Dyslexia and school questions

[Purplelooby]

1. I'm 90 % certain my daughter (aged 8, year 4) has dyslexia but school say she hasn't because she is Greater Depth reading (but Working Towards in writing and had spelling and handwriting interventions last year). She reads very inaccurately but has excellent comprehension so compensate for her errors. She can't however understand simple written instructions in her homework book. She used to he GD maths but last year she got almost 100 % on the mental arithmetic test but couldn't understand what the wordy maths test questions were asking, so averaged as Expected. She is GD in science, Spanish, history and geography so clearly bright, yet can't spell some the year 1 common words. Recently she has lost tons of confidence and other kids are teasing her for how bad her spelling and handwriting are. She is also unbelievably disorganised, can't hear rhyming, very emotional and forgets instructions/things to despite her longer term memory being excellent. Shall I pay for an assessment?

1. Her teacher this year has handled her very badly and knocked her confidence hugely. Example: making her rub out all her work because she forgot to leave a line after the title, making her repeatedly copy the number 3 out instead of doing the same maths as everyone else because she kept doing it back to front, telling her she shouldn't be spelling wrong when copying from a book, telling the whole class off about spelling using the example that he shouldn't be telling year 4s how to spell "with". It was my daughter who had spell it wrong. She has been having panics and sobbing about parents' evening (tomorrow) because she thinks she, "isn't good enough", thinks her handwriting isn't neat enough, thinks her spelling is bad, etc. I have always instilled in my kids that I only want to hear about hard work and good behaviour on parents' evening, so I can't understand this anxiety. How shall I handle this teacher? The other kids and parents think he's the best thing ever, so I feel out at sea. I want to gently make him aware how he has made her feel but it's hard when school won't consider her being dyslexic.

Help please!

Teacher here-

AFAIK there is a cost to screen for dyslexia and sometimes there isn't enough in the school budget to "justify" it. When there is a diagnosis there isn't a whole lot of extra support as most of it can be done with or without a diagnosis. I have a little girl who I suspect is dyslexic but all strategies I'm using I'd use if she did have a diagnosis. It's a tough one but perhaps have a chat with the SENCo if you haven't already? If you're willing to I think you can pay for the screening.
Have the school done an informal screening for it? If so, what was the result of it?

As for the teacher query, raise it with him when your child isn't there tomorrow. Just be completely honest and say how you're pleased she has him as you've heard glowing reports from prev parents (if you do feel this!) but go on to describe how she's doing. It'd break my heart if your child was in my class and they, or you, were feeling like this. We're all here for the same reason so transparency is key. Talk about how you're concerned and ask if they have any resources that could support her at home? Discuss how you've noticed a decline in her MH since start of the year and would like to get to the bottom with it. Is your child usually well behaved and therefore been placed next to a "naughty" child to set a positive example but instead they're being mean and causing problems? Could be a number of things really.

If he responds badly, or you'd like to raise it more formally, speak to SLT.

As for handwriting and spelling, do not worry. As a Y4 teacher I'd recommend practising her high frequency words and perhaps make these fun into games, and another thing I tend to do is get them to practise their handwriting by writing their spellings. Hitting two birds with one stone!

DMs open if you need anything, best of luck x

If you can afford to pay for an assessment I would. In my experience Primary schools only screen for “common” dyslexia traits, possibly because they don’t understand it enough or because they don’t have the resources to support effectively so don’t want to identify it. DD was only diagnosed very late in secondary because she didn’t have a typical presentation of dyslexia but was then found to have significant processing delay. Sadly a great deal of damage to her mental health had already been done

Thank you so much both. Bagged I actually used to be a teacher (although secondary) and I'm a governor at a primary school (not the same one my kids are at) so I definitely hear where you're coming from about budgets. In fact the teacher last year did say that they could only pay for the most serious cases to be assessed. Her teacher last year was very supportive and put her in spelling and handwriting interventions, but said she doubted that DD had dyslexia because she reads so well. I suspect that in the past parents have tried to force school to pay for an assessment if they have conceded that a child might be dyslexic, so the party line is now "definitely not dyslexic". Or school needs to improve their CPD around dyslexia.

Thank you for the advice dealing with the teacher. I really don't want to be "that parent" and I remember that the worst parents at parents' evening were always teachers themselves, so I've always kept an excellent relationship with their teachers. My older son had this teacher for 2 years with no problems.

chocolateisavegetable what were the signs of your daughter's dyslexia? I totally hear you about the damage to mental health. DD has issues with anxiety so this is not what she needs. My heart broke when she told me that she's not good enough and it's worth because her older brother finds academics things easy and accidentally rubs it in her face a lot.

There is a dyslexia checklist a lot of primary schools use; it's about 2 pages long and your school's SENCO should have it. Ask for it and you can go through it yourself.

FTR, 2 of my children ticked no boxes; my dyslexic child ticked pretty much all of them.

If your child does as well, then go from there.

So I had parents' evening and went in very positive with the teacher explaining how upset she has been and why, but not actually citing things he has done directly. He was incredibly concerned that her confidence is being knocked and is very keen to help support our private dyslexia diagnosis, which he thinks is a good idea. Hooray!

Thank you bagged for reminding me of my own teaching days and the parents who were grumpy, which in turn made me determined to be positive :)

amazing!!!!!! so happy it all worked out :)

For her it was that the quality of her work when under time pressure didn’t match what she could achieve when not under time pressure. Also French lessons became incredibly stressful - imagine that you struggle to process verbal instructions in English and then going into a lesson where all instructions were in a foreign language which happens to be one of the most difficult for people with dyslexia. Her spelling wasn’t great but not so awful that it was an indicator. Reading comprehension was way ahead of chronological age and handwriting fine

I’m really pleased your parents evening went well

Just to say my 18yo DS was diagnosed with dyslexia in year 4. He never struggled with reading. This year we had to have his diagnosis reviewed before university and he was also diagnosed with dyspraxia.

Nessy only gives you a likelihood and can be very inaccurate. Not a fan personally.

I did a PG Dyslexia teaching course when we thought our ds was dyslexic - he is. Go with your gut OP. Teacher sounds a bit of a full of himself arse imo. Is he very young?

@Purplelooby

Ask him what training he's had in dyslexia.

You would be surprised to know perhaps that Sen isn't in teachers training and people don't know what it is.

At home you could try SNIP LITERACY PROGRAMME. It's free to download and print. My son struggled in primary school. SENCO continually said he just need ed to concentrate more! They did nessy screening came back as not likely to have dyslexia, however they only told me this and never showed the report, so I did it myself at home and it came back as highly likely. they finally agreed to get him assessed ... Report said he's profoundly dyslexic! So if you feel it... Believe it and keep going. I have fought and fought and finally got an EHCP for my ds. Every "expert" told me the L.A. won't issue for dyslexia, however the tribunal judge had other ideas. And was damming about the schools lack of understanding and help.
he's in secondary school now and finally has some great support. Keep going. You can do it😀