Early signs of dyslexia?

[RobEmily]

My 5yo son regularly writes words and sounds jumbled, for example he wrote “uoy” for “you” and “on” for “no”. He also writes the sound “ai” as “ia” and other similar things.

When reading he’ll often replace / guess a word ie he said “river” instead of “water” the other day. When I ask him to sound it out he will then get it right.

I’m thinking these are signs of dyslexia as I noticed the sound reversal in his sister at this age who is dyslexic.

He’s just turned 5 (about to go into year 1) so he is young in his year but is this common at his age or shall I be assuming he is dyslexic too?

It’s something most children outgrow but I’d keep an eye on it and if you still have concerns in a couple of years, use it as background information for a dyslexia assessment.

DS aged 9 is just starting out on the long journey to be assessed as his older siblings and myself and DH had noticed his reluctance to read independently and getting clusters of words muddled up. School are supportive and said they would usually only start looking into dyslexia concerns from end of P4/beginning of P5 so we seem to have picked it up bang on time.

It might be you'll get assessment done for your DS due to your DD having been already diagnosed. Glad you're aware of it early though.

Definitely keep an eye on it and maybe flag it up to his new teacher. I don’t think they generally assess for dyslexia until Y3 (although my youngest was diagnosed four years ago and different areas may do things differently). My middle dyslexic definitely had issues with remembering words and the names of things from when he started to talk - like colours and animals (camel’s milk at nursery anyone?). He used to replace words too, so inset day became min beast day etc. still does sometime, but always in a very imaginative and interesting way, so you get what he means. He is severely dyslexic, diagnosed at the beginning of Y4, but was on the SENDCo’s radar from nursery. His dad, oldest and youngest brothers are also dyslexic, and he was later also diagnosed with adhd and autism. He is doing absolutely brilliantly at mainstream school now, though, going into Y10!

Thanks, that’s a good idea to flag it to the new teacher - I know from his sister the teachers aren’t even meant to mention the word until Y3 though…

Interesting about the mixing up words, my dyslexic daughter spoke incredibly early but she had trouble with her colours - she called yellow “Rebecca” because of the yellow train in Thomas the Tank Engine - I never really thought about how it could be related before.

I’m a mum of 4, 2 of whom are dyslexic. Also a TA.
I would say not to worry yet. It’s way too early. Very common to reverse at that age: my 2 non dyslexic children did and school it’s very common to reverse until much older. Is there a strong family history?
Have another think if there are other signs too, but only at about age 7/8.

Is he left-handed?

My two dds are dyslexic. Only one of them is left handed. My ex husband, their granny, a lot of ex husbands first cousins are all dyslexic and right handed. So while it’s inherited it has nothing to do with which hand they use!

I think the dyslexia screener can only be done from 7/8 yo, and even private assessors won’t look beforrhand. Good to register concern with school, though, and hopefully accelerate the process. Dyslexia is highly heritable, so if they have a sibling with a diagnosis it should be an extra flag.

you don’t need a diagnosis to start interventions, though - if there are programs you used successfully with dd it might be worth giving it a go with ds.

Both of my dyslexic dc also had speech problems, but one thing I remember about my dd when she was little is that she would mix words up, so she might say braces instead of dungarees, she often forgot people's names too, although generally her memory was excellent.

No, assume you were asking this as a possible reason for writing sounds backwards?

Thanks, only his sister is diagnosed but I think their dad might be dyslexic but never diagnosed

Left-handed young children sometimes write in the opposite direction. I think it's to do with the right to left direction being easier for them.
An example might be something like Tim writing his name as miT.
(deliberately picked that name because I can't remember if Sarah or Paul wrote the letters as mirror images).

It was a moment of epiphany because it was so out of character with the rest of his communication. My husband (also dyslexic) has always really struggled with names, so I imagine it’s on that sort of spectrum. The way different brains work is fascinating, and I can really see the dyslexic creativity in the way he finds alternative ways to express himself!

My son's of a similar age (just started year 1) and we're noticing similar. He had a slight speech delay so I was already half expecting him to need additional support. He's making some progress with reading but definitely gets his 'b' and 'd' mixed up. He also guesses at words. It's his writing that concerns the teacher as he doesn't seem to grasp the concepts that they're trying to teach... He just can't spell... Doesn't help that they give weekly spelling tests which are eroding his confidence already 😕interestingly, maths isn't a problem and he can soak up facts from watching videos really well (knows the flags of most countries on the planet!) ... Judging by the discussion so far, I guess we'll need to keep an eye on it and just carry on liaising with his teacher to ensure he's supported rather than discouraged.....

I knew my DD was dyslexic at the very start of Reception.

I put so many provisions in place, bought books about dyslexia, researched like no tomorrow.

For 3 years, they dismissed me. Day 2 of being in Year 3, her teacher said "I think she may be dyslexic". I took her to be tested 2 weeks later, and she was.

Put things in place now to support and do as much research you can.