Dyslexia

[postit]

My 7 year old son is in year 3 and we have recently found out he is dyslexic. My problem is that we are on a 9 month waiting list to get a reader into the school that can help him. We are doing as much as we can at home and his school are doing as much as they can but neither of us are trained in the correct way to help. Has anyone got any helpful tips on what I can do to help him. I'm really worried the longer its left the more he will start to believe he is just stupid and give up!!! I can see it already starting to happen and he is getting the odd comment from his freiends at school.

Thank you in advance x

If you can afford some private tuotring, would be worth a go. Me and my DSis are dyslexic, DSis far more than me. She had tutoring in the basics, and real basics like writting letters and very basic spelling, from a school teacher friend of the family.

Otherwise see if the school can let him do easier reading, or reading other things which engage him more. Magazines, catalouges, ceral boxes, anything! Worry less about keeping up with the class and more about making sure he's enjoying reading.

And the hardest thing for you will be helping him to accept he's just going to have to work harder on these things than the other kids. But people always told me and Dsis that dyslexics are cleverer than others people, no idea if it is true or not, but seemed to help us cope! And if it helps, me and my sister have 5 degrees between us and are happy in our chosen proffesions.

I was going to post similar to turkeyboots for my DSis and myself. I was also going suggest contacting the dyslexia association they have some great books for helping parents to support their DC. Because most dyslexics have very poor short term memory repetition plays a big part.
The thing that really made the difference for me was that my parents rewarded effort more than achievement in the early years to encourage the extra hard work the dyslexia means you have to do. Again DSis and I have 5 degree level qulaifications and are a chartered construction engineer and a vet between us.

The really important thing is to use a systematic synthetic phonics approach to teaching reading. My dd was diagnosed as severely dyslexic 2 months ago. Her main issue - as mentioned above - is poor short term memory. This means it is nigh on impossible for her to learn by rote whole words (as teh school would like her to do). However she is capable of learning the sounds and blending tehse to learn to read. I have recently purchased "Dancing Bears" from here as it is clearly laid out for a non-teacher (ie. me!) to follow.
I can't say she enjoys it - it is very repetitive - but only needs 10 minutes per day. Dyslexia Action are helpful - they diagnosed dd (for a large fee!) and can provide tutoring.

I have used Toe by Toe with my 6yr old and it has helped with his reading and writing. It is easy to follow and only needs 10 mins pd. It is a bit repetitive too but it has helped reinforce the basics as DS didn't have a good enough foundation in the basic skills to move forward.

I've been tutoring dyslexic children for nearly 10 years and haggisaggis is absolutely right about 'Dancing Bears'?-by far the best programme I've ever tried. Very easy for parents to use and it really works.

6 years is very young for Toe-by-Toe!! Did he not riot at all?

He is in yr2 as he is a summer birthday so his reading difficulties were compounding the age gap iyswim. We only did max 1 page at a time. I think because he could see results and move up to more interesting reading books he could see the point.

I am very interested in looking into the Dancing Bears. idleblogger hello my son is very much a boys boy do you think he may find this a bit babyish?

Hello posit. I don't think he will find it babyish. I've used it with high school pupils. The stories are simple vocabulary, rather than cutesy, if you see what I mean. The books are all on the website so you can have a look through them.

Thank you I have gone ahead and order one having looked at them they look excellent.