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Primary education

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How did you go about (if at all) telling your child they were dyslexic?

6 replies

HandbagAddiction · 10/11/2011 20:29

For those who might have seen my previous thread about our above average dd1 finding Y3 suddenly quite hard and IEPs being mentioned, well dh and I have now been back to school and have met her head teacher, form teacher and the school's SENCO. Turns out they have done a review themselves given that her vocabularly and speech are off the scale for ability and determined that things weren't adding up based on her previous schools report, so they have tested her for dyslexia and it turns out that she is moderately dyslexia.

At this point, all my concerns about the school itself have turned around as I can't believe they have been so forward looing themselves and have acted so quickly now. Their communication hasn;t been brilliant but the meeting was superb and I now feel that dd1 is totally in the right place support wise.

They gave us a blue reading filter and I showed dd1 how to use it when I got home. Without knowing what it actually was, she immediately said it made a difference to the words in her reading books - hoorah! They have also suggested that we get her eyes tested again - just to be sure there is nothing there.

So they also suggested that we tell her a little bit about what her issue might be so that she can understand a little bit better about why she needs some extra support and why her friends appeared to have leapt above her in terms of progress. Question is - I have no idea what to say or how to say it?

Does anyone have any experience they can share?

OP posts:
IndigoBell · 10/11/2011 20:45

Ok, you need to get her eyes tested by a behaviour optometrist, not a normal optician. A normal optician will only test for short sightedness. They won't test for eye tracking problems, or eye focussing problems.

A behaviour optometrist will also test her for coloured filters to find out which is the best colour for her. If a coloured overlay makes a significant difference (which it appears to) then she should get coloured glasses rather than overlays.

mummytime · 10/11/2011 21:44

I told DS as soon as we knew (through a full Ed Psych evaluation).
If you are near Oxford or Reading you could go to dyslexia research trust, they did a lot of basic science on the effect of colours oh helping dyslexic children read.
I would suggest you read up a lot yourself, especially all the famous dyslexics, and the advantages some dyslexics have.

The best book I read was "The Secret Life of the Dyslexic Child: How She Thinks, How He Feels, How They Can Succeed" but it seems to be out of print, but you can get second hand ones from Amazon.

frankie3 · 10/11/2011 21:55

Quite a coincidence as I told my ds this week that he has dyslexia. I told him that the problems he has with his spelling were due to dyslexia, and I think he was relieved to have a reason for why he struggles so much with spelling compared to the rest of his class. I put it in a really positive way and said that because of the dyslexia he is really creative and good at other things. I then showed him the list if famous people with dyslexia on the dyslexia website which has tom cruise, Albert Einstein, Richard branson etc to show him that it is nothing to worry about. He seemed fine about it, but you do have to chose the right moment to bring it up.

hermitcrab · 12/11/2011 08:45

Have just gone through this with our DD. We watched a TV programme with Kara Tointon in, covering her dyslexia, and how she and others learn and cope with different situations. Was brilliant, available on You Tube in 4 parts. Our DD is 10 and had noticed a significant gap opening up between herself and school friends, has really helped her to understand why she was finding some things hard. (Also helped us understand just how hard she was working just to try and keep up, and why she is so tired a lot of the time). DD now has tinted glasses, have doubled her reading speed and really helped with tracking issues. hth.

PastSellByDate · 12/11/2011 18:20

Hi Hermitcrab:

I'd say 3 things for you to pass on to your daughter

First: Roughtly 10% of UK population has some degree of dyslexia. Letters dancing on the page, difficulty with order of long sequences of letters/ numbers and often some difficulties with organisation and no short-term memory are classic indicators.

Dyslexia just means your daughter is wired differently. It may mean only using coloured filters but it could also mean some training with word or number patterns. Once strategies are developed, most dyslexics are very successful and 'keeping up' with their peers.

Second: Dyslexia has its blessings. It may not be obvious just yet - but there will be compensations. Many dyslexics have excellent recall - with some even having a photographic memory. These are skills us 'normals' would absolutely kill for - I say this because my severely dyslexic husband can remember where exactly he saw that picture in a book and has an incredible memory for visual details. I also know of dyslexics who have an incredible memory for music or for stories/ poems. They can hear something a few times and simly memorize it.

Third: Every time you hear someone famous is dyslexic do make sure to point that out to your DD. It really helps to have role models. You can learn more here: www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about-dyslexia/famous-dyslexics.html. You'd be amazed how many incredibly successful/ famous people are/ were dyslexic. My personal favourite is Albert Einstein - and let's be honest it didn't hold him back much.

Dyslexia is a disability - but that doesn't mean to say that a dyslexic can't go on to be successful (in some cases incredibly successful).

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There are some down sides. Your daughter will work approximately 20% - 30% harder than 'normal' children to get through an ordinary school day. This means that breaks and rest are crucial. It may seem counterintuitive to do very little in the evening or have a long rest after school and start homework maybe after dinner - but think of it as her working 7.2 - 7.5 hrs (so 9 - 5 p.m.) at school instead of 9 - 3:30.

Frequently dyslexics also have issues with eye hand coordination. This can be very frustrating for sports and often means dyslexics have poor handwriting. This may also be a problem when it comes time to learn to drive.

Dyslexics often find it more difficult to follow conversations/ oral instructions - often not getting the joke or inuendo. Another classic is that they will get told something in passing and almost immediately forget it.

It is likely that your daughter will need more time to complete written work. This is important for exams and is something the school and perhaps later the Univeristy should make provision for. In senior school/ sixth form/ university - dyslexic pupils can be allowed to submit work prepared on a computer - so this is worth looking into down the road, especially if handwriting is an issue.

There will always be things that dyslexics won't pick up when proof-reading their own work. For instance homonyms - such as wear and where or their, there and they're are frequently used interchangeably by dyslexics who understand the sound by can't always work out/ retain the differences in meaning, especially when under pressure (as in an exam situation).

Finally dyslexia is hereditary and if in a girl, it means both the mother and father carried the genes. So I suspect if you think back (it can skip a generation) you probably are aware of family members who didn't read particularly well or had unusual ways of working out sums.

Outsideperspective · 12/11/2011 18:36

I told my two when they had the results, as they knew they were being tested for something, so wanted to know what the results were.

One was 5 one was 11.

One thing I say to both of mine, and it appears to be something they follow, I don't want them to have the attitude 'I can't do x because I am dyslexic' rather 'I can do x despite being dyslexic'.

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