Waiting for educational psychologist assessment- in the interim what can I do to support DS?

[JumpingJellyfish]

DS (first born) is nearly 7. He's had problems since starting school with reading and writing - thankfully school picked up on it fairly quickly and he has an individual education plan and already gets half an hour a week one-to-one with a learning support teacher, and some classroom assistant help during the week. However, in order to continue to support him the school need a diagnosis and statement, and he's now been referred by the school to an educational psychologist. I've been warned the waiting list is long, and in the meantime DS's self confidence is getting lower & lower, and he's increasingly frustrated by his own limitations. He has a weak working memory- finds it almost impossible to copy things off the board, and his writing speed is painfully slow. Reading is beginning to improve thanks to the school's intervention but spelling still very difficult. Dyslexia looks likely, but he was also born very premature so possibly some issues from that. Like many similar kids he's pretty bright in other spheres- great long term memory, loves science/nature/facts, pretty good at numeracy, and no physical/coordination issues.

Any advice on how I can support him through this stage would be much appreciated? Much of his homework he finds incredibly frustrating (e.g. constructing ten sentences including five key words) and it can be hard for us both to get through these, and although I do try to emphasise his strengths (e.g. factual knowledge, gymnastics skills etc.) he is very aware of where he sits relative to the skills of his peers (e.g. not able to read the same level books they're on, having to have extra support, etc etc.). I've explained his brain is just wired slightly differently (his younger sister finds learning to read very straightforward, which DS has noticed) and he just has to do things in a different way. He's good at listening but retaining visual patterns etc. almost impossible.

My mum suggested trying to help his mental skills by learning a musical instrument- not sure there's any evidence this could help (may be another source of frustration I can see!) but any similar ideas very welcome? Horrible to see him so sad about classwork and being "different" :(

My DS sounds similar to yours. I am not in the UK, and I ended up paying to get an ed psych report done privately (school told me the waiting list was 4 years, I wasn't willing to wait).

Homework-wise I try to minimize the amount that he has to do and when it is written homework we do it on the computer. Is that an option for you? My DS is slightly older than yours (9) but if he has to compose a piece of writing he uses the computer, sometimes by himself with me checking it over and making corrections (his spelling is quite bad, so much so that spellcheck can rarely pick up the correct word) and if time is more limited (ie, I just found out the assignment is due tomorrow) then he dictates and I type for him. When he used to get sent home with worksheets I used to scribe for him. I should say also that part of his IEP at school is to have someone scribe for him so I used that as my precedent.

Funnily enough, our pediatrician recommended putting him into something like music or chess because he is quite bright but school is a challenge for him, it would be another outlet for his brightness as it were. We haven't done this due to lack of interest on his part and lack of time on mine.

Mostly I just try to minimize the amount of school stuff at home. He has 6 hours a day of school which is a challenge for him, so I try not to put any pressure on at home.

Agree with toutpuissant, scribe for him and get him typing, best way as word omissions, substitutions and poor grammar tend to linger on (my Ds2 is 13) and now has a laptop for school. He can reorganise his thoughts and correct things afterwards.
Copying off the board is a no no, ask them to give him handouts- this is still a problem for DS2. (note to self- phone school and remind them)

More importantly big up those strengths, we are continually amazed now that DS2 is in Secondary, at how he's excelling at his favourite subjects. Get him on computer games for Maths (reader rabbit maths is brill), did Education city for a while finished all the Science and Maths level (sadly left the English levels way behind ).

Might have to help him yourself on the reading side daily consistent work is required every day for say 15mins (we used Toe by Toe but depends on what he gets on with). Going to be a long hard slog i'm afraid for you and him, my DS2 is bogged down at the moment. Good luck.

Thank you- I'd been wary of scribing for him but it would definitely ease his frustration. I can get him on the computer more- he hasn't used one much at home as I have a toddler who can't help but intervene whenever DS tries to use the computer! I'll google toe-by-toe and the reader rabbit and education city.

I have to say I feel terribly guilty at the moment as I work part-time (including 2 afternoons), have a daughter with cystic fibrosis who takes quite a bit of care and a toddler, so homework sessions are squeezed in and usually quite hard to focus solely on supporting DS (DH works until 7pm, which is too late to then help out with DS's homework). I'm desperately trying to find things that can work for him but also fit in with our slightly busy life. We read together every day - both his school book plus I read at bedtime, which he's always loved. But literacy homework is like pulling teeth :( And he's often exhausted straight after school and just wants to play, so I find getting him to focus again after shcool hard.

Any tips for better homework management/timing? Thank you!

I know that guilt very well Jellyfish. I have four children altogether, the one I mentioned above is the oldest. Besides him I also have 2 with speech issues. And a husband that works evenings and weekends. Frankly, I just have learned to prioritize. There are not enough hours for me to do everything so I do what is most pressing - assignment due tomorrow gets done, speech therapy may or may not get done, reading practice gets done at bedtime provided we get there at a reasonable hour. We can only ever do our best.

I will add to your Googling - Dance Mat Typing. It's a free online learn-to-type program. We also downloaded a SpongeBob SquarePants typing program, simply because he likes SpongeBob, had to pay for that one but not too much IIRC..

Thank you toutpuissant - you certainly have your hands full. I can't help but think if DS was an only child, or one of two, especially if DD didn't have CF, how much more I may be able to help him. But that's really a pointless thing to think as we can't change our situation (and I do love having the 3 monkeys!). Prioritising and accessing tools that may make him want to do something that will improve his literacy skills is key I guess. I was supposed to increase my work hours but really find if I'm not home afterschool then we really fall behind with homeworks (just too much to squeeze into 5.30pm and bedtime), so I'm trying to have more afternoons home.

Will add those to the google list! x

Memory games like finding pairs ( make it easy at first by not having too many cards)
Kim's game ( old fashioned 'parlour' game trying to remember what's on the tray)
Just asking him to remember instructions eg " can you go upstairs and get your reading book" and then making them gradually more complex

Puzzles you can buy like Shape by Shape again, make it easy. At first he can look at the answers and just try to copy the shapes.
Also games like Connect 4 good for visualising, remembering what move next, forward planning etc

Writing speed slow could be fine motor skills so lots of Hama beads / lego

There's a lot you could do without him realising. DD has just seen an EP (privately but it cost about £500) and is doing Vision Therapy Exercises. The report highlights areas that she is weak on ( which TBH we, and school knew anyway) but in her case it also showed she had an extremely high IQ so at least school are now responding to my concerns differently

Also meant to say that encouraging his areas of interest will be a big help in the self confidence stakes esp with his peers. A boy at my DS school is almost blind and she says the best advice she was given was to encourage a really strong interest so he is known to his peers as "X who is great at music" rather than "X the blind boy" in the way that children assign things!

Also "I went to the supermarket and I bought...." type memory games that you can play on the way to school etc should help with working memory I would think. You can also get everyone else involved with that and make it quite silly. In fact the sillier the better as it's more likely to be remembered - show him how to make mental links eg, well Jessica would buy a ton of chocolate wrapped in shiny silver paper, I'm going to buy washing up gloves (or a robot to do the washing up!), he could buy a large red bowl of his favourite cereal..... the more description the better.

Our DS is dyslexic with a poor working memory and homework is often a challenge. For literacy if he has to think of something to write we now record it on our phones so he can play it back to transcribe it rather than having to remember the idea and how to write at the same time. We then look at spelling as a third stage - usually just amending a few and if there's any energy left. Or I call out the spellings to him and he just concentrates on the writing. Remembering a story, physically writing it and trying to spell all at once would be too much - for all of us I think.

My DD has similar problems, she has been assessed by the ed psych at school- she is 9, and school are working to support her.

Homework can be a real nightmare, and take ages and be very painful for all if us. Also, because she does have to work twice as hard at school to achieve less than others, the last thing she wants to do when she gets home is more homework! Fortunately, the school have been completely understanding, and have said - if she wants to do the homework great, if it's proving difficult, give her a break. They want to work with us to keep her enthused about learning.

Thank you once again for your very insightful support. This is all still quite new to me and so I'm kind of "feeling my way" around what I should be doing and what I can do to support DS. Spoke to the SENCO today to try to find out how long we're likely to have to wait for Ed. Psych. assessment- apparently last child the school submitted for assessment the wait was 10 months!!! She's going to call next week to find out roughly how long we may have to wait. I am trying to read up a bit to familiarise myself with the terminology etc. to help "label" DS's strengths and weaknesses, but also know I am not qualified to disgnose him - but he seems to fit many of the dyslexia "criteria". I will definitely try games that flex his memory- interesting the pairs game our DD1 loves, but DS often avoids, as if he senses that it's harder for him. He enjoys lego and although we haven't had them out for a while (again, our gorgeous toddler tends to throw spanners in the works) he did enjoy Hama beads.

Really appreciate your advice - thanks again :)