if anyone can help? (yr 5)

[RadioLater]

My son is 10 and year 5, September will be year 6. His report now states that he is
speaking and listening 4c, reading 2a, writing 2b, maths 3c, and science 4c. He is so behind everybody else - I really think that he may be dyslexic and am pushing the school to help. However based on these scores does anyone have another opinion? I really would appreciate your help, many thanks!r

IB said:

"Again, it is just not true that if people haven't been taught phonics they don't work out how to decode for themselves - most people learn this skill by reading."

Very true, some children do do this, but how do you expect that your daughter, who can't read is going to acquire a skill which you have just asserted is learned by reading? It is usually children who have learned to read very easily who do this.

"Of course there are words which aren't phonetically regular - most english place names for starters 'one' and 'two' are great examples. What phonetic rule do they follow?"

You are confusing 'rule'with 'correspondence'. There are no 'phonic rules' in English. If people could grasp that fact it would greatly improve their understanding of the English Alphabetic Code. The letters represent the sounds you say. An American person and an English person may say the same word in completely different ways. The spelling remains the same but the sounds the letters correspond to are different.

We have a very few extremely bizarre correspondences. Unfortunately 'one' and 'two' are among the few. Beyond that, some 95% of English words contain common correspondences; the less common ones usually belong to the less commonly use words.

I am really going to be quiet now

'Even the core of high frequency words which are not transparently decodable using known grapheme?phoneme correspondences usually contain at least one GPC that is familiar. Rather than approach these words as though they were unique entities, it is advisable to start from what is known and register the ?tricky bit? in the word. Even the word yacht, often considered one of the most irregular of English words [it's of Dutch origin], has two of the three phonemes represented with regular graphemes' (Letters & Sounds. Notes of Guidance p16)

Teach the regular part of the word and draw attention to the irregular part/s. Do NOT teach as global wholes. For a list of the approx. 100 HFWs with singular or rare spellings which need to taught directly and systematically -see D.McGuinness. Early Reading Instruction p 58.

There are only seven words , , , , , and , that may need to be memorised as whole units i.e. are true, high frequency 'sight' words, though no English word is completely phonologically opaque.

Maizie / Maverick - I think you misunderstand me.

1. I think synthetic phonics is a great program. It just hasn't worked for my DD.

1. I do not think she should be taught using the whole word approach.

1. She has been at school for 3 years, and the SpLD team have just assessed her as a W for reading. (Although she got a 1 in her reading SATS). So I don't think school can teach her to read.

1. Her problems are not just with reading.

1. Her difficulties with reading are a symptom of other problems (dyslexia?).

1. I don't want to cure the symptom - I want to cure the problem.

So, I am interested in all of the programes which try to address the underlying issues. At the moment the interventions I am most interested in are:

• EasyRead
• Retained Reflexes
• Davies Method
• Listening Program
• Vision Therapy

But there are also another half dozen interventions I will try if I have to.

These programes (with the exception of easyRead) are not learn to read programes. Instead they all concentrate on improving the brain wiring.

Once I have managed to fix her brain wiring, then it will be easy to teach her to read.

This is what I believe

We have currently started EasyRead, so I will stick with that for the recommended 6 months, and then decide what needs to be done next.

It is great that you are both so passionate about helping children learn to read. And I think your advice is good advice for a very large percentage of the population. But I think for my DD you have got it wrong.

However while we are doing these interventions, she will continue to do Read, Write, Inc at school, and I will continue to support school with this.

indigo to be honest it didn't help at all - school totally ignored it and didn't get the SENCO involved or write an IEP despite months of me hassling them.

She/they were always too busy/had done their planning for this year etc etc. So took her out of that school.

In her report they said she really needed to try to learn her spellings and improve her phonic awareness, as if she hadn't been putting enough effort in. It made me cry.

Have come to conclusion not all state schools are equal (and this one was OFSTED outstanding!) and some children clearly matter more than others at school.

CremeEggs Hope your new school goes better. I definately know what you mean about some children mattering more than others - however that is not true at all schools.

Good luck.

Indigo As Ive said earlier, both DSs use Easyread and I just wanted to say it really has helped with writing as well as reading.

I could hardly work out what DS1 had written when he brought his books home last July. For example if he wrote I had my birthday party at quazar, it would look something like this.

I hd mi berday prte at qwasr.

He can now write and spell much better. Its still not perfect but it is readable. He could spell that sentence perfectly now apart from maybe quazar might have an s instead of a z. He has gone form a level 2a to 3a/4c in writing and 3c to 4c in reading.

Both boys say that they can visulise the easyread charactors when trying to spell tricky words.

DS1 was screened to see if he had dyslexic traits in June and it showed he had problems with sequencing. He is due to have a full test next term.

DS2 had a full test in school at the same time. He has problems in auditory processing, short term memory, and spacial domains. He also has visual processing difficulties (Irlen's) So as you say about your DD, his brain is definatly wired differently and as he has so many issues, his problems are compounded.

I have found the support and advice that you get from the staff at Easyread is fantastic. DS2 is now taking EyeQ omega supplements and does eyetracking exercises which has really helped with his ability to retain the individual sounds in his memory and blend them together.

The reward system that Easyread offer really has kept DSs motivated and whenever they have needed a bit of an extra push, I have emailed the team and the next day DSs have had a lovely message of support.

This is not about phonics Claig, this is about the fact that you have no experience of dyslexia, either as a teacher, senco, personally or have a child with sld yet you amuse yourself on dyslexic threads. It wasn't just me who pointed out to you how inappropriate your posts were.

At present I am still living with the long term affect of dyslexia on DH's mental health,and I really don't appreciate someone who has absolutely no experience of dyslexia using it to amuse themselves.

I don't want to turn a good thread into a slanging match. The best thing to do is to avoid reading my posts whenever you see my name, that's what I do when I see yours.

Indigo - I hope you will continue to post on dd's progress with Easyread, as I, for one, am very interested in the outcome.
The first lesson which one can view, did not strike me as offering sufficient exposure to increase practice at decoding, compared with other interventions, but it was only one lesson after all, and important to draw the child in so should not be overly-taxing. So I hope you will describe subsequent lessons if you have time and inclination!

I have read back through the thread to see who pointed out that my posts were inappropriate. The nearest thing that I could find was
"I would be very wary of taking a few people's theories or experiences of spelling and saying that that is how it is for everyone! After all, it is apparent from this thread that not everyone even 'thinks' the same way."
I think that is a valid point. Mine is only a theory.

There are different theories about how to help people with dyslexia. I have no direct experience with dyslexia, but Ron Davis does. He was dyslexic and couldn't read until his mid thirties. He has developed a visual based approach and says that for him phonics was torture. However, I think it is worth being sceptical about some of his claims because his program is so expensive.

Another headteacher who has developed a different approach which incorporates pictures is Dr. Neville Brown
www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6002967

All of these people have lots of experience with dyslexics and are trying their best to help dyslexics. It seems that there isn't only one way of doing so. If it turns out that for some people phonics is not working, then it may be worth looking at some other methods.

You just don't get it do you! NO I will not be avoiding threads with you I have a child and a husband with SLD. I am just warning anyone on threads that you are there for the fun of it not to help!

ok thanks for the warning. I think explaining some of how Davis uses images such as the elephant image and the fact that "if" has no image, and mentioning alternative approaches such as the icon methodology of Neville Brown, may help some people. It's certainly not much fun on a thread with you.

Malaleuca The first couple of weeks on the Easyread programe are aimed at teaching the children the charactors and the sounds that they make. Only when a child has learn the charactors can they begin to practice decoding words.

There are two main differences to the Easyread programme

The first is they have a different charactor for each sound and not just each letter, so the letter E has eggs with short legs for the short e sound and the Eagle looking regal for the E sound.

The other difference is that when they place the pictures over the words, the pictures coraspond with the sounds and not the letters. For example was would have the charactors for the w, the o and the z over each letter. This allows the child to decode even tricky words effectivly. So even words like one can be decoded as the pictures will sound out as w-o-n.

I haven't found any scientific evidence supporting synthetic phonics, except to say it works better than analytic phonics. Much research simply compares it with other phonic methods and Reading Recovery, without pre-screening for dyslexia, and seems to demonstrate that, though it may work for non-dyslexics, it actually seems to make many dyslexics worse.
www.york.ac.uk/res/crl/downloads/TheNorthYorksReadingInterventionProjectReport.pdf
Page 7 and 8.

Why are you upping a 2 year old thread, Alasdair?

Dyslexia Action recommend a daily phonics programme, as do dyslexics.org.uk/.

I have two children with dyslexia in my Y5 class, and have overseen daily phonics work for them since they were in Y2. One is assessed as a 5c reader and the other a 4a.

I agree with Feenie. Am new to this, but my son (year 3) is potentially dyslexic, but he can read really well. He's also good at maths. His problem is writing/ spelling, which he's pretty much incapable of. We're waiting for him to be assessed, but his teacher thinks phonics has got him this far and I think she's right, as he can only spell phonetically. Dyslexia's not limited to children who don't get phonics or who can't read and for lots of children, phonics really does help.