Dyslexia experienced people - can you help?

[EugenesAxe]

My DD was assessed ‘high-level’ for dyslexia in Y2; didn’t find much just a heavy sight learning bias over aural (same as me TBH).

Her spellings continue to be weird... she learns them for tests well, but if she hasn’t practised or if she’s writing ‘normally’, she’ll often spell words very bizarrely.

I just found this test she did in Skeleton School when she was in Y3 - if you have experience of dyslexia can you cast an eye over it and say what you think? Obviously this was a week we didn’t practise at all in!

She was late to understanding rhyme I’d say, e.g. around age 3-4 I’m sure she struggled to give a rhyming word for something simple like ‘cat’.

She’s a ‘higher’ reader but at home will often read the word she thinks something should be, rather than what it is. Occasionally she will still do things like switch ‘said’ for ‘and’ (although I have read with quite a few children that also do that, and it may be tiredness to an extent).

Thank you - I don’t know whether to follow up again or to leave it.

DS (11 ) was (is) similar and he is moderately dyslexic. He is also an avid reader, he will miss words out that he doesn't easily recognise and swap around. He'll sometimes switch the last couple of letters of one word with the first few of another. He also fully misses any punctuation.

With spelling he would miss letters, particularly vowels. "Rember, versus remember, happend v happened, and always 'ei' and never 'ie', feild, never field. .

He has always read far more than 'anyone' else in the family. Head always in a book. He also cannot concentrate with any distraction, struggles to follow instructions (particularly at Y1- Y3), struggled to memorise his timetables etc. Is incredibly messy and disorganised but makes up for it with being overly prepared for anything. Lots of things really... getting support early (from Y3) and continuing with it, was the best thing we ever did.

Thank you - I didn’t say but she’ll also read as if punctuation marks were not there. Sometimes not (I guess when she’s concentrating) but it feels like her default is to not see them.

She dislikes disorder though! Usually organised.

I'm 35 and dyslexic. I've had a lot of help so have coping mechanisms. This looks exactly like the sort of thing I used to do at that age. I'm not sure what high level for dyslexia means though.

Well not much - I’m not sure of what it was called but I was told it was kind of an indicative test, rather than something that would give a strong decision one way or the other.

Thank you - maybe we should enquire about a fuller check then.

My DH is very dyslexic. He's also a specialist dentist. He can spell out the longest medical words but can't spell very basic words!

From the look of it she struggles with letter patterns and spelling 'rules' as she is trying to spell words phonetically. She isn't aware of variations of the same sound.

She mixes up letters so either isn't hearing the word properly or isn't breaking it down, segmenting it correctly. She needs help with syllables and breaking words down to spell them.

She's not hearing blends properly or hasn't got the phoneme to grapheme correspondence.

Similar, I think my husband would still spell somethings like that. He's 38 and a project manager. Can't spell short things, just the way they sound, just used autocorrect. He always has and always will spell how it sounds, he had a teaching assistant and was (I'm told) pretty bad, even his teacher said he'd amount to nothing! Always get as much help offered.

Sorry to hijack-
My 10 year old daughter could have wrote that!
She really struggles with spellings, we can learn them for a test (through real perseverance) but then she cannot remember them afterwards and will often spell it two different ways in the same text.

I did speak to the senco about possible dyslexia, which she dismissed.

How would I go about getting a second opinion?

@fleapriest I hope you get somewhere. The attitude of your SENCO is what I'm talking about though I guess; whether I have a valid concern or am just being silly because she could still grow out of these problems.

Thanks @studychick81; you are right. I intend to do some pattern/ common suffixes and prefixes posters for her, to try and embed these. She does well in spelling if I isolate things like prefixes and get her to think about spelling the root word... but it's often forgotten later

Beautiful handwriting though Wish my dyslexic ds wrote like that!

My son is 10 and dyslexic. He’s Year 6 and would struggle with these. In fact, we’re still doing Y3 spellings. Things are starting to get better now we have started to do Word Wasp which teaches rules of spelling and pronunciation as if they were the rules of chess (which he can remember).

Have a look on Nessy.com there’s a dyslexia test in there. Sometimes it’s £10 fee. It’s dyslexia awareness month so might be cheaper.

Also have a look at their spelling programmes it’s highly recommended by Ed psycs.

Also dyslexia.org for the other signs of dyslexia - poor memory, focus, organization and time keeping.

She’s spelling phonetically.

Thanks for all the help 😊

My DD 13 is severely dyslexic. She can't spell for toffee and doesn't spell how things sound either she never learned her phonics abs was taught to read using the old system of ABC etc.... she is now excelling in her learning very clever but never will be a strong reader or speller.