Possible dyslexia and reaction of SenCo, confused and annoyed. WWYD?

[VinoEsmeralda]

I'm not the best in converting thoughts/conversations to paper but will try to give a neutral picture of current situation.

DD is in Yr2 and last year her teacher (NQT who is v young and IMO lacks empathy and is rather cocky, am not alone in thinking this but has made improvements this year) referred her to the SenCo but couldnt tell me why just that he thought she was not making much progress. She started of as a confident happy girl but very quickly lost confidence.

Possible thoughts of dyslexia but no intervention or extra 1-1 support was offered, other then the usual strategies with low ability groups, as DD was so young ( July baby) and it might level itself out which we were happy with as both are DC are immature or slow starters academically.

Fast forward to October last year, Senco felt she was making sufficient progress and no need for further meetings. Both me and DH disagreed and it was agreed we would meet again in March.

She has made more progress and her confidence has grown a lot. I have pushed hard to get her in a teddy talk time group and we have been doing lots of (fun) work at home. We read every day, use Nessy and generally try to link this to subjects taught at school. SenCo said she was pleased and I again disagreed, teacher agreed with me this time and said he spent a fair bit of time with her and the amount of input she had she should be at a higher level and SenCo said there was likely to be a mild form of dyslexia and now comes the part that really annoyes me.

She will not get any extra support as the level is not severe enough, said dont bother to get her tested as school is aware of the situation and ensure good handover to make transition between classes easier for her. Possibly get her tested so when she goes to secondary she has 'the label' and teachers will have an understanding. She would try and ensure she wouldnt slip through the net but couldnt say what these were.

I just dont get it! So dissapointed, have we shot ourselves in the feet but doing so much to get her to this level? She still struggles with number bonds up to 10, is on New Way reading scheme on the green band.

What are your thought? Would really appreciate feedback if I am overreacting or (as I am currently planning) to take this further.

Apolgies for long post!

To be fair, IB, I don't think that lots of parents use 'dyslexia' as an excuse. I think it is more of a comfort thing which seems to explain to them why their perfectly bright and normal child doesn't progress with reading and spelling.

On the other hand, I think that a great many teachers use it as an excuse for not teaching reading and spelling skills properly. 'It's nothing to do with my teaching, the fault lies in the child...'

In the same way, 'accommodations', while they may be necessary at times, can also be a substitute for not trying to find out exactly what is causing the problem and not finding the very best way to teach a child with a sdecific problem.

Spelling and grammar are getting new attention paid to them in GCSEs, from next year, I believe...

I have kids in my class (yr4) who don't know their number bonds..and they're deemed 'not poor enough' to get one-on-one help. Unfortunately, children these days have to be DIRE to get support. I have a little girl who is P8 and even she is not deemed poor enough.

All to do with funding.

Best thing you can do is work with her at home, as other posters have suggested. Any SENCO work done by the school only works when the work is also done by home.

It also really depends as to the level of dyslexia. I have one child who has beautiful handwriting - but really really cannot spell. However, I can completed decipher what she is trying to communicate, so in this respect, her spelling is not that important. It certainly doesn't affect her overall grade.

However, I have another little girl (suspected dyslexia) who is incredibly far behind, cannot write at all legibly, so I am unable to give it a mark. Parents refuse to help at home because they say they are dyslexic. There is more going on here than dyslexia - this child is really behind.

I do refute though anyone who says teachers say that spelling isn't important! Spelling is incredibly important. The only reason I would accept poor spelling is because of some kind of condition (dyslexia). However, unfortunately, a lot of children these days have poor spelling because they simply don't work hard enough (at home or school) to improve their errors. Far too many parents think that all of their child's educational needs should be met at school. As with anything, kids will only progress if they go home and practise!

kensingtonia

I'm a bit intrigued by this comment

Do you really think she should be spending hours each week memorising words and then forgetting them the next?

Can you clarify it? Is this what she did with the 'specialist teacher'?

No, this was the weekly spelling lists at school primary and secondary. She had specialist teaching at DA and used the multisensory approach and their programme Units of Sound. She can read and write fluently. She just spells some words wrongly and cannot learn them however hard she tries, she tends to write them phonetically. If English was spelt the way it is written it wouldn't be so much of a problem.

Sorry I meant written the way it is spoken - i.e. phonetically.

Hang on nalubeadsgirl. First you said that poor spelling didn't affect overall grade (surely, surely it does!), then you say that spelling is incredibly important. Then you rather give support to another poster's assertion that teachers use dyslexia as an excuse by saying that you only accept poor spelling from a child who is known to be dyslexic.

I may well be flamed for suggesting this, but my dyslexic dd ( now 10) followed the Dore program. link to Dore

She has improved beyond all recognition.

It does cost around £2000 and there are no guarantees and it's not an easy option, even if it looks like it.

Just briefly coming on (as I am about to do some extra literacy support with dd for half an hour!) that everything you have said kensingtonia accords with my experiences / makes perfect sense to me

Not going to lambast you for that handmade....but I do worry about charlatans exploiting concerned parents anxieties to make money....with perhaps unproven methods.....although I note you say it worked for you daughter

hmc - thank you for your supportive comment.

HandMadeTail - I did also consider Dore, Davis etc and had DD tested for Irlens syndrome etc - you get so frustrated and desperate you consider anything. I can't imagine that parents just sit there doing nothing. Glad that Dore worked for your daughter, personally I decided against it after all the bad press.

Any child who needs help in my school gets help (obviously no funding to provide it but we have very dedicated staff who work before school, during lunch breaks and after school to provide support for those children who need it). Very few of our children read or write outside of school so it is up to us.
A label of dyslexia (which they won't be officially given as my LEA doesn't recognise it) to our parents is saying "it's not your fault ... I can't think of a single one who would go to the lengths Indigo has for her children.
The school down the road says we don't have any special needs

Kensingtonia- my DD is billingual and second language is Dutch and she is more confident with (the weaker language as 1st language is English) the Dutch spelling as it is phonetically sound!

My current plan is to work with the teacher as much as I can ( he really is not cooperative which has been recognised by the school and he has had lots of help from head) and support the sound(s) of the week at home using Nessy (which she likes doing) and spell 5 words a week with completely different sounds and await her match test results. Read with/to her every day and will mental maths in car. Reading newspaper with her ( first news- she loves the news/facts) and making sure she receives post from family & her sending something back.

Will also download the app for ipad as suggested by Indigo.

Will get her assessed by an ed psych after her 7th birthday and look into tutoring through DA.

Anything else I can do? ( we play with Lego everyday and frequently play board games and go through phases of making jig saws).

Thank you all so much, it is really helpful and reassuring.

fallonmadonna..let me elaborate a little..

First of all, the strand that spelling is marked up on accounts for one strand out of 8. A child can be appalling at spelling, but as long as their work is legible and we can decipher what they mean (i.e. they spell phonetically), if the child is a level 3 in terms of content and structure, they would get a level 3 regardless of having nothing in that last box ticked off. As far as Ofsted is concerned, content is far more important. (ideas, connectives, openers, punctuation etc all count for significantly more.)

IMO spelling is important! That's just me. Personally, as an ex-manager, if someone sent in an application form with spelling mistakes galore, it would go into the bin! I'm incredibly tough with my children, and insist on correct spelling. Now that they're older, I just tell them that they're wrong, show them the correct way and make them practise.

I would hesitantly say however, that a child who spells everything phonetically is unlikely to be dyslexic. The way that phonics is taught these days encourages children to focus on phonemes, and imo we give children too much information and expect them to be able to recall it. Spelling is actually visual. We should focus much more on showing children what the correct word LOOKS like, rather than hounding them with all the different ways of making the sound 'ee'. The child in my class with appalling spelling, I am doubtful she is dyslexic. She just can't spell! I don't believe this is one and the same. Dyslexia is a common condition, and being married to one, I can confirm that in his opinion letters literally jump all over the page, and he cannot recall which looks right and which doesn't. He also has number 'dyslexia' and sees numbers the wrong way round. He is not stupid. He is not lazy. He has a condition.

BUT we should not label all children who spell phonetically (or who have not quite grasped it yet) as dyslexic. Just my opinion. :)

Even at level 2 correct spelling of HFW is expected

Yes...reception and Year1/2 High frequency words!

HandMadeTale - glad to hear you have had good results with Dore. I'm not at all surprised.

Vino - HandMadeTale and me have done various neurodevelopment therapies to correct the underlying problems that are causing the dyslexia. I suspect we have spent far less money than Kensingtonia has on tutoring - and I suspect we've had far better results.

For example, like I said upthread my DDs processing speed has improved from approx 1st percentile to approx 40th percentile. No amount of tutoring will be able to achieve results like that. Because processing speed can't be taught.

So going the 'traditional' route of tutoring is equally risky to trying alternative therapies. But at least noone will be horrible to you.

I think it's the 'dyslexia' tutors who are the charlatans. And Dyslexia Action makes a fortune out of parents. But somehow that is fine. Whereas Dore and Tinsley House and Behviour Optometrists and Auditory Integration Training are slagged off endlessly - by people who aren't brave enough to use them.

yes at level 2
at level 3 correct spelling of
~ some common grammatical function words
~common content/lexical words with more than one morpheme, including compound words
at level 4 correct spelling of
~ most common grammatical function words, including adverbs with -ly formation
~ regularly formed content/lexical words, including those with multiple morphemes
~ most past and present tense inflections, plurals

I can certainly confirm its possible to get a level 2 in writing without being able to spell HFW correctly (or any other words)

And a level 3 in reading without being able to read - after all decoding is only one strand of reading.

That is until July - for some reason all of that suddenly matters again in Sep :)

sorry that was for nalubeadsgirl

and for what it's worth as a parent and a SENCO I agree with Indigo

I tend to agree that poor spelling does not indicate dyslexia. We have a very complex spelling system; it is frequently very badly taught and it is difficult for some people to recall the correct spelling of a 'sound' in any particular word. If we used 'ppoor spelling' as the main criteria for 'dyslexia' half the population would be dyslexic...

English is mostly spelled the way it sounds, it's just that there are rather a lot of choices of sound spellings

I'm afraid that I don't have a lot of time for the DA's 'Units of Sound'. I quite often get children transferring from other schools who have 'done' it and they still don't have a clue about spelling the sounds in words; to the extent that they don't even realise that words are made up of 'sounds'. That is such basic information. Any good programme should be able to convey it to a pupil...

mrz I don't need a copy of it, I have it right in front of me! I just couldn't be bothered typing it all out :)

My son (y4) is dyslexic.

School do nothing, despite an EP report (which I paid for as school said they would not get his assessed until he had gone another academic year without making any progress - and when he would be transferring to middle school...coincidence??? )

It was pretty pointless for us tbh. The school have not implemented any of the recommendations the EP made...this despite ds1 being below the 3rd centile for spelling! He gets no 1-1, specialist interventions...nothing. I agree with you OP, NQ teachers are pretty dire when it comes to sen.

Like indigo we have implemented lots of changes/therapies and are seeing good results now. Take a look at her website.

For work at home, I would recommend Dancing bears and Apples and Pears (both by sound foundation)

then I don't understand your comment

IndigoBell you make whatever comment you like but I am happy with my DDs achievements which I think would not have been possible without DA. I don't wish to make comment on the organisation, but the teaching she had was fantastic.

I spent many many hours searching the internet for possible cures or treatments. All the radical treatments cost thousands of pounds. We did try the optometric approach but after wasted time and money, decided it was not going to work. It wasn't a question of not being brave; it was a question of not having thousands of pounds to throw away on what seem to be pseudo scientific theories.

I would love to be able to "cure" my DDs dyslexia but I don't think it is possible, if you can prove me wrong please do so. Can you give me a ballpark figure for what Tinsley House or a similar organisation might cost me to work with my DD?

VinoEsmeralda - my mum is Dutch and was always surprised by the reading difficulties that some of my peers in primary school had many years ago.

My DD liked Numbershark and Wordshark. She also loves wordsearch and Sudoku. She used various iphone aps (wordgames) and also likes Scrabble. I found building her confidence by encouraging her to take part in activities that she was good at such as art and music was important.

I would have preferred the specialist teaching to start earlier than 7 as DD had already lost confidence by then. I am not sure if DA offer this.