AIBU To Dig Deeper into Child's Reading and Spelling Difficulties

[Sleepy104888]

Reposting here for traffic as I'm trying to figure out where to start. Recently went to parents evening and was told dd is a year behind in reading fluency (around 40 words per minute and is in Year 3) and also struggles in spelling. Since Year 1 the gap in reading and spelling continue to grow bigger. I see improvements but dd is still lagging behind peers in these areas. She is a very bright girl and is starting to enjoy independent reading, but I notice she will get stuck on words a lot. Teacher has noted she will do well with long words and then trip up on short words like 'zone'. Her spelling is a mess and she can only spell 5 of the 100 common words correctly so far, and often comes up with spellings that are way off unless they are easy to sound out.

I was worrying about dyslexia so tried a home screening test from Literacy Gold which suggested she may have eye tracking difficulties. I've read old threads and not sure where to start...behavioral optometrist (pricy and far), NHS orthoptist (if I can get her referred), or some other specialist. I do realise a home screening is very basic so also don't want to jump to conclusions and shell out a lot of money unnecessarily, but she's been falling further behind in these two areas since Year 1 so it is worrying me. I was blaming myself for not giving enough school support and now wondering if there's more to it (though I'm sure more practice at home would help too).

AIBU, to think we need to push for an assessment? And, if we should, where would you start from experience with a child with similar issues.

Sorry, I don't have direct experience but can the school not give you some advice? Or can you take her to your GP, or optician? GP or optician should be able to refer her on to an NHS specialist.

Schools can usually do tests for it first so ask them and then they can help with referrals

I would suggest starting with the basics before spending on expensive tests. Read, read and then read some more with her. Actual books, not screens. Read to her, and get her to read to you. Listen to audiobooks on car journeys. Build familiarity with the language. Even if you go on test none of this will do her any harm.
All schools now use synthetic phonics to teach reading and, in my experience, there are a minority of children who need other methods alongside. Eg, you mention the word ‘zone’, which suggests she is not confident with ‘magic e’, a quite basic phonic rule. But if she’s reading/spelling longer words then learning to read almost exclusively with phonics (which is most schools’ approach in KS1) may just not have been suitable for her.

How did she do in the y1 phonics screening?

I'm just wondering whether she is reading by whole words and not phonics? That would explain reading longer familiar words and then tripping over rarer simpler ones.

Similarly is her spelling phonically plausible?

I was thinking similar. The OP said her spelling wasn’t good either.

The bad news is that the more she struggles, the more she will be ‘practising’ and learning off by heart poor reading and spelling.

The good news is that she can learn. If she’s doing well in other subjects then the deficiency isn’t within the child, but due to teaching.

She probably scraped through the phonics test but her knowledge of the sounds that letters (and combo letters) make wasn’t secure. If she’s quiet, hard working she’s probably gone under the radar. In the absence of secure knowledge, she’s started guessing words.

If the school has said ‘she’s behind’, have they also said what they’re doing about it? Every agency, including Ofsted, will/should be seeing her as a priority.

She needs another, thorough phonics screening. Then she needs remedial teaching of the phonics code. Then she needs structured additional interventions factoring lots of practice. This will help both spelling and reading. It is absolutely her right, and the school SHOULD be providing this. Working together in partnership, which means a parent doing daily practice with the child using the same techniques as the school, will massively speed things up.

Do not get fobbed off with a SEND diagnosis. What is the school’s phonics scheme used in reception and year 1?

Also, has she had a regular eye test?

This! Most children will need more than one approach to reading but schools don’t have the time or resources. Get her to a really good tutor who is not dedicated to just one teaching method and will instead teach based on what she needs.

If your assertion that the teaching is somehow to blame for a child’s difficulties, then it would follow that all the children in that class would have similar difficulties.

OP, make an appointment to meet with the SENCo at school. That’s your first action. Once you’ve got that sorted, you can come up with a plan together with the SENCo.

Just adding to this: many teachers are teaching letter sounds incorrectly. Familiarise yourself with what letter sounds should sound like and give her a test to see if she turly knows the sounds.

One Issue is that teachers can’t teach to each child. They have to teach to the whole and then some children are left behind. Reading isn’t just about learning phonics (and many teachers don’t teach letter sounds correctly) but you need multiple approaches. In an ideal world our children’s education would be customised to fit their learning style.

A couple of things. I’d start with getting her hearing tested. It’s often not picked up when kids have problems hearing particularly in a busy classroom setting and hearing contributes to reading and spelling more than you’d think.

If you’re worried about dyslexia get hold of Toe by Toe, it’s a reading/spelling scheme designed for parents to use with their kids. If you follow the instructions and work with her daily you’ll see improvement. My DD couldn’t read are 10 (partially due to significant hearing problems) and by 13 was age appropriate in reading, spelling and comprehension.

You sound like you care very much and are doing alot to support your DD. Don't beat yourself up there!

What support is the school giving?

My DD is dyslexic and had very good support in primary. IlP (individual learning plans) small group lessons a few times a week, lots of games to help her learn her learn techniques to improve her spelling etc.

They did all this before she was diagnosed officially (privately) and tbh the official diagnosis didn't change the provision it just confirmed what we knew and, later, gave her access to extra time in exams and the permission to work on a laptop in lessons.

I appreciate not all schools are this good and so we were lucky to be so well supported. Have you spoken with your SEND department? You've mentioned you think youve not done enough, but what do they think?

There are also some great resources you can use at home for helping reading and spelling, id recommend toe by toe, stairway to spelling and a barrington stoke dictionary.

Typing programs are good as some children improve when they can work on laptops rather than writing, and then as they get older there is alot of technology to help (reader pens, dictation, text to speech etc)

Primary is a very tough time when reading and spelling is a challenge for kids, but there are things that help if the schools will provide / allow it.

My friends kid has some of these issues, in their instance the school has supplied a teacher who does 30 mins of additional reading with them per week. Have you tried increasing how often you hear DD read? At my child’s school they listen to them read everyday. Literacy is often defined by frequency, so how often you read to them and get them to read to you.

My DS(11) has had similar difficulties with reading and spelling. He was very behind with both so in y3 he had intensive phonics support x4 per week and after a few months his reading ability skyrocketed and he quickly caught up to where he should be and now reads in greater depth, however his spelling issues persisted.

The school got an Educational Psychologist to assess him in y4 and she believes he has Dyspraxia (aka DCD). He also has messy handwriting and a few other issues, but I mention this to you because everyone automatically jumps to Dyslexia because it is a fairly common condition for causing issues with reading etc.

Dyspraxia is well known for the aforementioned physical symptoms but it can also cause issues with spelling, and this in turn causes issues with grammar and writing. Perhaps a thought to keep in mind rather than just assuming Dyslexia if you realise that your DD may also fit other Dyspraxia signs. If you do look into this condition don’t just rely on the NHS website or AI as they gloss over the symptoms and mainly list these as physical ones.

What about an eye test? A friend had similar with her DD, turns out her eyes were too small for her head (sounds weird but apparently its common). So although she could read, her eyes were getting tired easily and not focusing on the words properly. She's got glasses now to help strengthen the eye muscles and as she grows the problem will correct itself.

@pepperminticecream Schools have been told the only way is phonics but it never was and never will be!

I cannot agree more about a wide diet of reading. Not just phonics. Bright dc can memorize words. I’d definitely ask what the school is doing!

It sounds as though there is a combination of reasons and you say you wish you had given more school support and practiced more at home. How often do you read with her, share a story? Does she see you reading? Did you read to her every day from babyhood?

Eye test
Hearing test
Senco meeting
Educational Psychologist assessment - you will have to pay for this to be timely
Read with her for pleasure - and read her books she might find easier to read (Blyton, Flower Fairies, Spiderwick) as well as jolly good stories (HP, Streatfield, Lemony Snicket, etc). Non fiction is good for pictires and words.

Hi, OP -

One of my DN had eye tracking difficulties as a young child. She is very bright and loved books from infancy. She could teach herself many things but had trouble around pre-reading in kindergarten. Her teacher was the first to notice.

DSis pursued the diagnosis, starting with an educational psychologist. We had not then heard of eye tracking difficulties and it was a bit of a shock. The recommendation was to hold DN back a year and work on her eyes.
It worked well and she is now doing a Master’s degree, having retained her love if books and reading.

DN was educated abroad I don’t know the British system. I realise your DD has progressed some way through primary school .and doesn’t have a diagnosis.

It was perceptive of you to notice ET difficulties as one possibility. You have good suggestions above. Based on the experiences of my family, I would start with the school and, if affordable, the EP. They should be alert for difficulties with vision and hearing. I would not hesitate mention the possibility (only) of an ET problem, because it may be a bit unusual.

Best wishes to both of you

Hi, OP -

One of my DN had eye tracking difficulties as a young child. She is very bright and loved books from infancy. She could teach herself many things but had trouble around pre-reading in kindergarten. Her teacher was the first to notice.

DSis pursued the diagnosis, starting with an educational psychologist. We had not then heard of eye tracking difficulties and it was a bit of a shock. The recommendation was to hold DN back a year and work on her eyes.
It worked well and she is now doing a Master’s degree, having retained her love if books and reading.

DN was educated abroad I don’t know the British system. I realise your DD has progressed some way through primary school .and doesn’t have a diagnosis.

It was perceptive of you to notice ET difficulties as one possibility. You have good suggestions above. Based on the experiences of my family, I would start with the school and, if affordable, the EP. They should be alert for difficulties with vision and hearing. I would not hesitate mention the possibility (only) of an ET problem, because it may be a bit unusual.

Best wishes to both of you

I would put money on her having phonological awareness difficulties. It’s fairly common, all dyslexic children have it but then about 1 in 4 other children as well. It means they really struggle to hear the individual sounds in words and then to segment and blend them in order to be able to read and spell.
It is the precursor skill to being able to access phonics, so for some children even though they are taught phonics accurately and well they aren’t in a position to be able to learn them yet. Then the whole class moves on and they get left behind. She is trying to read and spell by recognising whole words, which works for a little while, but we simply don’t have the capacity to memorise by sight all the thousands of words we read, which is why phonics is essential.
I would first rule out hearing issues, including glue ear. Then have a sight test.
The school could check her phonological awareness- all the dyslexia screens have a section that tests it. Or there are tests online you could try.
It is easy to address, but will take a bit of time to put the skills in place, and she would then need to go back and fill in the bits of phonics she has missed.
This is an excellent website which explains it better and offers next steps https://www.readingrockets.org/reading-101/reading-and-writing-basics/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness

Agree with toe by toe if you suspect dyslexia. It made a huge difference for my daughter who was diagnosed at 8. We took 2 years to work through it (it can be done more quickly but she got frustrated easily). She still struggled with reading after that. But she listened to audiobooks all the time and I continued to read to her everyday. Then when she was 12 a friend lent her a teen fantasy/romance novel. Everything seemed to click and she read it cover to cover. At 14 she is a fast and extremely voracious reader and doing well in English.

Absolutely check her hearing and sight as previously suggested.

Also check in with school for support.
She may be a reader who recognises word shapes, rather than phonics.

Re previous posters saying that some teachers are teaching sounds incorrectly, as a retired teacher I do take exception to this glib statement.

Teachers have experience of teaching phonics and many, many , courses in the development of reading,spelling and writing- ask for their help.
Good luck!

To the poster who said 'many teachers' are teaching phonics wrong... absolute rubbish. I would imagine it's a very very small group of newly qualified teachers. There's so much training expected and a huge number of resources that play the sounds out loud so it will be difficult to continually get it wrong. Also it wouldn't make sense in the lesson when you read the words.

Definitely speak to the class teacher and the senco but don't rule out private if affordable to you as you may find that school are unwilling / unable to help due to v tight budgets.

I'm dyslexic and diagnosed after a degree and a Master's degree. DC1 very like me and by primary year 3 we were suspecting issues. School utterly utterly not interested. He was behind expected standards but not failing (ifykwim). But he was bright and very able verbally. Could not get them interested in any screening or testing despite the fact that he was getting some additional support. Eventually got a private ed Psych. They have to follow a gold standard screening test so don't believe the 'they diagnose everyone nonsense'. School were not supportive and basically when DC was diagnosed told me 'what did I expect that he would rapidly progress to his general ability' ....Umme yes with the right support he should indeed be getting much nearer that....We had to fight tooth and nail but finally got some decent teachers (one whose wife was dyslexic) a brilliant private tutor (he is also dyscalculic) who went back to first principles with numbers. DC now at Exeter Uni having bagged some A grade A-levels. We nearly lost his enthusiasm and confidence at one point so it's really worth pushing. Good luck.

Oh and learning to read was hard the biff and chip reading scheme was not at all motivating so we found an equivalent with modern super hero type stuff. It helped then something unlocked and he was off ..I think he mostly learnt to read whole words despite having phonics jammed into him. Both he and I read fluently and fast so it's not a given that reading will always be a struggle.