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Dyslexia 12yo-I need help with helping her!

6 replies

Youhavetobejoking · 10/10/2020 10:40

My DD was diagnosed privately with dyslexia at the beginning of Lockdown. We paid Privately as there was no funding available in school & this is still an issue. Sh's in the bottom 2% in 2 specifics area, but I'm not sure what that actually means for her. However; the SEN is great & I know I'll be able to speak with her & DD's other teachers now that they've had a chance to guage her ability over the last 5/52 schools have been back. I'm sure they'll advise me too. Though she has an IEP in place, school only seem to be giving extra time & not pressuring her to read out loud. I accept that there are lots of issues for teachers & schools right now & am fully prepared to do everything I can to help DD myself. But I don't know where to start!! Has anyone used software which has been helpful? Reading programmes? She's fairly receptive to discussing all of this & working with me, but I fear this will change in the next couple of years so I feel I need to get going with this ASAP. Thanks for reading!

OP posts:
OhCrumbsWhereNow · 10/10/2020 11:47

What are your DD's specific issues?

My Y7 DD was diagnosed in Y3. Her particular issues are spelling and punctuation, writing is very painful (hypermobile fingers), and because she struggles a lot with translating sounds into written letters MFL is a total nightmare.

The best thing we have done is to teach DD to touch type (used English Type Junior which is dyslexia friendly and fun to use) and she now has a laptop for pretty much everything except Maths and PE. It has made an enormous difference to the quantity of work she produces. There is a read-back function so she can listen to what she has written which helps with editing skills - plus spell check etc.

We are planning to try something like Dragon Speak once I've had a chance to speak to the SEN dept and see what they recommend.

DD does not find reading fun, so will not read for pleasure - I buy her audio books instead. We also use kindle so that she can use the dictionary features.

Have also found that she likes graphic novels and scripts - no idea why, but she seems to find reading plays a lot easier than a normal book.

DD also learns things much better if she starts with a synopsis of an entire topic. So, this is what A to Z is going to cover, and then doing the individual bits. If you start at A and work through to Z, half the time she hasn't understood the concept, panic sets in and she learns nothing. Ensuring that the overall concept is firmly understood before adding any detail seems to make a massive difference.

Make sure that if your child is entitled to extra time in exams that they also get this for tests in school. We discovered that DD never moved up levels in Maths in primary because she never got 50/50 in the weekly tests... she always got 48 or 49 because she never finished. However, her working memory and processing speed scores mean that she was fully entitled to 25% extra time.

It's a big learning curve.

Youhavetobejoking · 10/10/2020 11:53

That is super helpful, OhCrumbs, thk you. Spelling, punctuation & reading aloud are DDs biggest 'issues' though there may be more. She also dislikes reading & I have downloaded lots of audiobooks, but she's not really got into that yet. Must encourage that. DD is allowed the 25% extra time, so I do think there's an issue with memory & yes, she takes time to figure out what she's being asked so her processing is also a problem & it's why she hates being asked unexpected questions in class.

OP posts:
Youhavetobejoking · 11/10/2020 10:02

Ohcrumbs, have looked at Dragon Speak & that's exactly the sort of thing I'm thinking of getting. Do you know anyone who's used it? Also-what is MFL?

OP posts:
EwwSprouts · 11/10/2020 10:15

Specialist publishers of books with age appropriate content but lower reading age required.
www.barringtonstoke.co.uk/dyslexic-reluctant-readers/

MFL - modern foreign languages

OhCrumbsWhereNow · 11/10/2020 12:08

@Youhavetobejoking

Ohcrumbs, have looked at Dragon Speak & that's exactly the sort of thing I'm thinking of getting. Do you know anyone who's used it? Also-what is MFL?
Sadly not - but I discovered that DD was sending me beautiful text messages with perfect spelling and long words... turned out she was using speech to text function on her phone, so got me thinking about how to make that work on a bigger scale.

We spent years doing Toe by Toe and the other things that are supposed to teach you to spell - and she still can't spell - so I'm putting all the effort into teaching editing skills instead.

MFL - modern foreign languages. DD has just started Spanish and it's proving a complete disaster as she cannot do the phoneme to grapheme connection. I had hoped for Italian which at least doesn't have accents and is completely phonetic.

PipaJJ · 19/10/2020 11:44

Hi @Youhavetobejoking
I agree with @OhCrumbsWhereNow - with touch typing. My DD diagnosed in Year 5 - she did Nessy Fingers - worked wonders. Yoro Pens also good if speed is the issue.
Best move though was changing school - she was in a small church primary and although 'outstanding' they just didn't have the resource to support her. DD now in nonselective, nurturing but academic independent school - 15 per class and two adults in every class. She is wholly supported and for the first time in school is thriving..... worth considering.....

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