Does this writing look dyslexic?

[Iristutu]

Hi, my DSis looking potentially dyslexic. If anyone can look over this story and let me know if they think it is possible, or level it I would be very greatful. I would be interested to know the level as his reading is a 2b so it's looking like a big gap to me. I'm looking to talk to senco, he's age 6, so I'm guessing they will attempt to fob me off, but the huge ability gap is the red flag I feel.

Wonsa pon a tam the wos a famil hoo livd in the
(once upon a time there was. Family who lived in the)
Forisd nat dad went hunting he didnt cum bak
(Forrest one night dad went hunting he didn't come back)
So ten the cabig and fish dad faniliy ceme bak.
( so then they ate cabbage and fish dad finally came back)

Thank you.

Faniliy did make me chuckle a lot.
I'm not really a wait and see type of person. I wish I could be a lot more relaxed.

Thank you for everyone's comments I really appreciate your input.

That looks pretty normal to me for year 1 too . Its the start of year 1 aswell remember. My dd's writing lagged way behind reading. She had a reading age of 11 at 6 but her writing was like that. Its caught up now, shes a great speller now in yr5.

I second what Mrz said
Writing usually lags behind reading at this stage as it is a much more complex process. The child needs to think what they want to write, then how to spell each separate word, then how to form each letter.

My ds is dyslexic and at that age his writing was virtually incomprehensible. It would have taken a lot more than a chocolate bar to motivate him, and asking him to practice spellings would have resulted in a meltdown. Oh and even if he had managed to rote learn a few they wouldn't stick for more than a day or two, if that.

School said that they wouldn't provide any extra support, even after he had his assessment as he was less than two years behind the average. This was despite the fact that they acknowledged his spoken and written abilities were quite radically different.

I don't know much about levels (ds is 15 now) but is 1c and 2b really miles apart? My ds has learned to read fluently after specialist tutoring, but his handwriting and spelling are still dreadful. I'd not say that his dyslexia is expressed in that gap though, although many are surprised that his reading is good. Possibly an intervention might have fixed the writing too, but with computers it's much less of an issue so we didn't worry too much.

Dd2 is also year 1 and I would be pleased if her writing was that good! Meanwhile she is on green level reading books, so also a big gap between reading and writing.

Your son looks like he's spelling everything phonetically at the moment, which suggests he understands phonics but hasn't learned all the actual spellings. I don't know much about dyslexia admittedly but doesn't it tend to affect the order of letters in a word?

My ds spells phonetically, but he is most certainly dyslexic.

Thanks everyone, yes the gap in levels is pretty big, the school is nervous to move the reading levels up higher due to the writing issues.

Maybe it's panicking over nothing, maybe they think it something other tHan dyslexia. Time will tell I suppose.

Glad you all think it is phonetic, it doesn't look it to me it looks so odd when he can read fluently.

Coolas, thank you I am planning to group them, just whizzing through the HFW first as that should make it all easier. Might also show him once upon a time and they all lived happily ever after.

My now 7yo DT was flagged as possible dyslexic during year1, I thought this was too early really but concerns were raised about some things in nursery and yrR and his Dad is a secondary English teacher and also had some concerns.

DT really struggled with reading and concentration while trying to read, would not recognize high frequency words e.g 'Biff went out, Biff came in, Biff had tea, Biff went to bed'....each instance of Biff would be like a totally new word to him. He could decode his key words but not remember them when shown them again. He still doesn't sight read signs and things when we're out and about.

He consistently got b and d muddled and written wrong and many other letters backwards or in the wrong place in words, he often tries to start reading words from not the inital letter so will read 'now' as 'own' for example and will start reading a sentence from the second or third word in unless guided. His spelling is very very phoenetic so we have 'woncer' for 'once upon a' and 'biskll' for 'bicycle' .

He bombed the year1 phonics test getting only 6 of the words correct.

He finds it hard to keep track of lists of things, instructions need to be broken down into manageable chunks so he can remember the things he needs to do. Eg at Swimming Club he can't just be told 'do 2 lengths of front crawl, 4 breaststroke and 2 backstroke' and crack on, the teacher will remind him at the end of each stroke change what he needs to next or he gets anxious as he's trying so hard to recall it all.

He has a slight speech impediment as well and writes phonetically to match how he says things.

School very gently raised it with us and have been amazingly brilliant put loads of intervention in place so he has acetates, worksheets printed on coloured paper, computer screens displayed in the colour he finds easiest to see, has a remedial reading scheme (Toe by Toe) and extra 1:1 support in class with reading.

School SENCO and very experienced class teachers have said they are so certain he's dyslexic there's no point getting him tested (costs£ £'s). Save it for when he's due to move up to secondary so he gets the support he needs.

Sorry for the essay. Hope that helps

@Iristutu,

Can I just ask how you are teaching your son to spell?

Would you be surprised to know that poor spelling is a much more common problem than poor reading? It's a hidden problem because it is much easier to get by with poor spelling (as there are aids available, such as spelling checkers) than it is with poor reading skills. Yet if you were to ask a secondary teacher what percentage of children they teach who have poor spelling skills they are quite likely to give you a figure of 60% or more. These children aren't, in the main, 'dyslexic', they just haven't got to grips with the complexity of the English writing system and they haven't been helped by the fact that spelling is so often taught on completely mistaken principles.

The first principle of spelling, which your son clearly understands, is that the written word is constructed by working out the sounds it is composed of and writing a spelling for each of those sounds, in the same order in which the sounds come in the word.

The complexity comes because there is usually more than one way to spell each sound and good spelling depends on the speller's ability to remember how the sounds are spelled in specific words.

If a child is taught the sound spellings systematically, with lots of practice at writing words containing the specific sound spelling they are learning then the practice helps to embed the spelling and kinasthetic, or muscle memory helps them to remember the unique 'feel' a word has when being written. (It is kinaesthetic memory which enables you to write familiar words without having to think at all about how they are spelled). Also, most words have perfectly straightforward sound spellings in them with perhaps only one which needs particular practice/memorising.

I have a friend who does a great deal of phonics training all over the country. One of the 'exercises' she does is to ask trainees to spell an unfamiliar (usually 'made up') spoken word and explain how they arrived at the spelling they used. She says that most cases the word is broken into its component sounds, or syllables, and each sound is assigned a spelling. So that is how good spellers (at least, we hope they are good spellers because they are teachers or trainee teachers ) do it.

Now, consider the way that most people teach spelling; look at the word, say the letters (using letter names), memorise the letters, cover the word, write the memorised letters, uncover the word and check to see if you've got it right. Can you see anything in that routine which would teach a child that they are spelling the sounds which the word is made up of? How, through that routine, are they supposed to achieve the sound to spelling matching which good spellers do automatically when they are asked to spell an unfamiliar word?

Additionally, spelling lists have tended to be made up of random words, or words which contain a particular grapheme which could be representing more than one sound but the children aren't told that.

The expectation alone that children should 'learn' spellings by memorising the order of the letters in every single word is completely unrealistic; it's an impossible task. To jumble up word lists with no coherent rationale makes it worse.

I have only just started teaching him, mainly as he has refused to write at home and school flagged it at parents evening. I've just been asking him to write it out using letters ( foam) read it back, then if its wrong we look at the sounds.
He learnt to read in a similar fashion.

So we would do, Ship /Shop/ shin/ or hat/ cat/ rat/ mat/ pat
Hopefully making it tie in with phonics.

I wanted to do HFW as they are so useful.

I've never been convinced that he uses phonics properly as his reading is years ahead of the phonics he does in class. ( he may have worked out the code, it's difficult to tell he just reads and we rarely encounter words that he can't work out within context of the writing or by looking at them) he just need to see a word twice to remember it. I havent a clue if he memorises them or applies the code.

If I'm doing it wrong feel free to help me

I would start from the spoken word, ask him to tell you what sounds he hears and then get him to spell each sound, in order. Foam letters are OK if he is reluctant to write, but they won't do anything for kinaesthetic memory, so I'd encourage writing as soon as possible. Also, to say the sounds as he spells each one, not use letter names. It wouldn't be the end of the world if he never used letter names, they are really just a convention and something extra to learn. As long as he knows alphabetical order, even if he says /a/, /b/ /k/ instead of ae, bee, see, he'll be able to use dictionaries and indexes when the time comes.

And vary the position of sounds in the words; from your list if he can spell 'tap' he could spell 'pat', ship, - fish, shop - posh.

Excellent, sounding it out to check! Just watch out for him sounding out what he thinks he's written, not what he has actually written..

Many of the HFWs are very easy to spell; I'd start with the easy ones if you really want to do them and work up to the ones which have a slightly trickier or unusual sound spelling. Do you have a list you are proposing to work from?

If you're not sure if he uses phonics for reading have you tried him with some nonsense words? No context and complete unfamiliarity means that they have to be decoded. I have a list which I could PM you if you like (avoiding copyright issues - I'll quote the source).

P.S You could just buy a spelling programme like 'Apples & Pears' (Promethean Trust) which is highly recommended by many on here and takes the work out of it for you

Maki79 my DT's interventions only really started in yr2, they just kind of decided to let him get through yr1 'keeping an eye' and making sure he was mastering the basics of phonics and still keen and not miserable and struggling. I think the spectacular failure of the phonics test may have been the decider that intervention was needed .

I have been amazed at how 'on it' school have been and really thought we'd battle for help instead it's been thrown at me. Do get in touch with your dd's school SENCO if you have concerns though.

Thank you maize, I had looked apples and pears but was hoping not to spend £100 (can't see it cheaper) I will ask school of they have it.

His teacher gave me a list of 45 HFW. She also gave me a list of nonsence words, thank you for the offer though, v kind.

I will look at shifting the letters around and also writing them out a bit more.

Oh goodness, the 45 HFWs! That list was supposedly phased out 7 years ago, but a quick google confirms that they're still being heavily promoted!

I go come went up you day was look are the of we this dog me like going
big she and they my see on away mum it at play no yes for a dad can he am all is cat get said to in

No brainers: in, went, up, this, dog, big, and, on, mum, it, at, yes, a, dad, can, am, cat & get. He should have covered all the sound spellings for those. There are 18 out of the way...

Can any child not spell 'I' and 'a'?

Group: he, she,we & me; go & no (might as well do 'so' at the same time); day, away & play (could add in some more 'ay' words while you're at it). Do 'come' with 'some'. 'My', add words like fly, cry, try, by as well. 'See' with tree, three, bee. 'For' with sort, short, port (ships, not the drink!) 'Was' with want, wash, wasp,
'Look' with cook, took, crook, shook

The idea is to show that there is nothing at all unusual about the spelling of these words.

'you', they, all, said, of & to are all a bit more unusual.

'ou' as /oo/ can be found in soup & group so you might want to do them together

'ey' as /ay/ comes in grey & prey, maybe worth teaching if they're words he would use.

'All' is a funny one - it sounds like /or/ /l/, the /or/ is spelled 'al' the /l/ is the final 'l'; same in words like tall, ball, small, hall, call so might be worth teaching them as well.

'Said' sounds like /sed/ - the ai spells the /e/ sound. (May be found in certain, curtain, mountain, according to accent, but they're a bit advanced...)
'Of' - unique (?) with the 'f' spelling a /v/ sound.

Oh, and 'going' - 'go' with 'ing' on the end.

The more I look at that list the more ridiculous it seems. Most of the words are only there because they were used in repetitive 'Look & Say' reading schemes. You only have to look at 'normal' text; what is 'high frequency about mum, dad, look, cat, dog? I can go for days without reading them in text!

I have had teachers, seriously, tell me that these words aren't decodable...

OMG, this looks like one of masha's lists

I know they are a bit poor at phonics teaching, it seems to have stopped in year one!? They don't seem to do guided reading how I would expect ( 6 levels below book band level which are already too easy ) don't get me started on maths. They haven't actually done any spellings, I had asked what the approach would be and got a blank look.

A lot of the 45 HFW are easy and just got ticked off.

You can see why I need to intervene! It's an outstanding school apparently.

www.spelfabet.com.au/2013/07/spelling-for-kids/

Thank you I will look at spelfabet.

Iris tutu if phonics effectively ends after reception their teaching is more than poor!