Yr 3 spelling/number problems - dyslexia?

[LightTheLittleLight]

Hope someone with experience can help. DD is 7, a young Year 3, and generally doing OK at school (yr2 SATs showed her as generally "average", with 2a for Maths). She reads pretty well after a wobbly start.

However, her spelling is dire and - what worries me more - it's not just bad but has some very odd tendencies. So, lots of words lacking vowels eg "dfrnt" for different, "protstnt" for Protestant, "vilgs" for villagers. Reading her own work back, she doesn't see the mistakes, and doesn't seem to notice that it just looks wrong (although she would be able to read all of the above words, spelt correctly, in a book. She'll miss whole words out as she's writing (I can hear her speaking aloud as she's writing it so know that she intends the words to be there). Obviously when the missing word is eg "not" it changes the whole meaning of the sentence!

Digraphs are often written the wrong way round eg "ia" for an "ai" sound, "kc" instead of "ck", and sometimes two letter words as well (a recent example was "og" for "go") - again she doesn't recognise that this looks wrong. She struggles to pick the right vowel sound/digraph. Words with lots of consecutive vowels eg quiet are a huge problem.

Writing is neat and joined up but some letters eg t, J/j, q, p etc often get written the wrong way, as do some numbers, particularly 3 and 9.

Despite being generally good at Maths, she also transposes numbers too, so last week's homework (should have been easy - just writing the number in figures when given the words and vice versa) was difficult due to her eg reading "63" as "36" and then, despite reading "seventy-five" correctly, and repeating it as she was typing, actually typing "57". I asked her to check that one, and she didn't spot the mistake : (

School have picked up on it and she is working in a special group for sounds and letters but I am wondering whether it's worth testing for dyslexia? DD's teacher doesn't think it's likely, because she reads well, but IMO the disparity between her reading and spelling is a cause for concern itself.

Sorry - that ended up being an essay! Am just starting to feel a bit desperate because DD is usually so enthusiastic about school but it's so hard to see her working hard and getting all her spellings wrong, or crying over maths homework which she knows she should be able to do. I have no experience in this area and would be grateful for any feedback - what do you think?

it is perfectly possible to be dyslexic but be able to read. I am battling a similar issue here too. They don't see there is a problem but I can see it isn't quite right. I used to work in schools so have experienced lots of children reading and writing at age 5-7.

In the USA they call it a compensated dyslexic I think, in the UK it seems to be a hidden or stealth dyslexic.

How are her spellings when she's not in the middle of writing a story/ paragraph?

My ds1 is 8 (I have wondered about dyslexia too, but think it may be very mild and amongst other problems he has). He can spell when he is writing a list of words one by one (ie. spelling test). But if he is trying to write a story he makes all sorts of mistakes, including leaving whole words out and incorrectly spelling very simple words which he knows how to spell, leaving out vowels like your dd etc.

I suppose what I am saying is, if her brain is taken up with thinking about the Maths problem or the story it may not be fully concentrating on how the letters/ numbers appear. Has she always reversed a lot?

Yes I see what you mean. It does happen in isolated words - vilgs and achs (archers) were the titles of drawings, so written stand-alone. The recent "kc" for "ck" confusion arose on trying to learn a spelling list of those words. Sometimes she would get them the right way round, but often they were wrong, and she wouldn't notice. She actually got it right on the day, but if she had to write the same words today it would be completely random as to which way round she'd put the ck/kc iyswim. She doesn't seem to retain/recognise the patterns in her writing, although she can read them all.

Yes to always having reversed. When she first learnt to write her name, if she got the initial letter the wrong way round she would just continue writing right to left (instead of left to right) with ALL letters reversed, like perfect mirror writing! Doesn't do that now though!

Yes, ds1 and dd both did/ do perfect mirror writing. They also both struggle/ d with reading and phonics. I think it shows a creative brain! Ds2 is very structured and just 'gets' the rules of reading very quickly, as well as Maths. I think they need similar kinds of brains really - brains which like pattern and structure and have good memories! So if your dd is good at maths, I think she would have got reading too. Ds1 is very very visual which has probably helped his spelling as he can see when it is wrong. He has also learned to read by memory rather than phonically.

You could get independent assessments of dyslexia. I didn't do my ds1 as he has plenty of other problems not specifically dyslexic like motor problems (fine and gross), auditory processing, general sensory processing stuff - ie. developmental delay. If this is the only area holding your dd back, it is worth checking it out, for her self esteem.

I'm not sure if this is any indicator, or would help. But how about spot the difference pictures? Is she good at these? It may help her to pick up detail.

Thanks for replying - I'll try her with spot the difference, might be interesting to see.

Bumping for any more thoughts?