Early signs of dyslexia?

[SomeOtherUser]

Our daughter's teacher suggested in her most recent parents' meeting that she could be showing some early signs of possible dyslexia. She did underline that she is of course not qualified to diagnose, and that it is too early in any case, but suggested that we keep it in mind if she continues to struggle as she gets older. She is 5.5 and in Y1.

To give an overview of where she is at:

• She reads at an expected level for her age and without much difficulty (e.g. a 20-page early reader book in one or two sittings), and her reading comprehension is good

• Still spells out longer words before fluently reading them, e.g. "s-i-t-t-i-ng, sitting", even when she's just read the same word

• She still reverses numbers and letters quite often, and sometimes whole words

• The feature the teacher specifically mentioned may be a sign of dyslexia is that she also reverses digraphs, such as "cion" for "coin"

• Can't tell the time yet - might be normal for this age though

• Her handwriting is messy, comparable to how our oldest's was in YR - the letters are large and not in proper order on the page

• As far as I know, she is able to tell left from right

If I'm going to be honest, I would not have worried about any issues yet as, whilst her older sister's writing was admittedly stronger at this age, she doesn't appear to feel like she's struggling, and enjoys reading and writing. Your thoughts and experiences would be gratefully received!

Sounds normal to me. DD is also in year 1. Will be 6 in April. Is on level 4 of Biff, chip and kipper. Reading it confidently in 1 sitting I think 18 pages.

She can only do o clock and half past times and not always spot on. She also sometimes gets lower case b and d mixed up.

For reference she's in the top reading group in her year. She has 10 spelling words home a week and test on a Friday examples include wing, sing, king, we, you etc. She generally has 10 on this. However she will also randomly guess words sometimes that don't even start with the letter of the words she's guessed. Drives me bonkers.

Her letter size is variable and sometimes neater than others. No concerns raised from her teacher yet. Hope that's helpful.

That sounds all within normal range.

My daughter is dyslexic and at that age she still couldn't do phonics, couldn't break down a word to decode, got letters back to front (that is normal at that age though), her verbal did not match what she could get on paper or read etc.....

We finally got her assessed this year (they wont assess until they are 8 with the updated guidance from the British Dyslexia Association) and the report said her verbal communication and IQ (130) is very high, but her profile is very typical of dyslexia, slower processing speed, cant write down the alphabet in order etc..... still doesnt have secure phonics knowledge. We have given up with phonics now and just sight reading words and dont make a big deal of it.

Keep an eye on it, but you have a few years until she can be fully assessed anyway. School may do a screener to give a guide on dyslexia or not but they are not very accurate in all cases. Ours did that in Y3.

Reversal is very common at this age. The teacher shouldn’t have raised this and as she said she is not qualified to diagnose.
Could have mentioned any concerns without mentioning dyslexia.
Sounds like she’s doing fine though.
I’d have been asking if she’d spoken to the SENCO for advice.

As a teacher, while I cannot give an ‘official’ diagnosis, I can tell you which children in my class are dyslexic quite clearly and I would suggest listening to her. It isn’t something to worry about and actually early support is really easy to put in place and if they think she is dyslexic the sooner they can adapt the learning to suit her learning style the better :)

I think it is a bit ridiculous all the stepping around the point that teachers are expected to do. What is wrong with saying “your daughter is showing signs of difficulties which are present in children with dyslexia, you may want to keep it in mind?”. She expressly said she could not diagnose. Otherwise you have to wait for the parents to bring it up and that can take years!! So totally disagree with you on that!

OP, I think it depends on how much you practice reading at home. The reversal thing is classic dyslexia, especially at whole word level and when writing. I’d keep the teacher’s suggestion in mind as she progresses through the school and see how your DD develops.

I am a qualified teacher of dyslexic pupils and while some of the observations the teacher has made could point to dyslexia, they can also simply be indicative of her developmental stage.

A more reliable indicator is differing dominant sides e.g. right handed/left footed.

Ask her to listen to a phone, which ear does she use? Which eye does she use to look down a telescope/kaleidoscope? It doesn't matter which side is dominant, you are looking for inconsistencies, either swapping feet for kicking a ball, or e.g. left footedness but right-eared. If she is ambidextrous she is more likely to be dyslexic.
As above she won't be assessed until she is 8 yrs old because most elements of the assessment are developmental in younger children.
Dyslexia teaching concentrates on phonics but usually in smaller graduations than KS1 phonics teaching requires. Learning spellings for tests is inappropriate imo, children should be taught spelling strategies such as 'word families' and the correct use of a dictionary, mnemonics can be helpful and reminders such as 'bed' illustrated with a person lying on the letters with the head on the 'b' to show which way those letters face.

My DDs earliest signs were things like struggling to learn to count (but could group things in even groups) and following instructions with several stages. We did start discussing dyslexia in Yr1

I'm dyslexic but I wasn't diagnosed until I was at University and suddenly all my difficulties made sense. I'm the opposite though, I struggle to sound out words, I just memorise what they look like. I'm terrible at spelling, I get letters and numbers the wrong way round, I have an awful memory. I write slowly and I can't do joined up handwriting. Learning another language was just impossible for my brain.

Funnily enough I'm a big fan of reading books and I belong to a writers group and win writing competitions...so it hasn't stopped me! But obviously people with dyslexia are all different.

I would say it's quite young to know for sure but great to keep it in mind and great the teacher are noticing and, hopefully, supporting her. I wish my teachers had paid attention!

Thanks everyone!

Yes, I'm totally fine with what the teacher said - I didn't write out exactly how she put it but basically said that she's been teaching a long time and she would keep it in mind if she were us. She framed it as just something to help her get a little more time and assistance if she needs it as she gets older.

I'm not overly fretting about it - I know it's not the end of the world - but I was interested to hear some outside opinions.

In answer to one PP, we read to her and she to us most days. She enjoys it and doesn't seem to struggle with it from her own perspective, but her reading is not completely fluent yet. She's fine with phonics and blending as far as I can tell, but she still sounds out most words rather than fluently reading them.

The comment regarding ambidextrousness is interesting. I've not noticed that she is (but will keep an eye), although I myself am somewhat. I am not dyslexic though - I'm not aware that anyone in either my or DH's family is.

DS 9 was diagnosed earlier in the year, but I’ve known he’s dyslexic since he was about 5 or 6.

It was just really clear to me (and I subsequently learned, his reception teachers too). His dad is dyslexic and also suspected quite early.

He never showed any interest in letters / alphabet flash cards/ learning to write- but was avidly interested in literally everything else. Didn’t grasp letter formation or any of the phonics in reception (or phonics at all, ever really) and he was (still is sometimes) really frustrated by the fact he just couldn’t “get it” - but has always had a fantastic - truly astounding- vocabulary and memory for information given to him orally. He also struggles to learn anything “in sequence”- so counting, alphabet, days of the week, months of the year etc took ages (and still not totally secure)- but can recite from memory huge amounts of information he’s heard just once in a podcast for example.
Also mirrors letters, can’t retain phonics sounds, and sight reading is hit and miss.

On the other hand, and this is really important to say, because it’s true of many dyslexic kids- if you meet him/ teach him (and this is from all of his teachers) he’s clearly a very bright boy with an incredible ability to grasp complex ideas in sciences, humanities etc and apply and share his knowledge. He’s also got a real gift for making things - whether it’s Lego, woodwork, sewing, or simple machines.

Many dyslexic kids can feel quite frustrated in the school system, and because they’re able to keep up “intellectually” but can’t easily access written information independently / get what they can do down on paper, their confidence can be quite knocked by seeing their peers sail through things that are really hard for them to grasp. We’re lucky- DS’s school are fantastic, and his classmates are ace at working together, and will support DS with reading etc in group tasks (they’re a lovely bunch)- but even so he does really struggle with the frustration/ perceived unfairness of having dyslexia sometimes. I think it’s really important to identify their strengths too, and really help them lean into them and celebrate what they’re great at to help counter this.

I have recently done some training in dyslexia which I found really interesting. Are either you or your partner dyslexic? The reason I ask was we were told if one parent is dyslexic child has 50% chance of being dyslexic. If both parents are dyslexic then child is very likely to be dyslexic too. This was interesting to hear and I know families which fit this fact.

DH realised he had dyslexia (and got a test) due to DDs difficulties. It made his whole academic life make sense, like failing GCSE English despite other high grades.

Definitely worth persuing a test via a trained dyslexia assessor. Usually year 2 of school is the earliest it could be diagnosed.