If your child is dyslexic, when did you "know"?

[Greythorne]

I have two DC. DC1 is bright but certainly not exceptional but doing well at school.

Dc2 is 5 this week and in the equivalent of Reception (France). She is only now "getting" the alphabet. She still struggles to recognize certain letters. She screws up her face and concentrates really hard but just can't identify the letter with the corresponding sound.

But the school are telling us they want her to skip a year (normal practice in France for bright kids) as she is way ahead. They have not started reading in class yet so I don't think they have picked up on the issues she has.

My gut tells me she has a problem. Compared with her big sister at the same age, I know she is struggling with the grapheme - sound correspondences. I spend a lot of time supporting her, we read loads....

Any thoughts?
Thx

I know she is young. But I just have such a strong gut feeling that something is wrong.

It's possible, but I'd first rule out any physical explanation. So I'd have her eyes tested first, then her hearing.

Is she struggling with sounds/letters in French or in English? Is she learning both at the same time? Are you teaching her English at home and she's learning French at school?

Right, we have had her eyes and ears tested as part of the usual baby and toddler check ups, no problems identified. But maybe time for a more I depth test?

She is in a conventional French school (not a bilingual or English school) and they start ready much later, from age 6/7 so at the moment (Moyenne section) it is really all play-based and no pre-reading or reading skills yet.

At home we do the usual stuff ....but in English. Read the Letterland books, sing alphabet songs. I have taught her to write her name. She has a 9 letter name and she can write it no problem, but I feel she is writing shapes and hasn't really made the connection with the sounds.

Hmmmm... based on that I wouldn't worry yet. (Not much help as you clearly are worried!) You are tackling bilingualism and literacy and she is only 5. My youngest two struggled initially with English phonics as their foreign-language school told them that letter said something different! :) They found vowel sounds most challenging.

I would have sight/hearing tested again - can't hurt and pretty much any SENCO will want to rule out the basics first anyway.

Hopefully someone far more expert than I will come along soon!

I knew my younger DD was probably affected as young as 3 (it runs in the family) I used to put her milk out in a coloured cup, there were four colours, and ask her to name the colour and she just could not remember. There were other similar signs all was not well with her working memory.

I was advised there is no meaningful way of testing before 6/7, before that it can be normal delays in developmental milestones. However her school did intervene at 5/6 to give her intensive help with letter formation, and phonics to help with spelling and reading, on the basis the help they would give would be the same regardless of whether the root problem was dyslexia. We didn't get a formal diagnosis until 9.

Funnily enough she spent Reception in a French school, one that used Letterland and I don't remember recognising letters being a problem, given she could associate each with the character and the sound. The problem was that they would not allow her a reading book until she had learnt 19 words by look / see from a caterpillar thing they kept hidden from the parents. That was never going to happen and she still wouldn't be allowed a reading book now at 17 (and she has offers at very good unis to read English!) if she had remained there. The PSych Ed comments that in reading tests she still makes strong use of context alongside phonics.

However I would beware of making comparisons between DCs. They do all develop differently and at different times. Her older sister had a memory like an elephant, and learnt to read very rapidly via look /see. It was an English teacher who felt that at 14 her literacy skills didn't match her ability, and it turns out she is also dyslexic, her working memory and processing problems were disguised by a photographic memory.

I would wait until problems emerge in the course of formal learning and be ready to push early for additional help, or to supplement yourself with appropriate schemes recommended by one of the charities. I think five is very young to be going down that road, and I would worry that you might cause more problems than you solve if you are not moving forward in a partnership with the school.

I found this book very useful: www.amazon.co.uk/Dyslexia-dyslexia-dyspraxia-learning-difficulties/dp/0091923387/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1389852349&sr=8-3&keywords=parents+guide+to+dyslexia. I found it in our local library.

Even if your DD does not have dyslexia, using the same strategies you would if she had may be useful. I think early signs can be different for different children. My DS had an almost photographic memory for letters and their sounds but this did not develop into early reading. He could not do jigsaws or shape sorters and still doesn't know left from right or up from down.

I first thought about it when dd was about 2.5 and her speech wasn't developing and by 3 was convinced. Now I know for certain with no diagnosis and despite her being slightly above average after KS1 SATS.
She is now 10 H.ed and it is clear to everyone who knows her.
We have strategies we use to help her learn and don't see it as a problem. I too am dyslexic and have/had similar problems to dd as a child.

We 'knew' mid way through yr 1. We did our first ed psych evaluation at 7 and had it confirmed, but it was only with the second evaluation at age 9 that we got a real understanding of where his problems lay (dyslexia covers a whole range of problems, some very challenging, some relatively easy to negate the effects of). So 'knowing' conferred no real benefit until he was 9. He could just as easily have been a slow learner on the reading front, he'd have been treated exactly the same.

My DS had completely different difficulties to the ones you describe, by the way.

I would say with both of them we were pretty sure after a year of phonics teaching (so mid Y1). It just wasn't clicking and we were still getting random guesses C-A-T first occurrence - cat but second time on the same page - cloud or something else beginning with c. Both are bilingual English/Arabic but it felt like something else was the problem. Both have been formally diagnosed. DS2 was diagnosed at 6 yrs because he was already in Yr2 and had done 2 years of phonics by then.