Dyslexia Adjustments

[BlueFlyCheetah]

Hi,

I’m hoping for some help understanding a few things to do with adjustments for Dyslexia. Any teachers who can advise what they do in their own schools would be appreciated. Also any parents in similar situations.

My DC is dyslexic. He is supposed to have a reader for all assessments and exams, plus 25% extra time (in addition to other day to day adjustments).

The school keep saying:

He cannot have a reader for reading assessments. On the face of it, I get why they are saying that, but these assessments just set dyslexic kids up to fail??? Surely, they should have the text adjusted to his level of reading (like his classroom texts are supposed to be)? Sitting the same assessment in the same format as children without dyslexia puts him at a disadvantage and just sets him up to fail, so why do the school do that? If his classroom texts have to be adjusted, why not assessments, especially if they’re already removing the reader?

He doesn’t seem to get a reader/extra time for maths. He can mostly muddle through if they are written as sums (but does sometimes mix numbers up), however if the test is text he is again disadvantaged because he can’t read them. It takes him so long to break words down, he’s either forgotten the first part of the question before he can finish reading it, or has substituted words so is working out incorrect information.

I’m also confused about exams. The reader assigned to my son for a recent one initially refused to read the questions more than once or to read any numbers/symbols. She then had a discussion with another reader (partway through the exam) who told her she could read the questions more than once. Surely these people should know what they can/can’t do! Also, if my sons adjustments state a reader for ALL assessments and exams, that means they should be reading it all? The EP didn’t state that there were any exclusions for that when she issued her report.

Is there something I’m not understanding or is this not right?

As the mother of 2 children with dyslexia, the thing that gave me the rage was the fact that 10% of the marks for geography, history and religious studies are based on spelling abilities. Totally unfair on those with dyslexia.
I campaigned and emailed my MP and the department of education but nothing worked.

What exam board are you thinking of? I don’t think it is 10% for any of those subjects for AQA, Edexcel, OCR or WJEC Eduqas.

This is the bit that is wrong, then. You raise that with the teacher, and ask that she does not expect him (or indeed any others who are likely to have low scores) to read out their scores.

He will have to take the KS2 reading test unless he is working significantly below the standards - he may not be weak enough for this to be the case.

I think it is always tough when children are expected to do a test on which they will be able to do very little. I remember setting end of year 7 exams with some very weak kids - I took the paper that most of the bottom set would be doing, chopped off the questions I knew they wouldn't be able to do, and added some very easy ones instead. The score I recorded was what they got on the questions from the original paper, but the score written on their paper was rather more encouraging. Unfortunately you're not allowed to do that with national tests.

As the parent of a severely dyslexic child who is now 17, it is very much the case that exams are set up in a way that deliberately disadvantages children with severe SpLd regardless of how able they actually are. Mine finished GCSE with 8s and 4s depending on how badly the exams were impacted by their disability.

I would really recommend a couple of things:

1. find a secondary school that offers BTECs as well as GCSEs. No exams so reduces exam burden and allows them to get good grades.
2. find something your child is really good at and help them pursue that - music, drama, sport etc. There is nothing more miserable than spending most of your waking hours struggling at school with things that many of your peers find simple.