What is going on with DS 8?

[Myohmy123]

Re-posting here as no response in SEN.

DS is 8 (year 4) and is making slow progress with reading and writing. He mixes up b and d and struggles with words like of and for. But, he passed the yr1 phonics test and can spell tricky words like fruit. His homework this week was to write a letter to a friend, he could spell dear and knew to end it yours sincerely. So, he can do some things we wouldn't expect him to be able to do and can't do seemingly simple things. He has just started seeing a tutor once a week to help with literacy, too early to tell if this will help. He is learning his times tables ok, struggles with a few, but is below expected level in maths. The main thing I am concerned about is that he just can't seem to write very much independently. He can learn spellings and phonics but can't seem to put this knowledge into practice. He can form letters neatly if he is practicing them but when he writes it's really messy.

Not sure what happens during the school day as he is so far behind now. He was on green level reading books for over a year but has been given some dyslexic friendly books, the totem series I think they're called, and has got on well with them. He's in intervention groups for everything but really doesn't seem to be making that much progress, especially with writing.

The school don't really seem to know what to do with him. He is unique and puzzling apparently! I am quite frustrated as he is bright and intelligent but something just isn't clicking. He has seen an ed psych through school who mentioned dyslexic tendencies and that was about it.

How do dyslexic cope at secondary school? How can I help him when we both just end up getting frustrated? I don't know how to help him? He loves school, is very sporty and sociable but I am worried about him losing confidence because he can't keep up.

Sorry for the enormous post!

You could get him assessed for dyslexia. It's very expensive unfortunately.
Bring dyslexic doesn't automatically get you any interventions.
If you are below Age Related Expectations for spelling, dyslexic or not, you will get interventions.
If you are below ARE for reading you will get interventions whether you are dyslexic or not.
You get help if you are below ARE for something. It doesn't matter what the cause is.
Benefits of a dyslexia diagnosis is that it hugely helps self esteem to know you are "Not stupid," (my dyslexic children's words)
and it is just that your brain is wired differently. There are many dyslexic strengths and people with dyslexia often go on to do very well in life - they are sought after in many industries.

Sounds like he could have dysgraphia. Get him assessed by an Ed psych.

Hi @Myohmy123,
Dyslexia(many language based learning differences are lumped in the dyslexia pot) runs in my family...I have it, DH has it, and our 3DC have it ...one of the problems with diagnosing it is that every one of us has a different type....since each person's brain is different, it is very difficult to 'tease' out each individual's areas of weakness..Our DD can't hear phonetically...she spells everything by sight...our DS1 has an issue with auditory dyslexia meaning he can't make the distinction between some sounds. It's called auditory processing issues. It isn't widely known that each letter of the alphabet is pronounced for a different length of time so some letters are harder to hear accurately.For DS1 it was the "d" sound and "j" sound that he mixed up. DS2 had auditory processing issues combined with vision problems that a regular optician or ophthalmologist could not detect. His eyes worked independently of each other meaning that at reading distance his eyes didn't converge to make a single object..
He saw double when he looked at an object...of course he had no way of knowing that this wasn't the way he was supposed to see so he got pretty good at deciphering things. I took him to a behavioural optometrist and with the aid of a computer program they diagnosed the issue in about 2 minutes.
Anyway, they all have made it through secondary school with average grades...but what is so neat is that all three are very extraordinary in other areas that the so called 'normal' people can't possibly learn how to do....
I think the best term is learning differences not learning difficulties because they can learn just fine, but the material needs to be presented in the way that they learn.
Love that the school people call your son unique.He IS unique, and they need to figure out how to help him learn because the world will miss out on his 'uniqueness' if they dont! Here are a few amazing people who were diagnosed with dyslexia..Steven Spielberg, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci...and the list of amazing people goes on and on....that's why it is called the "Gift of Dyslexia"...people who have it are out-of-the-box thinkers
You may want to google some of those issues I wrote about to give you a clearer picture of what you may be dealing with.
Please excuse any typos or grammar errors...I try to proofread, but I have visual processing problems myself.

Forgot to mention something.We live in the US and it is required in the upper grades to take 3 years of a foreign language...since my DC had learning differences they all studied sign language instead of German, French, or Spanish. Now that's pretty unique, isn't it?
In the US we have an organization called LDA , learning disabilities of america...not sure whete you are located but you can certainly google LDA and get some tips from them or also google to see if you have something similar where you live. Good luck!

Thanks for the replies x. Yes, think we will look into an assessment. It just feels that in a class of 30 he gets overlooked, and I want someone to "get" him and help him. An ed psych saw him through school but her report was just a rewrite of his life history, which we talked through with her, and about 1 paragraph saying he showed dyslexic tendencies.

I would get an Ed Psych assessment if you can afford it. It does sound like there's something going on since he's obviously a bright boy but underperforming in specific areas.

@Myohmy123
Do you have any universities near you? Often times students need to work with unique children for their specialty work...Look at unis with language departments ..they are always doing testing and different studies. They make it fun for the children to come by having little presents for them...We did this for years...kids loved it..although my DD put her foot down once when they were offering to pay her $100 to perform an MRI on her 'normal' brain to compare with brain damaged children...she said "No way! If they are willing to pay $100 it must be a horrible experience "! My DS said, "oh boy! A $100! Sign me up" The MRI turned out not to be so horrible. I didn't feel that it was being risky as DS was a skate boarder, snow boarded, surfer, football player, etc so I figured it would be very helpful to see what his normal brain looked like in case he ever got a concussion with all those extreme sports he was participating in.
When they were a little older and being tested in a study for normal language development in children, I was told after several tests that the DC weren't good candidates for this study because they DID NOT have normal language development...they all 3 had very weak areas, but also were off the charts( strengths wise) in other language areas. I was then able to show these test results to the school for further testing...

Also @Myohmy123,
There are many components to language that we dont even think about...written language, expressive language, comprehension. etc....🤣 if I didnt have learning differences myself, I could probably come up with many more but one of my weak areas is being able to access stored information when needed. Ah, the human brain is so fascinating. Enjoy getting to know all about your little guy's unique brain. My NDN used to love to pepper my 5 year old DS with questions because he said his answers were so unique compared to his own DS's answers and he could come out with some humdingers that were always spot-on as a different way to look at things.

You say he is bright. Depending in quite how bright, he may be able to hide quite a lot of his difficulties through sheer brain power.
So, the "simple" stuff he cant do is a total block. But he can remember the stuff he has been explicitly told.
It gets harder and harder to deal with brain power to get stuff done as things get more complicated.

I'd go for an Ed Psyc assessment, rather than a narrower dyslexia assessment, to see if there is anything else going on (I'd been saying my son was dyslexic from about aged 6, but ed psyc assessment aged 9 came back dyslexic, dysgraphic and gifted.....)

@Kitten,
That is a brilliant idea....all 3 of my DC also have multiple issues such as you've mentioned in your post..dysgraphia , spatial awareness, phonemic awareness, sensory motor issues....

He has been seeing a tutor since the beginning of the year and she has come up with some targets they will work on etc. He has poor phonolgical awareness and can't hear the sounds in words. Although, he passed the yr 1 phonics check. She comes to the school once a week so is in close contact with his teacher and the SENCO. The main focus will be on improving his reading, but there are lots of other little issues. She said she can "assess" him and is a member of patoss and is an APC assessor. I will speak to her after half term but I'm not sure of the difference between the type of assessment she will do and what an Ed Psych would do. He saw an Ed Psych through the school last year but not much came of it. It would be nice to unravel what is going on!

It's interesting reading everyone's stories. It shows how different we all are. It's made me realise how difficult it must be to go through the school system, that is mainly based around eventually passing exams and being able to produce lots of writing. Not sure how DS will cope.

Myohmy123 - He is still only 8! In much of Europe they don't start school till 7. Try not not to worry, however hard you find it.
And please understand that for many children, especially boys, learning to write English is extremely difficult, because it involves so much rote-learning of irregular spellings (fruit, brute, truth, group, root...). Most bright children manage to learn to write well enough in the end, but for many, the hundreds of irregular spellings put them off writing, because they know that they are likely to make mistakes. So praise him for what he is good at and encourage him to read as much as pos. Reading is the least painful and most enjoyable way of embedding the irregular spellings in children's brains. Many reluctant writers also get less anxious about it if they are told that learning to spell matters much less that the words they put down. Phonic spellings 'broot, froot, trooth, groop' are as legible as the spellings we force children to learn instead.

He isn't "reluctant" though, he just finds it harder than he should to put his thoughts into writing and he likes to read but also finds it hard. If we can find a way to help him hopefully things will be less of a struggle. He can learn spellings like fruit but misses out things like sounds/ letters in the middle and end of much simpler words. We do praise him, and so do his teachers, but things are starting to get noticeably harder and we would like to get him some help so that he can make progress at his own pace. He will need support to do this though.

I would give him a screener for Dyslexia and you can find out about the specific problems he has. Knowledge is power and all. This one is quite cheap and accurate, dyslexiagold.co.uk/DyslexiaScreeningTest

Myohmy123 You said at the beginning that he has just started seeing a tutor once a week. I hope that that will help. He definitely seems to need some help.
I happen to think that parents themselves can often help much more than they realise, or teachers and ed 'experts' admit. But I know that helping your own child can be very stressful, because of the emotional bond.
You seem surprised that he struggles with words like of and for. They may seem simple to you, but we mostly say 'ov' for 'of'. - 'For' has a regular spelling, but we also spell /or/ as in four, more and floor, and even awful. For many young children, such irregularities are totally baffling and confusing and make writing a hugely stressful challenge. In some ways our most used words pose the biggest difficulties. Children can't avoid using them, but many have puzzling spellings (e.g. many have some...). He may just need help with those to start with.