To ask for your experience/help with dyslexia DD Year 4

[Greensandblue]

I have concerns about my DD who is a Summer born Year 4.

She maintains 75% rates in exams/tests with every subject except English which is consistently around 50%. The only subject she is above 'expected' with is Sport.

She was later developing her speech and hardly spoke at 2.5.

She took a long while to 'get' blending in Reception and currently reads comfortably with things like David Walliams, Horrible Histories, Diary of a Wimpy Kid etc. She can read things like Harry Potter but there will be plenty of words she doesn't understand. She resists reading more difficult books like this.

Other traits which concern me are that she has very little self confidence (cripplingly nervous in school plays - not smiling, hunched shoulders and looking at the ground).

Spelling is not great - for example birthday = bithday and with = whith to give a couple of examples.

She doesn't seem to read for pleasure but loves being read to.

Can recap a chapter of a book to me in great detail verbally, but finds it difficult to write down. Story writing is particularly tricky - she finds it hard to grasp the beginning, middle and end and concept.

Does terribly in exams and often cannot finish on time.

Thinks she is 'not very good at English'.

Can be clumsy, forgetful, disorganised - but has improved significantly on these over the last couple of years.

Last year her form teacher said she needed extra help and added her to the support class. This year her form teacher says she simply doesn't make enough effort or read enough and is to chatty in class.

I can see that English does not come easily and she has to put in a great deal more effort compared to other subjects like maths and science.

I'm not sure what my next steps are. I suspect mild dyslexia but have no direct experience. An ed psych assessment would cost £800 and I'm not sure whether that money would be better spent on some one-to-one tutoring with an English tutor.

I will also push for the extra help again at school.

If she is diagnosed with dx, how would that help? Could I then insist on school giving extra time in exams? Would I then know how to best help her? Is it just a case of doing extra work on tricky areas (comprehension, spelling) with or without the diagnosis?

My younger child (year 2) has also just had the same things flagged at parents evening - comprehension and spelling need work.

Thanks for any help and advice on this.

^ I've heard good things about them too. We're not in W. London but I know other teachers in that area recommend them.

Keep on believing in your daughter. My son was said by school to have "dyslexia type" issues only at secondary level. One of his primary teachers did say he just needed to try harder. Poor child drooped more each year. He was capable in other subject areas and verbally able. Outside of school (non family!) adults liked him too and found him helpful and sensible.

What is true is that he needed more practice than his peers to absorb and build English skills, also he was ready for challenges later. So that, for example, he was not ready at 8 or 9 to successfully ( in his estimation not mine!) to write up what he did at the weekend/ during the holiday; it was a regular task for two school years. One summer I had got him confident at thinking through what he COULD write and then produce a good few sentences. In school teacher says "Oh, you are P6 now and as such do not have the time to do that task this year."

..Always moving on too soon for him to achieve the skills seemed to be a theme of English at school!

The positives for him included:

me reading challenging / older books that interested him (for years!)

Working hard to find good books and magazine subscriptions ( at high school age we found National Geographic articles had the right balance of interest and challenge) that he wanted to read by himself. Preferred non fiction and history to fantasy for example.

Writing was difficult as he could cry with a sore hand over what tiny bits of homework they were given (no physical issues and I think it was stress poor kid) so I backed off for years apart from thank you notes!
With hindsight there was a calm time in very late primary and early high school when a tutor ( the right tutor!) might have helped.

Best wishes to you and your daughter.

Sorry for that essay!

To answer questions from a text I would do some practice on using a highlighter pen to underline key vocabulary from the question and then look for it in the text and again underline it. Obviously this relies on reading/scanning the text fairly quickly. If this is too hard then start with an easier text to build confidence. You could actually underline in a book, rather than on a photocopy for added excitement!
I would also spend time saying out loud what I want to write, before writing it. rehearsing it so it makes sense and no words are missing, and try and encourage her to re-read as she is writing. This will again help her to keep track of what she is writing.
Or act as scribe for her sometimes but write slowly and edit as you go. For punctuation when she can hear a pause or gap then we need some punctuation, i.e. A full stop.
For spelling try using plastic letters and rearrange them into 'with' or 'birthday' from your examples. Only give her the letters she needs to start with.

then give her a chance to internalise the spelling, I used to play look at the word...take a photo of it using an imaginary camera and then close your eyes- now try and visualise the word.
To be honest it doesn't sound like school are helping with strategies. And yes, the curriculum will probably become more based on text, so better to try to sort these issues sooner