Dyslexia or just struggling with reading.

[OneFlewOverTheMumsNest]

Hi All, I’d be really grateful for some
advice. DD1 (6) has always been an emotional and sensitive soul. Since starting year 2 it is off the scale. She is exhausted in the evenings but is also sleeping badly. She’s always been a bad sleeper and any upset tends to easily disrupt her and results in night wakings. I think it’s school related. She says she finds school hard, it makes her tired and she just wants to be at home with me.

In terms of school she says she is good at everything except phonics! She is in what I think is the “bottom group” for phonics (school don’t tell you just from what I can work out) but is in the “hard group” as she calls it for maths and generally appears to be bright and articulate. She is however a very reluctant reader. She’s not terrible, she’s on stage 8, so not wildly below average for her age. There’s some things that she does that made me wonder if she’s dyslexic. Amongst other things she will:

• jumble words eg on/no
• Misread a word eg read a sign that said “mind the step” as “mind the sheep”. As funny as we all found this, it took me repeatedly asking her to check again before she recognised the t. It’s like she doesn’t see the letter (vision is perfect, was recently checked)
• Frequently loses place when reading.

On the other hand, she language development has always been amazing, she learnt to talk very young, she’s good at rhyming. Things I wonder expect of she is dyslexic.

Sorry this is so long and garbled. I’m pretty confused about it all myself. I’m just not sure where to go from here and I also I worry that I’m looking for something that isn’t there. Any tips on how we can help her.

Hmm maybe I should have posted this in primary rather than SEN. Sorry if it’s in the wrong place.

Hm. She is only in year 2. They are often really tired as the schools are preparing them for ks1 tests, internal or external depending on school. A big proportion of this is phonics, maybe that’s why she’s anxious about that.
How is her spelling and comprehension? These are often bigger indicators of dyslexia than just decoding. Our DD is excellent at decoding and spelling but useless at understanding what she’s read. It takes many different forms.
I would suggest you get some dyslexia friendly books online, maybe google some exercises you can do with her that are stress free. Unfortunately even with a dyslexia diagnosis not many schools will take it on board unless the child really is struggling to do anything. There are many children with dyslexia leaving primary school not being able to read so I think your best bet is to research it yourself, and if the work your then doing with her improves her reading than you’ve got your answer.

But please don’t stress, for lots of kids phonics just doesn’t click and 99% of them are perfect readers by y6 and you would’ve never known they struggled.

Hi I'm am going through the same thoughts about my DD who is 8 and yr4.
I have a post in Children's health (Dyslexia but a good reader) my DD can read fine but struggles with spelling, handwriting and a few other things.
I've had some great responses and suggestions on how to help her, including a website called Nessy, so I'd suggest having a look on the post and picking up some of the ideas.

As malmontar says it's difficult to get the school to help in this early stage and I've been told by my DD's teacher we would have to pay ourselves for an assessment.

It is still early days and sometimes these things do click and kids make rapid progress having struggled initially. However, she sounds like a carbon copy of my daughter who is moderately dyslexic. If she is dyslexic the sooner she receives support the better it'll be for her in the long term certainly in terms of her confidence and self esteem. I was an undiagnosed dyslexic into my twenties and I so wish someone had picked it up at 7 or 8.

Given that there was a family history and lots of very familiar signs we had DD assessed privately as school wouldn't screen or assess. At the beginning of year three she was refusing to attend school and her confidence had taken a massive knock following year two SATs. She had a great teacher that year and I don't think she would have passed without her but it was an incredibly tough year that really took its toll. She is doing much better now, confidence wise having received the diagnosis.

Nessy do an online screening test for kids. It's quite fun and DD enjoyed doing it. You have to pay but not much. From memory, at the end it says to seek an assessment if they're low in three areas . Dd was high in most but very low in one which stopped me from pursuing an assessment earlier. Her assessor said they're quite often not accurate although can be a good first step. Personally I'd trust your instinct and if you feel something isn't adding up seek an assessment, if you can. Good luck

Gosh I’m so sorry for not coming back to this thread sooner - we have been a house of illness! - but I really do appreciate all the advice and recommendations.

To the pp who asked about her spelling and comprehension, her spelling is variable, sometimes good and sometimes bad. She made something at school that she was really proud of but the spelling in that was terrible and that’s what first made DH and I think, coupled with her reading, is there an issue. Her comprehension, I’m not sure to be honest. I’m not sure what depth of comprehension she should have at this age but it’s something I will raise it at parents evening. Her reading is still the most apparent area of concern. Eg yesterday she read something to me and read the word chimpanzee fine, yet mistook ‘and’ for ‘can’ and ‘it’ for ‘I’. She does things like that regularly.

I will also check out the other thread mentioned in children’s health. I have looked at the Nessy website but haven’t bought the assessment. If people recommended it, then I will.

We still haven’t had a parents evening so although I’ve had initial discussions with her teacher about dd’s phonics I want to revisit the subject. I know she is young still but if there is an issue I would like to address it as soon as we can as I can see her confidence waning. If that means getting her assessed privately then we would.

When you say reading at stage 8 do you mean oxford reading tree?
My 7yo is on stage 4 ORT, (moving to stage 5) and she is in the highest reading group in her class!

Yes I think it’s ORT. I may have the numbers mixed up but I’m sure it said 8. The purple band anyway.

You have had lots of good advice already. Seconding the Nessy recommendation. Have a chat with the class teacher if worried. Level 8 is actually pretty good at age 6 and makes me wonder if they are going through the scheme far too quickly. Use a ruler for reading. Encourage her not to guess from the first letter and to sound through left to right. The misreading of little words is fairly common. SHe may have genuine difficulties or just be a late bloomer.

Thank you. I’ve signed her up
To Nessy and she really enjoys that. Seeing teacher this week.

The Nessy assessment costs around £20 I think for the year. It is a good jumping off point and if it flags anything up it would be a good thing to show school to kick off discussion for support/ further assessment. You could then choose to get an Educational psychology assessment or a dyslexia assessment done

Another avenue would be to see a Behavioural Optometrist for assessment. They can really help if there are any reading issues. My son had issues reading from a book and then focussing on the board and moving between the two - a normal eye sight test doesn’t pick up these issues. His eyes also jumped around a lot fence missing out words/ jumping to the next line/ last line etc

Thanks @Lara53. I’ve downloaded Nessie and she enjoyed doing the dyslexia quest test. It came out that the likelihood of her having dyslexia is low. However there is a massive variable between some of her scores. Her worst was 30% and her best 100%, so that’s pretty confusing. I’ve booked an appointment with a behavioural optometrist so hopefully that will reveal something.

What were the other scores? A dyslexic profile is typically spiky, but it could be that only one or two things are slightly weaker. Screeners are a useful tool as a first port of call, but obviously cannot provide the same level of detail/ insight as a Dyslexia Assessor or Ed Psych report. Good luck

My daughter's nessy screen was only low on one area and high on all the others. We had her fully assessed and she's been diagnosed now. The screens are only a tool but I was told by her assessor that if there is a discrepancy on any part of a screen you should pursue a full assessment. DD's profile was an awful lot more spiky than the nessy screen suggested.

That’s interesting @Lara53 and @chickadee12. The other scores were in the 60s, 80s and 90s.

Interestingly she has tried coloured overlays today and when she used the pink one she said wow! And explained that the words were stuck to the page, not floating up and she could see all the words on the page, whereas usually she misses some.

Do you know if she gets visual disturbances? Words moving etc? Does she struggle to track from one line to the next?

My DD21 is a poor speller, cannot copy from a whiteboard, doesn’t understand some of the phonic rules for spelling or reading. She has Visual processing issues but despite this she has just left uni with a first class degree in a essay based subject. She recieved DSA and extra help and adjustments to exams etc

Sorry massive cross post with your latest update!

It would also be a good idea to research Irlens syndrome. Good to hear the overlays help. You can get pink coloured paper for when she needs to write (ie complete a worksheet) so she doesn’t have to lift the overlay to write down

That sounds great re the pink overlay. It does sounds as though an assessment with a Beahavioural Optometrist could be a very useful step. Yes and agree with pink paper - we have children who benefit from worksheets printed on different colours or also slight enlargement if text is small. one pupil also writes lots more on yellow lined paper as she feels 'less tired' using it.

That’s really interesting @KTyoupigeon and congratulations to your DD. That’s such an amazing achievement. DD is bright as a button so I’m sure she’ll do well at whatever she chooses. I’m just pleased we/she could identify where she needs help early on (although I know th process is just starting) as it’s the emotional effect that she seems to be struggling with most. She’s incredibly sensitive and prone to anxiety I think.