High reading age, low spelling age: why?

[Howmanysleepsnow]

At my request dd12 has recently had a dyslexia screening. She tells me it came out as low risk of dyslexia because her reading age is high (15+). However her spelling age is only 8, and she often reverses pairs of letters eg hte instead of the, and misspells common words eg won for one.
School haven’t communicated with me about it since the test on the 3rd, though I’ve emailed 3 times.
Does anyone know what could be causing this or have any suggestions about how to support? When I’ve spoken to them previously school seemed to think it wasn’t a problem as her grades are excellent anyway, but I can’t help thinking they’re letting her down if they’d give support for this were her grades lower.

Processing issue, poor working memory? Ds had a spiky learning profile and is dyspraxic. Spelling improved with learning support, he used laptop for exams which helped him structure answers better.

Could still be dyslexia. Lots of very strong readers are dyslexic, but very poor spellers.

My eldest is like that, they also muddle up left and right.

My son's dyslexic, but he's a strong reader. It's a wide spectrum, but sadly a lot of people think if you can read well you can't be dyslexic. When my son was diagnosed (aged 8), the Ed Psych report showed that he a spiky profile, which is apparently a clear indicator. DS was top end for some skills, but then there was a huge dip to well below average for a couple of others. He now gets extra time for his GCSEs. So if your daughter has a similar profile, she deserves some support and recognition of it. Definitely insist on see the reports - they should have scored her on all sorts of tests. Look for marked disparities. Maybe post again on here when you've got those as someone might be able to tell you what it all means.

So, school have forwarded a report and SEN plan. An excerpt is below. Much of the plan is about how to give spoken instructions, but I don’t think she has any problem with those and don’t see how it’d help with spelling. Plus I’d have thought 52nd percentile was slightly above average so I’m not sure they’re targeting the problem. Any experts able to advise please?

Description of Learning Needs
X’s area of need is cognition and learning.
Primary school reported that X displays dyslexic tendencies/traits but does not have an official diagnosis (there is a history of dyslexia in her family). Her spelling is a particular concern to her. X’s last spelling age was 8 years and 7 months whereas her reading age was 15 years and 2 months. A dyslexia screener has been completed in school in February 2020, the results showed that the probability of X having dyslexia was a low probability. Her results where as follows: Phonological processing 60th percentile
Phonic decoding skills 87th percentile
Auditory sequential memory 52nd percentile.
An impairment in her Auditory sequential memory could be responsible for the problems she is experiencing with spelling

Can anyone help? Thanks

One last hopeful bump...

Was she hyperlexic?

What does her handwriting look like?

How are her fine and gross motor skills?

How does she score in phonic testing?

Dysgraphia?

I don’t know what hyperlexia is.
The only tests she’s had are above. Should she have had more?
Fine and gross motor skills are good (from my POV: she can sew, draws well, plays sports, rides horses)
Handwriting isn’t great, but not terrible.
What is dysgraphia and how would it be diagnosed?

One of mine just like this (Altho more extreme at both ends) and diagnosed with dysgraphia.

School tests can be quite limited. We had low probability by school but full screening a few years later came back with dyslexia. Dd got the time and help she needed and it’s helped a lot. Her reading was always good as she memorised the whole word but her spelling was terrible as she couldn’t do phonics. If you can afford a full screening it may be worthwhile.

Dd is dyslexic but is a good reader, play due to hard work and partly due to good comprehension meaning she can accurately guess what it says most of the time - bit harder when things don't have a context outside of a story. Her spelling is atrocious

Okay. My son had a bad spelling age when he started secondary. We improved it massively by using "Word Wasp".

The other thing that I would request is that she is included on the list of students to be tested when GCSEs start.