I cannot get my child to read

[littlegreydevil]

I’m going to don a hard hat for this one but I’m desperate enough that if I glean even one useful tip, it’ll have been worth it.
My youngest, 10yo and in year 6, is diagnosed autistic, ADHD and dyslexic. He still cannot read fluently and I am devastated and so incredibly worried.
He is part of the cohort that was put in lockdown in their reception year. So he has missed crucial education. We did do every piece of work that was sent home by school, sometimes sitting with him for hours trying to get him to learn his phonics and write one measly sentence, there were a lot of tears, his and mine, trying to get through the work. That is when I started suspecting dyslexia which was eventually confirmed 2 years later.
Since then, we have tried everything. Books for reluctant readers, books based on his special interests, mirrored reading, texts with special fonts… Anything the school suggested, we have tried. He has an EHCP and special interventions at school (mainstream) and yet here we are, he has the reading ability of a child at year 1 level.
I’m a bookworm and so is his older sibling so he sees us read regularly so the behaviour is being modelled and he even gets jealous when I buy a new book for the older one. He likes to play Minecraft so we encourage him to sound out and type in words in the search bar when he’s looking for something. I don’t know what else to try!
It’s like he can’t see the letters as a unit, he struggles to recognise common exception words or tricky sounds, and when sounding words out, it’s like he doesn’t hear all the sounds (hearing has been checked and fine).
I am now looking at secondary schools for him and can’t find any that can meet needs. He is too sociable and articulate for most SEMH schools locally, but too far behind for mainstream, even those with a resource base. This is a child who thrives on social interaction so home education would not be suitable. Not to mention the fact that I feel we have completely failed him as educators so don’t think we should be teaching him.
I’m even considering asking the council to hold him back a year in the hope we could get him more ready for secondary but realistically the odds of that happening are really low.
What can I do? How did you get reading to “click” with your child if they have special needs? Help!

You haven't failed as an educated, OP!

Have you tried talking to any specialist dyslexia tutors or consultants for advice?

Sorry, no advice. He sounds like a great lad. Just wanted to say that there are countless examples of incredibly successful people with dyslexia. Focus on his positives whilst you continue to look for the right support.

My friend got her dyspraxic son held back a year - did him the world of good.
As for how to help him more at home, speak to the school’s English lead. They should have some good tool for you to use like word houses etc.
It all sounds very tough. I wish you the best of luck. It’s great that you are such an engaged parent! xxx

I second this. It sounds like he needs special help for his dyslexia. You haven’t failed at all.

Sounds difficult. Have you investigated specialist dyslexia tutors? My daughter goes to one and she’s also great about advising what might help at school and at home.

Have you tried Toe by toe? It’s really dry and boring but did help improve my daughter’s reading!

My daughter could not write her name until she was 7. Her older sibling was very academically able so I was absolutely panic stricken.

I got an Ed psych report which said she was dyslexic, dyspraxic, motor processing issues.

I thought she would never write anything or pass any exam. This started to sort itself out at age 10

She’s now doing 3 A levels, and is predicted As.

I think she’s neurodivergent, she’s not dyslexic. It’s just how it presented.

She got there on her own time table is the message.

Give all the support you can but don’t panic. He sounds bright? And will get there ❤️

My DS is about the same age, and was also very behind with his reading - partly because of lockdown, and partly because of (what I suspect are) mild neurodivergent traits. In Y3 or Y4 it became a real problem, and he was considerably behind his peers.

We did 'Teach your monster to read' , which was good for the basics if a little young.

But what was really transformative for us was Reading Chest: it's like a lending library by post, and you can choose which level to start at and which books you have each time. We just went for the absolutely beginning level, and my DS was quite encouraged by the progress he was making; he also got very into the reward charts! I appreciate he was younger, but it might be worth a try?

I hope everything works out for you; he sounds like a lovely boy, and you actually sound like very supportive and sensible parents.

I live near the Helen Arkell dyslexia centre - they have a rep for being really helpful. Several of my friends have used them and sent their kids in courses run by them. Helenarkell.org.uk

Have you tried Easy Read online system? It was the only thing that got my dyslexic, COVID impacted 11 year old reading. The visual code made more sense to him than anything else had. It isn’t cheap, but you get 10 sessions free which is enough to assess whether it will work for you.

It sounds like he’s built up a bit of a ‘fear’ (I sympathise completely I have one the same age as yours and another a few years older so I did all the lockdown educating and it was tough, I am a teacher but teaching your own kids is very different!)
I would suggest breaking down the wall first, when you buy yourself or DC a book get your DS an audiobook, fostering enjoyment for something first before making it ‘educational’ is so important.
There are some really great suggestions here too (teach monster to read app is one we use in school a lot)

My 10 year old is very similar. For us comics helped. They weren't baby picture books but having pictures there meant he could follow the story and so get hooked, without having all the words.

My boy likes beano,
And has now moved on to looshkin books

As long as he Minecraft / TV / screens to fall back on he'll never get into books.

Remove the screens and watch his brain develop

I started younger as I'm diagnosed dyslexia and always though DD1 and DS were at least but:

https://www.soundfoundations.co.uk/learning-to-read/

Look here ^^ -

Digraphs or Trigraph the cards at start are brillient for as you have to get instant recongistion and helps with de-coding massively.

They also do a really good spelling program - Apples and pears - we also did because once reading was okay problems lingered with spelling - encoding probably worse - but it reinforced letter sounds and patterns.

Though like pearlsthatwerent we also used Teach your monster how to read and reading chest.

Honestly given he's Y6 I'd proably also be looking at specialist dyslexia tutors and trying to keep him back a year if possible ( surprised if that was allowed TBH) .

Other have found Toe to toe helpful - we didn't but others have - the sound foundation books were very helpful as clearly as a dsylexic who didn't heard sounds in words I needed a program to just follow.

You could also try https://www.nessy.com/en-gb - kids had it for spelling at second primary - they weren't wild about it but along side sound foundcations coudl be very helpful.

In mean time graphic novels, comics magaizesThe junior weekly - or audio books to continue interest in stories and expand vocbulary - all help mine - and despite my considerable worries they've all grown into readers for pleasure.

Does anyone in the family have a kindle? You can change the font, size of letters and words on a page.

Try a fun book with audio book, so he is hearing and reading at same time. Try 10 mins and build it up to 20.

Sounds tough! Definitely seek specialist dyslexia support. Could you both 'follow along' a book that has an audio accompanying? Maybe get him comic books (with no/few words) when you get older DS a book? The first step of reading is enjoyment and learning to make meaning from books, so picture books and comic books are a really good first step to build his confidence and break down some of that fear! You can flick through them with him and ask questions/chat about what's happening so he gets comfortable to "read" together without the pressure. Also (i know it's really hard!) but doing some mindfulness/breathing exercises for yourself and maybe him to stay calm so things dont get so stressful as obviously that makes learning 10 times harder.

Have you tried him listening to audio books while reading along with it? It's not a silver bullet, but it did help my dyslexic child a little.

I was also going to suggest getting him assessed for dyslexia. You would probably have to do it privately but it’s much cheaper than ASD and ADHD assessment. If yoh have one ND you are much more likely to have more.

I was also going to suggest specialist tutors to help.

Have you tried reading pens? Does he have a laptop in school that can read the text to him to try to reduce pressure there and help him to catch up with the class? That way he can view difficulty with reading as separate to class work.

What support does his EHCP provide?

Maybe stop trying to get him to read all the tim and everything being a task. Keep putting in the effort, but sometimes just lower the pressure a bit. When you buy your other child a book, buy one for him at the same time, I'd go for Minecraft manuals and books. Dont do it as a thing, just buy it as if it's normal and let him come to it.

We did the audio read along books and kindles - they can also read along or coull one one we had - comics - DH old ones were break through with DS once we got him pretty much there with decoding.

Tried everthing with DD1 - how to train your dragon books were a hit for a time - and some murder mystery ones - did get some dsylexic easy reads as well.

I had house full of books of all types - think I was single handed keeping the book people going at one point - and took them to libraries and gave them kindles and had times of despair that they'd ever just read but late teens they all were doing so.

I would back off on getting to get him to read and just read to him, have audio books in the car, subtitles on TV etc.
Take the pressure off at home but provide lots of opportunities for him to enjoy books, stories etc .. And lots of opportunities to trip over the written word.

I agree comics are a great starting point. Dogman is very popular, and worked well for ds. Also, don't make a big deal of it - in fact don't even mention it, just leave it on the side of his room so he can find it with no pressure.

Do you still read to him OP? I still read to my young adult when he's around so 10 is definitely not too old! There are so many great books out there for kids his age. It's sad that he gets jealous of you buying books for the older one when he doesn't feel he can access them, so I think reading to his would be a great idea. Also why not get him an audio book when you pick up a book for the older one if he'd like that? He shouldn't miss out due to his disability.

TBH at this stage I'd be saying that maybe learning to read isn't the answer here. Maybe it's time to change the way you're looking at this and to stop seeing it as a complete disaster. What else would you try for 5 years and not give up on if you still couldn't do it? Rather than getting rid of all tech to try to 'focus his mind' or whatever on reading books, I'd be looking to technology as the answer now. Reading pens, word prediction or text to speech and speech to text on a laptop with a fantastic spell checker. Checking out apps aimed at dyslexic students - I don't know what there is, what's free or the costs but this is the route I'd be going down now.

Stop him feeling like a failure who can't read and start him feeling like a success who can use technology to manage his disability. With the pressure off his reading skills may improve anyway.

The other thing that worked for me (although slightly older) was audiobooks only allowed for half an hour before bed, we'd then turn them off at a good bit... If they wanted to carry on then they had the physical book and could read that for as long as they wanted. Harry potter was great for that- id hide outside the room and make sure to get a proper cliff hanger every time.