New dyslexia diagnosis at grammar school: what support should we seek?

[MrPickles73]

DS2 is finishing his second year at grammar school. He's bright but not a genius.

He's always complained about how slow he is at writing.
His English recommended we get him tested for dyslexia. The school screening test came back as he has the traits of someone severely dyslexic. This came as quite a shock to us.

He's now had a full test and they've said yes indeed he's dyslexic. Some things he's above average but quite a few hrs below average and a couple massively below average.

They recommend a laptop for reading and writing and extra time in exams to read and re-read the questions. And hangouts rather than copying off the board.

I have forwarded the report to the SEND at school.

I'm a bit lost tbh.. I have no prior experience of dyslexia. What support can we hope for from the school? What can we do over the summer and what techniques / strategies can we try to support him? Do we need to find him some kind of tutor?

So far his grades are pretty good but English is fairly consistently low (6/9). He has a great imagination and vocabulary the problem is getting the ideas down on paper.

I don't want to over egg this as he can lack resilience - if he thinks he will struggle he may give up but at the same time we are keen to support him on his educational journey so that he can reach his full potential.

Handouts! Not hangouts!

I have a severely dyslexic DD with very high CATS
Honestly there is very little that can be done for dyslexia and most of the suggestions are not things that teenagers want to spend time on.
Believe me I spent years and tried everything possible.
A lot will depend on the exact weaknesses, not all dyslexic profiles are the same. So any tutoring needs to be targeted.

What we did find useful:
ipad with keyboard - that way they can take photos of the board or diagrams.
Touch typing
Audio books
Reducing number of GCSEs
Taking a BTEC in place of a GCSE

Very good points by PP.

DD is dyslexic, diagnosed age 10, and though she always struggled with reading I did not see it coming.

When she was younger, we used audio books alongside paperbacks to she could listen and sight read together, but your son is a bit older than this now so may not want to do this. My main idea was to keep her reading/spelling growing.

She has extra time in exams and needs this as her reading is slow and she easily misreads questions. This makes a massive difference to her.

To give you a positive, at 17, DD is flying academically with a great vocabulary for her subjects and is reading for pleasure now. And I never thought I’d see that day!

DS can read well and tbh there were no 'obvious' signs of dyslexia to the untrained eye other than complaining about writing.

I'm keen to keep DS on an academic path and for him not to give up / use it as an excuse. He's good at foreign languages, maths, science, history and PE. The only thing he doesn't really excel at is English. He has a vivid imagination but struggles to get ideas down on paper in time. He enjoys reading autobiographies.

It sounds like he will get extra time. He has just started learning to touch type and hopefully he can use a laptop next term.

It's just a bit of a kick in the teeth tbh.

I'm just not clear other than the extra time and the laptop what else we can investigate.

I should add he learnt to read with ease but now it seems he struggles with identifying sounds in words..

For exams

• laptop
• extra time
• reader (either human or computer) - he won't be allowed it in English because they are testing reading, but should be allowed it for other subjects.

Also get someone to test whether he can read better on different colour paper. Black on white can be harsher on the eyes than black on another colour.

The BTEC suggestion is excellent and I second it. BTECs are academic and recognised by universities - don’t look on them as second class as they absolutely are not.
Two of my children (as well as my husband) are dyslexic and the BTEC style of assessment is much better for them. Both are now at university and doing well. University assessments are often more along BTEC lines anyway.
Otherwise the only thing you and the school need to do is follow the recommendations in the report which you mentioned in your OP.
Being dyslexic is a great asset.
1:5 to 1:10 people are dyslexic so schools are very used to it and should already be teaching in ways suitable to dyslexic students.

BTECs are an interesting suggestion but for the kind o pathways he is interested in medicine etc won't accept them.

Before deciding what additional support he needs, I would look carefully at the assessment profile.

Dyslexia assessments usually contain a range of scores, and the important thing is not simply the diagnosis but the pattern of strengths and weaknesses.

In particular, I would want to know what the report says about phonological processing, decoding unfamiliar words, reading fluency, spelling, working memory, processing speed and writing speed.

That will help distinguish between skills that need targeted teaching and barriers that are better addressed through adjustments such as extra time or a laptop.

Don't limit his options and he should be aiming for medical school if that is what he wants. DD, who has dyslexia, attended a super selective grammar school for A levels having got top grades in 10 GCSEs. We got her a tutor for French GCSE as she struggled with the subject due to exceptionally poor phonological processing and, with her help, DD got an A (this was pre numerical grades).

At grammar school DD did 3 A levels plus English Pre - U and went to a Russell Group Uni. She absolutely needed extra time in exams and her spelling is still eccentric. She has always had to work much harder than her friends to do well in exams, but her work ethic is an asset now in her career.

My tips would be that cramming doesn't work if you have dyslexia , so little and often revision through the year and reviewing notes regularly is essential; if possible, get a tutor if your child needs/wants additional support in a subject (it won't necessarily be English). Recognise that your child is probably working harder than their peers to get to the same point but, at the same time, your son will need to want to put in the work - DD was self-driven and there was no pressure from home to work as hard as she did.

For longer essay-style subjects like english my son has a scribe. Takes practice to work with one as you need to be able to structure your ideas in your head to say them out loud but that’s been a game changer. With my son’s profile it’s the mechanics of writing that kills him - it’s so slow and laboured and he needs to focus so hard on the spelling he loses his chain of thought. That’s ok in maths or science where answers might be a sentence but in longform essays it means he can’t get into a flow. He’s gone from getting sort of D equivalent grades in English to As as his comprehension and ideas are fantastic. He just can’t get them out when writing by hand.

The national dyslexia association will have info but use of readers and scribes is allowed for some exams as a reasonable adjustment for dyslexia, so someone will read him the question and someone else will write what he says.

i would push back on extra time + handwriting. Feels like nonsense to me - if i’m in a wheelchair will extra time help me climb stairs? No! It’s the handwriting thats the problem