Dyslexia age 4?

[Tryingtohelp12]

Since starting school my son has really struggled. We prodominantly put this down to being a big change as previously been in a small setting with a childminder and he is also one of the youngest in the year. School have raise concerns with him not keeping up with phonics and he does have a speech delay. Their concerns are

• struggling to listen for extended periods
• very difficult to get him to do work he doesn’t want to do
• speech delay (massive improvement)
• doesn’t always seem to understand the question
• finds timeframe - eg tomorrow yesterday next week and placement eg under on next to etc really difficult to understand
• can be social when he wants to be (and seems popular in his class) but quite happy to play solo / do his own thing for long lengths of time
• terrible at remembering names (if someone from his class says hi after school he would only be able to tell me their name about half the time - even though he has been in school with them all year).

a lot of these seem in line with this https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/advice/children/is-my-child-dyslexic/signs-of-dyslexia-early-years and I’m just wondering if that seems likely as to what his sen assessment may identify?

thank you

Or is he just 4 and will catch up?

Hi, just wondering how your son is now? My son is 4 and has just started school, your description is almost is exactly the same as my son and my MIL is convinced he is dyslexic, she’s done a lot of research into it as is dyslexic herself. I imagine at 4 it’s too early to diagnose and wondering where we go next.

Hi @Lulub94, replying in case the OP doesn't see this.

My ds11 has dyslexia, since reception he has struggled most with other executive functioning challenges which sit more within ADHD profile than dyslexia, but there is a large overlap between the two brain types. He had not been assessed for ADHD (yet, we may pursue in future).

Dyslexia cannot be assessed until older as lots of these behaviours can be age appropriate at ks1.

So my advice is - I would be speaking early to school about what his challenges look like, and how they can help him. He doesn't need a diagnosis for school to put in place things that might help him, but knowing there's dyslexia/neurodiversity in the family is helpful in deciding what to try first.

Thank you so much for replying. We have always thought DS could have ADHD but looking at dyslexia seems to fit his behaviour a lot better.
We are keeping in regular contact with his teacher and are setting up a meeting with the SENDCO at his school also.
What adjustments were made for your son at school?

He’s 6 now and just started year 2. He’s still sitting behind his peers in reading / phonics but the gap is getting smaller and we are hopeful he’ll be mostly caught up by the end of year 2. He’s now working at expected in maths. Not gonna lie reception and year one was tough. We did almost no at home reading In reception as felt he would do it when ready. On reflection this was wrong and I wish we had started doing more at home in reception rather than just year one as once we got in the habit and he accepted it it was fine. He still has delayed speech and can come across a little odd at times (for example he will just talk at you about his own interests even if it’s not relevant to the conversation), so we are waiting and seeing if there is potential dyslexia, neurodiversty or just very confident and non conforming (which I just love about him if I’m honest he just doesn’t seem to worry about what people think of him at all!)

To add he was assessed by speech and language as having a receptive speech delay which really helped explain a lot.

He sounds very much like my ASD DS when he was little. I look back and laugh at things like how he was always very popular and we'd see DC out and they'd say 'Hi L!' and I'd say 'who was that?' and he'd just shrug and say 'I don't know.' All the time! 😂

sorry one final thing @Lulub94 he got 28 in his year one phonic screening test (pass is 32 out of 40). So while he didn’t pass he wasn’t far off - if you’d asked me how he would do as a guess at the end of reception I would have thought less than 10 so it really has picked up pace once it clicked. His school uses read write inc phonics scheme and he is just starting yellow books if that means anything to you! His writing is still quite poor though with letters often the wrong way round still

@Sunshineandpool yes not so much now he is always shouting to his friends when he sees them and seems to know them and have a solid group as well as being friendly with everyone in his class. Time will tell, we aren’t too worried about pushing for any kind of diaognosis as he’s coping well in school in most ways except the phonic delay for now

@Tryingtohelp12 thank you for replying as I realise this was an old post! I think I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that my DS is probably going to be behind others, his teacher has already said he is 'below average' which I do find upsetting.
My mum is a SEN teacher and has been for over 30 years, she is very much you need to give it time and its early days, and this could all just be developmental for his age. We will give it time and see how things go.
He has had a reading book, some phonics and writing sent home already. He was fine with the reading book (had no words so we spoke about the story) and the phonics too, but with the writing we got a lot of 'mummy do it' and he only did 2 out of the 4 letters, he then had a bit of a tantrum about doing the last 2 letters, my DH wanted to force him into doing more, but I said there's no point. We had a big disagreement about it but I'm not going to be forcing him into doing anything at the moment, its still only been 3 weeks of school so its all still very new.

@Lulub94 please remember that he is "below average" in the things they measure at school. He will excel in some things, but they might not be clear until he's older or even grown up. This is the case for my ds, and I consider my primary goal to get him through school with his self esteem intact.

Things that helped my son - complicated by the fact that we didn't know about ND until I saw him in COVID home learning in y2 & 3, so in YR and Y1 we were having conversations with teachers who just moaned that he wouldn't sit still or start his work.

I found these useful for my son

• Reading at home using the dyslexia tips online, I'll try to find links. It's things like taking it in turns to read words, reading "together". Reception reading is as much about inference from pictures from my understanding. My son reads non phonically but age 11 he reads ALL THE TIME so don't give up. He loves audiobooks too, which are great because they expose him to vocabulary and the rhythm of stories so he feels at home with them. The library here has a free app for audiobooks.

• Visual timer - ds11 still has time blindness, he doesn't have an internal clock I don't think. Teachers don't understand this but if they say work on something for 10 minutes he will have no idea what that feels like. They can use sand timers but my son prefers the clock with a coloured wedge that gets smaller. We use it at home for homework and video games times etc

• don't be afraid to Google "tips for 4 year old executive" or dyslexia and try them. You won't make him dyslexic but it might help anyway even if it turns out he grows out of it

Smart but scattered is a useful book to pin down where he's struggling so you can pick one thing to work on.

@UniversalTruth thank you for all of the tips. I have always said he is more practical and know he is never going to be the type that has a desk job, my DH is very similar, has always had practical jobs. So I know he will have other strengths and his teacher did say how much he enjoys being outside and playing in their outdoor area. Its just getting him through school and the more academic side of things which is going to be the hard part I imagine.

I will look into all of those and have been meaning to buy a timer for a long time so I will definitely get one to use when doing him 'homework' or other sit down activities.

I really appreciate your replies, makes me feel like I'm not alone. I've always felt like I'm the one who's judged as the parent who's child wont concentrate/sit still/do things that I want him to do. So it's good to speak to others who may have been through similar.

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/struggling-readers/

He'll learn at his own pace I'm sure, he may surprise you and become an academic!

@Lulub94 yes don’t force him, we deffo had lots of encouragement (bribes) to get it done or we took it in turns to read a word or there was no choice the reading needed to be done but he could choose mummy or daddy and where we did the reading etc. but I wish we’d had that sort of approach from about half way in reception as the difficulty is the longer you leave it the bigger the gap between peers and them gets bigger which has a knock on confidence, we’ve had quite a lot of ‘I’m not good at this’ to overcome. We just remind him that everything new is hard (learning to ride a bike, swim etc) but if you practice a lot soon you can do it without thinking! I also point out when other people are learning things eg baby brother is learning to walk and keeps falling but he keeps trying and will learn. We’ve recently been reading marvel books and I’m unfamiliar with the names and he has been correcting me so it’s a reminder that sometimes reading is really hard even for grown ups!!

we also try and give him lots of time to do things he loves, enjoys and is good at like bikes, swimming general sports etc!