My son is 8 years old. His progress at school has not always been in line with what I would expect from an articulate, creative and intuitive child.
He transposes some letters fairly regularly, has difficulty interpreting and following instructions, calculates slowly but with good understanding, and writes unevenly with capitals sometimes used in the middle of a word. I have asked him why he puts a capital H or whatever in the middle of a word and he says it's easier. His use of punctuation is erratic.
He reads reasonably well but sometimes gets words such as here, there, was, saw muddled. He has occasional trouble tracking from line to line. His oral comprehension is very good.
He dislikes writing with a passion but will sometimes start projects of his own where he copies things from books or writes about the characteristics of fictitious Minecraft like character. His writing is usually stilted and quite simple.
At home at school he is strong willed and has a unbending sense of justice and fairness. His sense of humour is quite sophisticated and he is very intuitive. He lacks resilience and perseverance with more challenging homework etc, yet when he has the patience he can generally understand what is required.
So with this background in mind I decided to do an online screening test for dyslexia. The cost of formal testing is beyond my budget and the school would not sanction this as he is not 'failing' academically.
I had some technical problems with the test and my son had to do it 3 times ( not in succession) before the results were saved. So his result may have been slightly higher than just doing it once.The generated results say the probability of dyslexia is moderate. No specialist supervision is necessary but some online spelling and reading games and learning were recommended. As a general statement the blurb with the results said Phonological Awareness and Working Memory are the two most important screening results and low results in these areas would indicate referral. These were the two areas my son scored lowest 40% and 30% respectively. The other scores were between 50-62.
I am not quite sure were to go from here. I do think his working memory is an issue. And I see him struggling with following instructions, not just at home but at swimming lessons, games etc
I wander if anyone has been in a similar position or can offer some words of wisdom?