What age child would you think wrote this?

[yoozer16427942]

My DS wrote this and after my DM saw it and made some comments I'm looking for some outside opinions! So what age would you think he is if you saw this.

Hard to say. Its legible with dodgy spelling. They have remembered to use full stops but not capitals after. Maybe 7-8? Or could be older but struggles with spelling.

DD had similar creative spelling in primary school, and I had to read to her until year 6 or so because her comprehension and interest exceeded her reading ability. She's very bright with a blind spot for spelling. She's now an avid reader, and can mostly spell OK. For A level coursework she got Google to read her essays back to her to help her spot the mistakes.

Looks like my dyslexic 11 yr old

I'd be pushing for a dyslexia assessment in addition to the ASD. I find it hard to believe a teacher hasn't flagged that spelling with you.

When my DD had her ASD assessment I was chatting to the assessor about my dyslexia and he said it seems to have been forgotten about these days despite some children obviously struggling.

It hasn’t been forgotten about but most LAs won’t assess for it any more, so only those who can afford to go private, are getting a diagnosis.

LA around here states there is no scientific difference between a child with dyslexia and any other literacy difficulty and no nationally agreed diagnostic assessment, so aren’t really interested in labelling anything as dyslexia anyway.

I would say about 6. He is spelling phonetically eg bak b-a-k rather than b-a-ck.

My youngest had major SALT issues and spelling was his nemesis he just couldn’t do it. Everything was phonetic and it doesn’t work.

I got a list of spellings (it’s American but for international schools) (his outstanding primary school don’t do spellings to learn !!) from year 1-6 and we started small and did lots of patterned words each day and by the end of year 3 his year 1 spellings were secure. By year 4( end) his year 1 and 2 spellings were secure buy Easter of year 5 year 3 and 4 words like medicine are all secure and now on the year 5 and 6 words. You can teach him spellings are home, the handwriting as well we have handwriting paper etc

LA around here states there is no scientific difference between a child with dyslexia and any other literacy difficulty and no nationally agreed diagnostic assessment, so aren’t really interested in labelling anything as dyslexia anyway.

Yes, it’s an interesting and disappointing shift spearheaded by the British Psychological Society. Their upcoming publication to EPs will state the above as you say, and that as the idea of a cut off point in assessment is socially constructed, so there is no validity in a dyslexia diagnosis. But aren’t all cut off points arbitrary in some way? Certainly assessments for ASD and ADHD have been socially constructed in much a similar way. They also decry the increase in private dyslexia diagnoses - again while not mentioning the huge increase in private ASD and ADHD diagnoses!

Sadly, cognitive difficulties are, these days, much less ‘fashionable’ in the EP world. If you read recent EP journals, the papers are all about social justice and gender. There’s also a big focus on EBSNA due to lockdown after-effects.

All is not lost however. Some (few) LAs will offer EP diagnosis through school referrals, and some freelance EPs will also be happy to diagnose. But, it shouldn’t be like this.

I’d say year 2. Handwriting is never a good indication of age! Spelling is phonetic and there is some good vocabulary choices (securely). Good use of full stops but no other punctuation. Would be assessed at working towards year 2 probably.

Also poor spelling alone isn’t enough for a dyslexia diagnosis. Do they struggle with remembering lists of commands? Following instructions? How is their memory, particularly short term?
They possibly just need spelling support. Do they do phonics still in school? They should be having additional phonics sessions with spelling like that.

Interesting-which LAs are still offering this?

I know freelance EPs/specialist teachers (who both used to work for the LA so are ‘qualified’), but they are still private.

Thanks, very reassured now. I had no concerns, teachers have never expressed concern, he's always marked as achieving at the correct level 'as expected'. I've seen his spelling in his school books and it's better so I think it's probably partly just laziness. Thank you for nice comments about his handwriting 🙂

He has no problem remembering commands and has an annoyingly good memory. So I think just needs to practise spelling.

Looks similar to both my 7 year old DD and my 9 year old DS. The latter has just been diagnosed as dyslexic and can't do joined up writing.
These types of posts always attract the 'my child was writing in the womb' crowd so I'd take a lot of suggestions with a pinch of salt!

Why do some people expect children to be good at everything? They can't always be good at everything that doesn't mean to say there is something wrong with them. Some children are a bit quicker, some are a bit slower in all sorts of stuff.

It’s not about expecting them to be good in everything. If a child has a SpLD like dyslexia then there are strategies and accommodations that will ensure they reach their full potential. DS1 is unlikely to ever have great handwriting (he has dysgraphia) but because he could use a laptop and had extra time for exams that issue hasn’t prevented him getting to Uni.

Very aware of this, DS is amazing at some things, rubbish at others, just like literally everyone! I have zero expectations on my children except that they're secure and at least relatively happy in life. Just wanted to sense check whether his spelling indicates an area he could do with additional support in. Responses have confirmed what I thought which is that there probably isn't an issue, although interesting to read the discussion about dyslexia diagnosis and support as this isn't something I know much about beyond my own peers with dyslexia whose experiences many decades ago at school aren't relevant now. I'm going to talk to the teacher to ask what the school's approach is to spelling and whether they have any concerns since we last spoke.

Year 3 mabey but it's been a while since DSS was in primary and my others are preschool so could be completely out

I was going to say 9. DS is 9 (yr4) and I thought same age.

Your son's handwriting is better than a lot of kids in that year. My understanding is yr4 are largely behind where they should be normally because of how COVID fell. His spelling doesn't look hugely different to the year group generally (again struggling due to COVID).

Yr4 have particular issues across the board which I'm hearing from multiple sources.

I wouldn't necessarily think dyslexia for that reason.

My daughter school won't do dyslexia testing as they say they are helping her with her issues anyway and label won't change anything

I was was diagnosed at 21 and the label helped with my self esteem and understanding myself better

Schools would have to pay some external to come in and do private assessments and simply don’t have the budget to do that for any parent requesting it.

LA's don't have the money for EP's or specialist teachers to assess children with literacy difficulties. There's just so many. As others have said up thread there is no cut off point that changes between literacy difficulties and dyslexia. There is no difference in assessments or interventions. Schools are best placed to identify difficulties and offer support and interventions.

Op I'd have said the writing was around age 8 but the spelling was age 6. He should be using lined paper to help him. I'd focus on nailing the first 100 high frequency words as these account for around 90% of words in texts/ books etc.

I would definitely recommend exploring the possibility of dyslexia. Some of the spelling pattern difficulties here are very similar to what my DC has and we have recently had the diagnosis of dyslexia

Yes this makes sense and is similar to what I've heard from the teacher, DS is y3 and they started reception in 2020.

7 to 10 year old

She doesn't need it right now. She has adjustments already for what she does need but university won't make the adjustments without a post-16 assessment.

I'd say about 9 with the joined writing. However without the joined writing I'd say around 7 or 8. It's so adorable how they've spelt cottage as Kotig