advice about things that could help (although obviously not in a professional capacity as I would need to have worked directly with the child to do that). I should add that I’m a local authority EP, not a private one.

This is DD too, she failed the year 1 phonics screening spectacularly despite being able to read well, teachers kept telling me she just wasn't trying, eventually had a private assessment for dyslexia so she has had extra time in exams ever since.

Dyslexia covers a great number of different and very specific learning difficulties. Each dyslexic person will have their own individual profile of what they struggle with.

Early intervention can really help but primary schools seem really weak on both identifying problems and supporting them unless they are very extreme. Buy in any private help you can.

DS2 is dyslexic, he is 19 now, absolutely avoided reading, could not retain maths formulas. He could do the maths great when sitting with DH or his tutor, the next morning he had forgotten the lot. In the end the private tutor, said I was wasting my money.

The odd thing about his dyslexia is that he can spell really well and he has very neat handwriting. This confused his teachers too.

He left school with just one GCSE, Eng Lit would you believe (yes! how surprised were we, especially as he didn’t think he would pass any)

He now works in an area of tech, that throughly interests him, and his work ethic, drive and enthusiasm is something else. He can problem solve and think a way round, write code etc.

My advice to anyone that has a dyslexic child is not to stress, all the dyslexic people I know have been amazingly success in life.

@AliceinSlumberland , thanks so much for you thoughts - that’s all really interesting. I don’t think she does struggle specifically with phonics - just writing. She’s currently reading the Swallows and Amazons series, for example, which has lots of new, sailing-related words, and she seems to be having a good go at breaking them down. Perhaps it is something else, after all.