Should I get my DD assessed for dyslexia?

[HotToast]

Hi all, I am in a quandary about whether to get a private assessment for my DD. She turned 6 at the end of May and will be going into year 2 in Sept. She has been behind generally at school from reception and I noticed early on that her progress with reading and phonics was very slow.

She knows all her letter sounds and can blend words – and she did actually pass her phonics screening test in the summer. But she seems to be stuck there. Over the last year I kept thinking that at some point, the penny would drop and she would start to read more fluently but it's just not happening. Confusingly, she has phases when she seems to be improving and reading a bit more easily without having to sound everything out, but then she'll suddenly seem to be back at square one again – having to sound out almost every word on the page, taking aaaaages on each word. It's painful and very frustrating.
Her teachers know that she's behind and struggling but their only advice to me so far has just been to not worry and keep practicing.

I spoke to a friend who happens to be a dyslexia teacher, and she said that I could just sit on it for another year, because her brain will develop a lot at this age and things might suddenly fall into place in year 2 – or they might not, in which case we've delayed her getting help for another year. I've been doing some reading about dyslexia and I think it's highly likely she has it. I'm just getting worried because I have an older child, and I know how much more will be expected of her in year 2 and at the level she's at now with reading and writing, she's going to get very behind very quickly, which could hugely affect her confidence.

So I was just wondered if anyone has any advice; should I pay for her to have an assessment now, aged 6? Or hold off for another year until she's 7 and risk her getting even more behind?

Sorry for the essay!

My understanding is that they cannot screen for dyslexia before the age of 7 (that’s the threshold for the official screener).

There are plenty of things you can do to support literacy (Nessy is a program often used for dyslexia and can be used at your dd’s age, drilling sight words more systematically). My dd had weekly support from a literacy specialist from the beginning of y1, and that has helped. Progress is painfully slow, but she is just about keeping up with the class. When they assessed her reading at the end of y2 it was within expectations, so no call for further screening at the moment as we head into y3. This is both good and bad - obviously good that she is making progress, but bad in the sense that I do think she has dyslexic traits but just less obvious after all the support and therefore maybe a bit trickier to properly assess what is going on.

We weren't able to get assessed for dyslexia until 7 years old, but it might be different in your area. It is worth flagging her issues up to the SENCO in the school (if you haven't already done that). Also have you taken her for an eye test to rule out any issues there? It is really difficult to wait.

@Labraradabrador thank you. Did you pay privately for literacy specialist or was that something arranged through your school?
@gato21 Yes it's so hard to wait. She had an eye test through school, no issues there, and I also had her hearing checked just before she started reception because I noticed that she seems to zone out in group situations where she's supposed to be listening – but no problems there either. At this point I definitely think there's something going on. Really tricky to know what to do, feels a shame to wait another year but I do understand there's a good reason why they do the assessments at age 7. Frustrating!

Have a look at something called Dancing Bears. It's a phonics based scheme of workbooks that you could do with her in 15 minutes a day. It will help to reinforce the weaknesses she has. You don't need a dyslexia diagnosis to start doing it.

@EducatingArti thank you, I will have a look. Keen to try anything! We practice diligently at home every day. It doesn't help that my older child, who's about to go into year 4, was a November baby and very academic. One can't help but compare but I think maybe this skews my judgement to an extent. He has just blossomed and flourished since year 1 and I didn't do anywhere near the amount of practice with him that I've done with her, and yet she is so behind where he was, even taking into account that she's a summer baby.

DD is every bit as bright as DS though, met all her early years milestones, she's very articulate, great speech and language skills, inquisitive and chatty. So her struggles with school work are at complete odds with everything else about her. She's a feisty little thing at home, however she's very shy and reserved with adults she doesn't know as well, which has made it difficult for her teachers to assess her sometimes because she clams up with them. As you can tell, this is all going round and round and round in my tired old brain. 😂

We suspect that DD (8) has dyslexia. She's extremely clever, comprehension is far above her age, but she has always struggled with reading and writing.
Have you spoken with her teachers? They should be given a chance to weigh in, and they might be able to put extra support in place without an official diagnosis. Our school have set up an individual support plan for DD, which is reviewed with us every term. She will get extra time, aids etc for SATS and anything like that.
DD also has a private tutor, which has made a huge difference to her learning (and our mental health ), it's been a game changer.

We're about to start the process for an official diagnosis because we want this in place by the time she goes to secondary school.

Most assessors won't screen now till 8 years old due to updated guidance from the British Dyslexia Association and covid causing big disruptions for that age. We are on a waiting list for next summer. School treat her as "dyslexic tendancies" currently. You don't need a diagnosis to get adjustments at school. We have a few adjustments and extra reading with a TA.

@cloudjumper that's great that your school have been so proactive. I have spoken to her teachers and the SENCO at her school. They all agree she's behind but have been quite vague about next steps, basically just telling me to hang fire and keep practicing with her, I suppose because she's below the age for screening. She was assessed as WB expectations in all but a few things at the end of this year, so they've consistently flagged to me that she's behind, while at the same time not really telling me what they can do or what I should do. Hence why I'm here!

I worked for a long while as a tutor and really get that thing where a (sometimes undiagnosed) specific learning difficulty means that the amount of effort a child needs to put in is at odds with their overall abilities.

I'd do something like dancing bears this year, with a view to getting her assessed once she turns 7 if this still seems appropriate.

The other thing I would do is separate out reading comprehension from practising the skill of decoding a text. So make sure you still keep reading books to her that capture her interest and imagination especially when they are actually too hard for her to decode at present. Use those for general discussion " What would you do if you were in x situation" " Why do you thing character X said or did y" " What do you think happens next" "Character a used such and such a word. I wonder what it might mean " etc etc I'd also make sure she has access to talking books (lots of local authorities do BorrowBox or similar for free).
That way she is still growing in her development of comprehension skills (and is hopefully still enjoying books/stories) even if her decoding skills are still a bit behind.

@LuckysDadsHat oh right, thank you, I didn't realise that had changed. Is that an assessment arranged through the school you're waiting for? Or a private assessment? I think I need to go back to the school in Sept and have another discussion...

@EducatingArti thanks so much, that's extremely helpful. Talking books is a great idea, I listened to a lot as a child and I'm sure that helped me hugely with literacy was a kid.

It could be possible that the current approach to teaching reading in schools using phonics may not suit your child as from what you've said she seems over reliant on blending at the moment.
My advice to you would be to share lots of books with her, reading to her and maybe getting her to join in too, I personally wouldn't be pushing more phonics with her at home.

A private assessment. Most schools won't fund a full dyslexic assessment now. They may do a screener, but they are not really that reliable.

Just ask the school for the adjustments that you want. And see if they can be put in place. That's what we have done. We have our own different spellings and she comes home with a spelling book to colour in the letters and practice etc..... she also is never asked to read aloud in class unless she has volunteered to. This was causing a lot of issues before it was put into place.

Final thought is to try and make sure ( for both DC's) that you are praising efforts far more than achievements. If you have an older sibling who is doing really well it can seem an impossible task to match that and a child can feel discouraged and give up. Effort is something that can be acknowledged more equally.

Eg " I liked the way you kept going with that even though you found it tricky" "Well done for working hard at x" " I can see you put so much effort into that. Well done!" etc

Reading fell into place for my DD during Y2. She's young in her school year.
But she's really struggled with Y2 maths, which is much tougher than I was expecting at age 6! She's going into Y3 in Sept having just turned 7 and I'm a bit worried about her in KS2

I think this is a misunderstanding of the nature of good phonics teaching. I'm not a total phonics purist and I do think there can be some mileage in rote learning some common words by sight.

However children will always need a strategy for tackling unusual/ unfamiliar words and ensuring they have read things accurately. Good phonics teaching is not just about teaching phoneme grapheme correspondence and practising blending (although this is a good part of it)

Dyslexic students often actually need a more thorough phonics teaching including things like how to split things into syllables and regular routine "over learning" until it becomes embedded as they won't "catch" these skills automatically as some students do.

The danger of abandoning phonics is twofold. Firstly you can get children "stuck" at a reading age of about 8 or 9 without the skills to progress onto more complex texts.

Secondly all students but dyslexic ones in particular need to learn how to look at words and break them down carefully otherwise they misread them and it can affect other aspects of learning.

A classic example of this is the dyslexic student given the instruction " Mark on the diagram" on a maths GCSE paper but who read it as " Mark on the diagonal" which led to much confusion.

We paid privately for the support, but found the specialist via a school recommendation.

My DD has recently turned 8 and your post sounds very familiar. We've pushed since reception, and aren't getting anywhere near a waiting list for a diagnosis. School keep pushing and she does get extra support as if she has dyslexia but I really worry that without a formal diagnosis she's going to suffer further down the line.

@EducatingArti thanks so much, yes they are definitely both praised a lot at home. The only time I know I fail is occasionally my frustration spills over with her reading - usually when she seems to have regressed and I have other stresses going on and it's a bad day. I try really hard to be positive at all times. Must try harder.

Thanks everyone who has responded here so far, this is all so helpful. ❤️

@LostittoBostik great to hear yours got the hang of it in year 2, I'm hoping this will happen! That's the thing, expectations go up considerably in year 2 so I worry about that. DD is behind with maths as well but I I've been focussing more on reading as that feels like the most fundamental thing right now. It can all feel overwhelming at times!

@HotToast The point about praising effort rather than achievements is that even when she seems to have talked a step backwards, you can still praise how hard she has tried. If you try and change your focus onto the effort she is making rather than how well she is doing it might also assist you in your aims to be more patient.

I agree it can be very hard not to get frustrated when they seem to be going backwards. My "go to" at this point when tutoring would be to try and identify the specific difficulties ( eg a particular grapheme, words of more than 1 syllable or wherever) and invent some games to practice and "over learn" those things.

@EducatingArti yes I take your point. I will try this approach. 👍🏻

@EducatingArti Thank you!

Had my 8yo assessed privately and he was diagnosed with dyslexia. He can read well but struggles to read quickly and struggles with writing as well. The school SENCO team can support as required without a formal diagnosis and we were advised to hold off the formal diagnosis as it is expensive until later. Due to ongoing health issues, we decided to get it done now so we knew how to support him should I have to home school him next year.

So advice is talk to the school about getting support in. Look at programs like nessy to help and continue working with your child at home.