If you have an 8 year old

[runlift]

How would they spell this letter? Would you think my child is significantly dyslexia?

This was a relaxed letter written at home:

'Dear mummy peas may I sleep whith you tonight pease. Form "child's name"'

Or is this normal spelling for an 8 year old.

Anyone?

Just to add I actually made a typo mummy was spelt mumy

So 5 of 11 words and all pretty common words spelt incorrectly.

I would say it is below age related expectations. Not enough information to draw any conclusion about dyslexia.

I am biased but in conversation she is bright and personable with good behaviour and attention levels. It is just spelling and reading that she seems very slow to pick up and she doesn't learn from past mistakes or work. Also often will miss spell the same word in different ways within one piece of work.

My daughter is 9 and diagnosed dyslexic. To be honest this is exactly the sort of spelling she uses, with things spelt phonetically and struggling to hear and therefore write the additional sounds in a word like ‘please’. She also still spells mummy with one m as your daughter did. If it hasn’t been explored it might be worth discussing with her school, especially as you mention she is bright, articulate and engaged. It sounds like a specific issue like dyslexia.

Thank you @Parkwood. What do you do to support her? Have you told her that she is dyslexic and how was she diagnosed?

We picked it up in key stage one as it runs in my family. Discussed it with the school SENCO. To be honest we have not found that she has ever been a huge priority for the school as they just don’t seem to have much resourcing for Sen so we got a private assessment which we gave to the school. Through school she does an online programme called Lexia, which she quite likes but progress is slow. We had a specialist dyslexia tutor for a year but it cost a fortune and my daughter really hated doing all the extra work, there were lots of tears and tantrums and in the end we stopped. It can be hard as I don’t feel the school is really doing enough but we try and focus on building her confidence and self esteem and her love of writing (even with poor spelling).

If reading is also an issue look up Barrington Stoke, which is a specialist dyslexic friendly publisher. All the books are designed to be more accessible but with engaging stories for the right age group. Our school has recently invested in alot of these books for the library and it has really improved my daughters engagement. Hope some of that helps.

To answer your other question, yes we did tell her she is dyslexic as it’s important to understand what it is when they go through the assessment process but more crucially for their self esteem to understand they are bright and capable and it is a specific issue. My daughter loves finding out about successful people with dyslexia. Things can feel tough at primary school as there is so much focus on literacy that they can feel like failures. I fought to remove her from the weekly spelling test as she would get everyone wrong. She was still working on key stage one words, so getting ten words wrong every week from the year 5 list was pointless and demoralising.

Thank you @Parkwood for your ideas and suggestions. We have the same with the spelling lists. Seems a bit pointless working on difficulty or confidence when she can't yet consistently spell come or with correctly. My other child just knew 90% of the spellings without even needing to learn them.

Have you spoken to school’s SENCO? What support are they providing currently. Support in schools is based on needs, not diagnosis so you/they don’t need to wait.

So in the last parents evening the teachers said that she is working at age related expectations though they did acknowledge that she finds spelling difficult. We don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill and know that she is only just at the age where dyslexia starts to be diagnosed.

I think part of the issue that could cause her needs to be overlooked is that she is bright and works very hard and has excellent behaviour. Plus she is old for her year, being autumn born. Both parents are educated above degree level and we support at home. So in the mix at her school, she is not necessarily one of the weaker performers but I can see that there is a real hurdle for her in reading and spelling.

The SENCO can still be involved and support provided even if DD is academically at ARE. I have 2 academically able DC with EHCPs.

Thank you. I think I will speak with her teachers/senco. I just don't want her to lose confidence.