those with struggling readers, some wise words please

[yawningmonster]

First off I am in NZ so our system is a bit different to yours I know. DS started school at the beginning of the year. He actually turned 5 in September last year but delayed starting for a number of reasons. So he has had 2 and a half terms of school. He is struggling with reading. They do a mix of phonics and look and say approaches but the rest of the class is outpacing him big time and he is beginning to notice. He is on yellow books (here first level is Magenta, second level is red) According to our ridiculous new national standards he is expected to be Green by the time the year ends (so has to work his way all the way through yellow and blue) We are a book loving family and he adores being read to and has heaps and heaps and heaps of fiction and non fiction books and audio books. We play word games and I spy games and have phonics based readers at home. Is there any thing else I could/should be doing with him.
I personally think he is doing great and I am proud of his achievements (he has Aspergers) but he is getting increasingly concerned that children are moving out of his reading group ahead of him and has started saying he thinks he will never read :(

www.beingdyslexic.co.uk/pages/information/general-information/common-signs-of-dyslexia/common-signs-children.php

but here's one for starters

www.dyslexia-teacher.com/t7.html

i've found some now and baby stopped squealing temporarily

ooh thanks will have a look, waiting for dd to wake for her feed so I can go to bed so understand about squealy baby

1. Primary school age.

Has particular difficulty with reading and spelling.

Puts letters and figures the wrong way round. He consistently gets 5 and 2 mixed up as well as b and d and q and p.

Leaves letters out of words or puts them in the wrong order.
They seem to teach writing in a really bazaar way at his school and he is currently working on recording all the sounds he can hear in the words he wants to write so they often look completely random eg he might write
I lokd at the brd. It ws butafl. (I looked at the bird. It was beautiful)

Still occasionally confuses 'b' and 'd' and words such as 'no/on'.
see above and also confuses on and no and funnily enough come and can gets constantly confused

some of these would be age dependent surely?? Or would you be concerned about dyslexia now?

yes i think some of the problems are common, which was the excuse ds1's school gave when i asked why they hadn't pointed it out to me.

i KNEW there was something wrong because he was/is incredibly bright and had/has an unbelievably sophisticated vocabulary so there had to be a reason for his reading being so far behind. when we got him tested for dyslexia at 8, his reading age was 6 but his vocabulary/verbal intelligence etc were age 14+, an absolutely huge gap which had always been present.

i would much rather have had him tested at 5 even if it had turned out to be 'wasted' money if he hadn't been dyslexic, than to waste 3 years of school with teachers telling me he was thick and or lazy, which completely knocked his confidence (another major problem for many dyslexics)

As a SENCO I don't think labels change the important issues and while it might be nice to know there is a reason it doesn't really help the child.
www.dyslexics.org.uk/
Teaching Reading

www.phonicsinternational.com/

it's not the labelling them that helps, its the fact that this leads to getting the child specialist help rather than having teachers say they're stupid and keep trying to teach the same thing the same way despite it not getting them anywhere. ds1 has been seeing a specialist dyslexia tutor for a year now and it has had a HUGE impact on him. the fact is, if school had been more proactive and listened to my concerns, he could have been having this help for the last 3 years and thus wouldn't be so far behind.

LadySanders I'd be horrified if a teacher said any child was stupid and the specialist help is already in schools.

well, talking to other parents of dyslexics it seems to be extremely common for them to be described as lazy or 'just not as bright as you think he is'... we moved ds1 out of highly regarded state primary as they spent 2 months telling me 'he can't read, you need to do more work with him' and moved him to private school where they did at least give him extra help even if, as i said, the attitude over time became that it was a problem with his motivation and intelligence. once presented with ed psych's report they suddenly became much more helpful.

plus, i have several friends with dyslexic kids in state schools who have been refused extra help because there are already too many other children who are 'worse off' and obviously resources are limited to those most in need...

Tell us more about the form his Aspergers takes. My eldest (not the one who was late to read) has Aspergers and I think that was the basis of my using the word decode. Would he be able to see reading as a code to break?

Science interests are good - could you teach him science type signs like inflammable, poison etc? I really think kids, perhaps especially boys, need a reason to read. I wonder if he has got the idea that reading means decoding symbols to understand? How about recognising makes of cars and the sign on the back of them?

I stand by my keep books for pleasure and using text around us. using text in computer games is an excellent idea. There are phonics games although I am not familiar with those - might be worth a look?

Above all don't worry, and try and get him to stop worrying. It is ridiculous that a lad of his age feels behind classmates! Is there something he is better at that you can focus on right now?

LadySanders as the mother of a child described by his EP as being dyslexic and who has never been called lazy by his teachers and as a teacher and SENCO I would certainly speak to staff who uttered such rubbish.

I would also argue there is a huge difference between calling a child "stupid" and telling a parent their child "isn't as bright as you think " ... diagnosing dyslexia is a big business very profitable

i did speak to the staff and the headteacher, thank you, but this thread isn't about me or my ds1, i was just pointing out to the OP that sometimes there is a reason why a child struggles to read, and i would have been delighted to know that there was a problem much earlier so it could have been addressed earlier.

'diagnosing dyslexia is a big business very profitable' really? Explain please.

How many posts have you read on MN from worried parents who say they are seeking private diagnosis because they have been told by the school it is too early to give a diagnosis. How many people are told their child isn't dyslexic ? I think the diagnosis goes along the lines "shows dyslexic tendencies" and when it comes down to it with or without the label the appropriate course of action to support the child remains unchanged.

I have a great deal of sympathy for parents and more sympathy for the child who is struggling and stuck in a position where they are not being helped by the teacher or school but I don't think a label helps.

The same can be said for dyspraxia, ASD etc though - many parents seek a private dx for the same reasons.

cornsillky and does it make any difference?

You say (I think)that a 'label' doesn't make a great deal of difference in the case of dyslexia Mrz- would you say the same about other conditions? I think that the 'label' which comes in the form of an ed psych report should be very important to the school. An ed psych is qualified to identify the child's specific strengths and difficulties in order for support to be put into place most effectively.

Ah but private Ed Psych reports aren't always recognised and rarely speed up the process of getting a statement even if you are fortunate enough to have a statement issued for conditions such as dyslexia and dyspraxia.
In the end good teaching is about meeting a child's needs with or without a label

Yes I know they aren't always recognised by the statementing panel. There's no reason why they shouldn't be recognised by teachers though. I absolutely agree that good teaching is meeting the child's needs, but teachers are not always aware of exactly what those needs are because they are not qualified to identify them.

cornsillky if a child is experiencing difficulties the teacher should be aware and not need a parent to spend hundreds of pounds for a piece of paper confirming it.

I have to agree with mrz, my DS never got an official diagnosis and got lots of extra one to one help with his spelling. He does show a lot of the markers in the list. There are children a lot worse than he is but he got the help because he was obviously very bright and they wanted him to meet his potential. I was told by his teacher that if the rest of his abilities were average then he would not have got the help he did.
After the help he scraped a 4c by one mark for writing for KS2 but has just finished KS3 on a level 7 for writing.

He didn't actually click with reading until he was 7, but because he was learning Jolly Phonics from the age of 4 he actually learnt to read very well, although he did have a problem with long passages of writing as he lost his place easily, but he solved that himself by using a ruler to keep track.
He also has poor visual memory and couldn't remember something between reading it on the board and looking down at the paper.

You're right they shouldn't have to spend hundreds of pounds to get it confirmed. The teacher may well be aware that a child is struggling but not always why the child is struggling and that is the key to providing the appropriate support.

I've spent part of the holidays preparing an application for a statement for a child diagnosed by our EP as severely dyslexic with a 50/50 chance of success and the knowledge that if he gets a statement the EP has said there is nothing additional we can do to help him beyond what we have done for the past 3 years because we do recognise and identify problems but like private EPs our diagnosis needs to be confirmed.