Dyslexia what's helped the most?

[Mutabilis]

I think my DD is dyslexic and we're waiting on an initial assessment at school and recently found out she is getting a lot of extra 1:1 and small group help at school they hadn't told us about. I feel a bit stuck on how best to help her at home as she gets very frustrated and emotional very quickly during homework and has no motivation to do anything extra like practice spelling or writing. Her teacher keeps emphasising practice but isn't that kind of part of the definition of dyslexia, that practice doesn't really help, it's finding alternative strategies? I am actually dyslexic myself but I think it's causing more of a block because other than empathy I've got no clue how to help her learn to spell or read as I don't really know how I did it and still struggle myself to some extent. Practice certainly doesn't help me. Just wondering if any other parents have any suggestions for what the best approach is, or if anything's really helped? Lockdown was impossible for getting her to work, especially writing, but she did just click with reading and has began reading books. I'm half thinking to forget the whole thing and focus on her strengths instead at home to build her confidence and let school do spellings and things.

How old is your DD?

Our DD was diagnosed a year ago in Yr 6 and I must admit that I have always been relaxed around spellings as I knew she could barely read the words most of the time. I took the view that spelling tests were easier for those who were seeing the words in their reading books so assumed DD would catch up at some point. I’m not dyslexic but have spent years doing extra reading programmes with her, these all helped but really I have come to understand that she learns words by sight rather than phonics or rote learning. We are starting to embrace technology (audiobooks alongside a paperback) and will try a reading pen after half term, and I also encourage her to check work when she’s used Word or PowerPoint etc but this is still minimal at her age. I think you’re right that she will need to find strategies that work for her in the longer run and there is a lot of technology available.

It sounds like your DD is younger, if so, we were recommended a book about phonological awareness where you play word games (clapping out syllables, rhyming) which might support her without being schoolwork. Our school would have used these techniques if DD had been diagnosed earlier, we tried it but our DD was a bit beyond that stage.

I do now leave school to do their thing and just try to support DD with her homework. She is very good at doing work for her teachers but not me so I can’t imagine home-school, and we were lucky that our school did a lot on zoom! Best of luck, it feels very hard when they are young but does get easier.

Thanks for sharing, that's really detailed and helpful. She's 9, I should have said. We have got the ACE spelling dictionary which involves clapping the words-was it that one? She does use it occasionally but we both tend to get it wrong trying to work out what the main sound is so probably need to practice with it more-i spell by remembering the whole thing like a picture like you say so trying to pick apart the phonics is really hard. I use a lot of accessible technology myself, mainly at work, so I feel I can help her once she gets to that stage so it's good to know she's not too far off the age when it will start to be useful. Did you find the reading programmes helped with her spelling? At school they've got her in a special group for spelling and she doesn't have to do the class tests but they do want her to practice more at home, but she won't at all. I leave her to read whatever catches her interest as I don't want to put her off, but perhaps I should get a few books that are more strategically designed to help learning. Can you recommend any reading programmes books that had a good story? If she thinks it's boring or too young for her she won't look at it.

What helped was having 1-1 and 1-2 tutoring for 45 mns before and after school by a teachwer who was actually interested in dyslexia, pluss additional support in English and maths. Pluss parents who pushed. Pluss extra time in exams. I think with reading it,s more about finding something that interests them.
Def do spelling at home, def listen to child read.

Sounds like you’ll be able to help loads as she moves into secondary school if not before, which is great!

DD did spelling tests until Yr 4 and the thing was, she could learn them but a week later she’d forgotten. I assume she was remembering them as ‘pictures’ which didn’t last. Our school stopped doing weekly spelling tests then as they didn’t think any children learnt best that way. Who knows? However, over time spellings have got a bit better.

The reading programme did help with spelling as it did a section on it most days. For the reading, it used pictures/symbols for the phonics and whilst we’d done that years before, I thought it helped to do it again differently. The main thing was that it made us focus, turned spelling into a game and gave rewards so she would work for 15mins a day most days. Without it, she wouldn’t pick up a book! Unfortunately the programmes didn’t use well known books but the ones DD liked to read were ones with chapters about different animals or machines. She now likes action books (eg “who let the gods out” by Max Evans) but loved “to be a cat” by Matt Haig at that age.

The book we were recommended was called Working Out with Phonological Awareness. I think they recommend it for ages 4 to 10. You might be able to find a sample online somewhere to see if it’s any easier.

Hope that helps, sorry it’s an essay!

Thanks Breakfast that's really helpful, I will get that book and the reading programme sounds like it was really helpful so I'll look into those too. I think it's just good to know that they are helpful over time because she gets so upset when I try to go over spellings or get her to read to me that it feels like maybe I'm pushing in the wrong direction. I will get things that are a bit more fun. She does love board and card games so I might see if there's anything specifically meant to help her learn. We've tried bananagrams but she found it too difficult. Thanks June, a tutor sounds helpful as she won't work for me, but out of our budget unfortunately plus she's really tired after school. She doesn't read or spell with me at home at the moment (she refused) and to be honest we are not parents who push-I feel like school are over the top with their obsession with spellings and phonics and we tend to do art, science, history activities at home as I want her to enjoy learning not get put off. Perhaps I'm taking the wrong approach though and I will find a way to encourage her to do a little bit of a reading programme each night I think.

One thing I remembered was that the spelling games on both programmes we used would split words into their phonic segments or chunks. They would give choices so you’re not given a blank space to fill. Eg chalk would be CH - AL - K and you might be offered OR as well as AL.

I’ve also just started buying a few pamphlets from Oakabooks, dyslexia specific. They are designed around the curriculum and do have games and crosswords etc. We’ve not used them much yet but I think they could be good for some subjects. We too tried bananagrams with limited success. Alternatively DD is a whizz at Latice (which doesn’t help spelling at all but uses their visual strengths well!).

We have tried so many things over time, but to reassure you we used the reading eggs app a little bit last year and had to retake the ‘assessment’ at one point as we hadn’t done it for a few weeks, and DD had still jumped up about 8 levels. There are a lot of levels but my take from that was that learning is going on all the time.

DD was diagnosed dyslexic in yr3. I found an opticians that did 'school vision'. So she got glasses with a yellow tint. She wore them for a year. The school were great and provided off white paper to write on and a Pets As Therapy dog to read to! Now she's 14 she says the words only wobble when she's tired and her spelling is brilliant. She finds it easier to read from a screen than a book although she will slog her way through a book if the story is good. I did find that short bursts of reading were better than concentrating for a long time when she was younger. A lot of talking and explaining different words helped as well. A little bit at a time worked well.

I've not heard of Latice I'll have to have a look for that, games are one of her strengths she tends to win any visual-strategy type games she plays with us, so I like to encourage her confidence with those. That reading eggs app looks like it might be helpful, I'll try the free trial. That's good to know your DD improved, I think you're right kids do learn without seeming to then over time things just seem to click.
Thanks for your help Mist, it sounds like your DD is doing well now. I've have tinted prescription glasses so my DD may benefit from them too, that's a good idea. I got mine bought for me with a disabled student allowance, do these things still exist or do you have to buy them yourself now? Our school don't seem feel anything is available without going private anymore. They have given her pink paper to write on but they didn't do a proper assessment they just offered her pink or blue so I'm not convinced it's the right colour. Saying that I write on pale peach paper and it really helps me so she may be getting some benefit. I love the reading to dogs idea, that is so lovely. Thanks for your help everyone.

I didn't know there was a disabled student allowance! The NHS voucher paid towards the glasses but didn't cover it all. I feel very lucky that the Academy Trust her junior school and her high school is part of, has an excellent and lovely Ed Pysch. She was the one who diagnosed DD's dyslexia and included DD in the reading with the dogs.
The opticians decided the tint of her glasses, it makes no sense for a school to randomly decide a paper colour. They aren't going to know which colour is easier for her optic nerve to process. Only your DD or an optician is going to know that.
I agree that the reading to dogs idea is lovely. We have a staffie who gazes at you with adoration when you read to her and DD can still remember the name of the dog she read to at school

It's sounds like you've got a really good school there, that's great. I will look into the opticians and see what's available. I will have to look out for a calm dog who likes stories to borrow too! Such a sweet idea.

We got absolutely nowhere with teaching DD spellings - she could see them 100 times and she'll spell them fine in the Toe by Toe class as she's focused on that, and then wrong 15 minutes later when she's writing something in class.

It was a constant battle over getting her to read, and getting her to practice spelling - so we gave up on that method.

She's 11, in Y7, high IQ, very low working memory and struggles a lot.

Things that have worked:

• sitting at the front in the class (and not being used to separate the naughtier boys... sigh)
• moving to a laptop for everything and learning to touch type (total game changer)
• audio books
• discovering that she loves plays and things in a script format
• a secondary school that understands dyslexia and teaches with that in mind

She still can't spell and punctuation is rather lacking, but she now writes pages and pages - and I can teach her editing skills which is rather easier and less fraught than spelling tests.

We're going to try out some speech to text software, reading pens etc. Happily DD likes tech and is much more engaged with this than any of the spelling/reading programmes.

Her EP states very clearly that she must be sat at the front of the class, must be given handouts rather than copying from the board and must use a laptop - and school seem to be sticking to that, so worth getting things like that written in.

Thanks OhCrumbsWhereNow that's really helpful to know. It's good you've got that set out in her EP. We've not got that far yet so I will bear it in mind. She did start the new school year having been placed at the back next to one of the more disruptive boys and it was fixed desks for the year so I did ask for her to be moved to the front which they did, so hopefully that will help. I'm glad to hear you say that about spellings because that is my feeling, repetition really isn't helping and she finds it really upsetting. Editing is a good way to look at it, let's her get her ideas down without worrying. We've not tried her with a laptop but all their homework is now online so getting her used to typing is a good idea. Thanks.

Not sure how helpful this is but ds was showing signs of dyslexia but I tried lots of things and he always said they were babyish and he remained reluctant. I recently did a free trial with Easyread and all is going well so far. They have found out why he finds reading difficult (for him its his eye tracking and blending that are causing the problems)

We found the Toe By Toe book really helpful for establishing reading. My DS also got a reading C-Pen that he used between years 4 and 7.

Thanks, I've not heard of Easyread, Toe to Toe book or C-pen so that's great I will look into them all.

I got my son privately assessed this November (first appointment I could get) having had my fears confirmed during lockdown 1. School hadn’t picked up on it, but they accepted our assessment and put in place some plans suggested by our consultant.

I also got him an hour of private dyslexia tuition a week which I arranged for the start of school week ie in school time, which we started in September, ahead of the assessment. Again, school agreed with this. We’ve carried on via Zoom and it’s really helped.

School now sit him at front of class - this has really helped and this is one thing that your school could and should do easily. Teacher repeats things several times to him. She gives him notice of when she is going to ask him a question so that he is warned/prepared.

Some great technology available. Install the Edge browser (Microsoft). It has an immersive reader tool which reads any web page aloud. You can change accent and speed. As it reads along, each word is highlighted. So great when they need to find information from a web page.

Speechify is a great app designed by someone with dyslexia. You can take pics of books, upload pdfs etc and it converts it to a page of text. The voice reader (again can change accent/speed) then reads out and highlights each word.

Both of these tools are fantastic especially during lockdown and homeschooling.

As son gets older, we will probably get him a reading pen, but the difference between September when I started the dyslexia tuition ahead of his formal assessment, and now, is notable. He has improved so much.