Supporting a 7 year old with dyslexia

[OddshoesOddsocks]

Apologies if this is a common thread, the search tool didn’t offer up too much and I think I need to just talk it through.

We suspect that dd(7) has dyslexia, she exhibits many of the signs and has expressed her concern that she’s slower at her spellings and her writing than her friends.

i have spoken to her teacher who said she’ll ‘keep and eye on her and see if she displays the common signs’ (she’s a new teacher for this year so has only known her for 8 days) but I know that our LA don’t test to formally diagnose until secondary school.

At present we can’t afford to privately diagnose her but we are looking into options.

I just need to know what I can do at home to support her. My main concern is to conserve her confidence, she is such a happy, care free child, I’d hate for her confidence to be crushed because she can see herself falling behind.

Her best friend who is also suspected dyslexic has just left school to be homeschooled and she’ll miss her greatly.

The school is notoriously bad at dealing with SEN, I just need to know I’m doing my best for her (changing schools isn’t an option, we’re rural and I don’t drive).

Just thought I’d update the thread to give it a bit of a boost.

dd did a screening today and it has said that she does have dyslexia. Her teacher was positive about it and said that although she’d never taught a dyslexic child before she was hopefully going on a course and is looking to pick up some tips. This didn’t fill me with confidence to be honest!

My first question was- do we tell dd? I don’t think it would phase her, she’s only 7 so I don’t think she’d fully understand. My main worry I think would be her hearing it from someone else I think. But if we don’t tell her now then when do we?

im just getting my thoughts out I think, I was a little blindsided by the schools willingness to agree with me, I expected a battle!

It is highly unlikely the teacher has never taught a pupil with dyslexia before. 10% of the population are thought to be dyslexic.

The screening can’t diagnose dyslexia only suggest it may be likely, so I would tell DD it is a possibility but I wouldn’t tell her it is a definite.

Definitely tell her. It explains why she struggles and without that info she may feel it’s because she isn’t as clever etc. You can help her understand. There are lots of resources online for example www.understood.org/en/articles/8-tips-for-introducing-dyslexia-to-your-child

My son has visual processing issues and thought his brain was stupid. Explaining to him that he’s got good eyes and a smart brain helped - it’s the way his eyes and brain work together that need help reassured him lots.

@Thatsnotmycar shes a very young teacher, I think still an NQT last year. I should maybe say she’s never knowingly taught a child with dyslexia or tailored her teaching to suit them.

@bestsellingshow that’s a good way to explain it to him 🙂

We did tell her in the end, I thought it would reassure her and if she school try anything with her like coloured paper etc then it would make sense to her!

She didn’t really get it and is still processing it but she saw Hamza talk about his dyslexia on strictly last night and her eyes lit up. I think it’ll take a while for her to ‘get it’ but it’s nice that in the run up to the spelling test I can reassure her that she’s trying her best and isn’t stupid, dyslexia just makes it trickier.