Dyslexia screening.

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anyone know much about these for primary aged children? I know a screening isn’t a formal diagnosis. Does anyone know how these work?

DD is in year 4 and is getting a dyslexia screening soon with the senco st her school.

she already has an EHC plan, she’s speech delayed and struggles with her motor skills and looking towards a dyspraxia assessment too. She has some sensory needs amongst other things.

she is well below age expected with reading. She has struggled majorly with phonics and has learnt to read some words from memory. She can only read basic words and does phonics at a year 1/2 level. This could tie in with her speech too as her speech often lacks clarity.

she also often forms her letters the wrong way round ie b and d or she makes mistakes in her written work. For instance in her Christmas cards it was form not from

any advice? Tia 😊

The b and d thing is v common with dyslexia. What about muddling 3 and 5? It is better to get screened - having all the Ds ie dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia is quite common as is having two.
with lack of clarity re speech and poor handwriting makes phonics a bit of a lost cause as it is based on using all three in conjunction to reinforce recognition.
But don’t despair - once diagnosed there are good strategies to help

@darkly thank you! Numbers she’s pretty good at forming now but used to get muddled when younger. She’s great at maths generally.

the new senco seems pretty good so hoping she’ll help a bit more as she was just left to plod along in previous years.

I believe she could be autistic and/or adhd too but no one will take me seriously as she’s compliant at school!

although she’s not had a formal assessment I do believe she has dyspraxia - school need to do the OT referral but they keep putting it off, so we are thinking of going private 🫣

her handwriting is pretty neat and she does take pride in it, however she gets letters muddled as above and she’s a slow writer too. Does that fit with dyslexia?

Even if the screener says low chance of dyslexia, if you still have concerns, get a full Educational Psychologist report. In fact, given the number of possible things you are looking at, it might be worth getting one anyway if you possibly can afford it.
DS1's screen came back several times low chance - but school kept doing it as there were concerns (from both me as a dyslexic parent, and school). Ed Psyc report found dyslexia and and dysgraphia, and also had a page of recommendations that have helped him over the years.

@SnowsFalling very helpful, thank you. She seen EP at pre school age but not since and at that age they wouldn’t have obviously been looking for dyslexia. I will look into private as the school won’t agree to get one in themselves 🫣I feel she’s been let down in all areas and left to it as she has generally been happy and compliant at school and goes under the radar. She’s really struggling at school at the mo and doesn’t want to go most days. The gap has widened and I think she’s started noticing it 😪

We paid for a Ed Psyc report and then used a optician with a colourimetry assessment machine which led to his glasses being prescribed.

Sadly, school resources are so tight, their assessments were simply designed to be
used to put school adjustments in place and those appropriate were used to apply for the same for exams.

DD was screened in Year 8 of secondary, although the screening results didn't obviously indicate dyslexia. DD scored high normal in the screening for lots of areas but then very low on the normal range for some areas. This is almost identical to DH's dyslexia presentation.

Luckily her secondary school were happy to procede to full testing after we spoke to them about DH's dyslexia and how his presents. I just knew there was something more to DD's difficulties with spelling/reading. The full testing made it much harder for DD to mask her difficulties so they became apparent and she was diagnosed with dyslexia. The accompanying 30+ page report has also been very helpful for us to understand DD's dyslexia.

We paid privately for a colour assessment and bought DD glasses with coloured lenses. She had an assessment for an overlay at school but was struggling to read the whiteboard.

The screening my school did for my daughter used a computer programme that runs a bit like a game, called nessy yeti mountain I think. It scored her for 6 areas and colour coded the score red, Amber, green. 3 reds means dyslexia is likely. The programme also makes some recommendations in terms of support, such as "1:1 reading with a specialist x3 a week". We're now waiting for a full assessment, which we are having to pay for.

Thanks everyone 💗

does anyone know if things can still be put in place if dyslexia screening indicates possible dyslexia, without a formal diagnosis? Even better can it be added to her EHC plan? Or is the actual diagnosis needed?!

That was the case for my son.

They appeared to think "that's nice" when I showed them the report. Any adjustments he got were from school tests.

One thing to watch out for if your child gets glasses and sits the foundation papers. All my sons mock exams were photocopies so on white paper. When he sat the real thing, foundation exams were printed on a sort of yellow paper. This "reacted" with his glasses and he couldn't read anything! Luckily he was confident enough to put his hand up and say sort this out. But just be aware if glasses come into the mix then different backgrounds are likely to be affected.

He is mid 20s now so this was some time ago but it worth knowing.