How to support my DS with suspected dyslexia as he starts secondary school?

[zazas]

Hi, I have just recently realised that my 10 year old DS is most likely to be Dyslexic. He does not have specific reading problems - in fact he has been recently accessed (outside of school) a couple of years above his chronological age with regard to reading (and is an avid and expansive reader) but in many other ways he seems to fit some of the signs of dyslexia - difficulty with spelling, slow written work and weak organisational skills etc.

However it was a recent parent/teacher meeting with his Year Six teacher, who brought up that he is constantly trying to find different solutions to problems and was disorganised and the fact that she found it frustrating why he wasn't engaging with her teaching as the other children did that alerted me more to his learning style. I appreciate that he can appear to be daydreaming but he often is 'thinking'. A recent good example, he was writing poetry and looking out the window, observing a magpie and thinking of descriptive words and was then told off "to stop daydreaming and write poetry"!!! He was quite upset about this as he was fully engaged in the work, this is a kid who requested his own copy of The Highway Man poem for Christmas and cries as he reads it! It makes me sad to think that he is misunderstood...

They did attempt to access him in Year Four but because he is above in reading and maths decided that it wasn't dyslexia and that it was just him! Up to now they have always been supportive of him - making allowances for his handwriting and spelling and enjoyed his unique take on problem solving and his enthusiasm for finding solutions, his weaknesses they assumed was a maturity issue and he will grow out of it by second at school.

He will start secondary school in September and he won't have 'grown out' of it! It is who he is!

So now without an assessment how do I get the support that he needs? I am meeting the Head Teacher at his primary school tomorrow to have a chat through. I guess I just want to be reassured that they understand him - that he is not deliberately not trying and that he really does process information differently and that this is conveyed through to the meeting they will have with the secondary school teacher when he visit them.

Any thoughts...

He sounds like me - I'm an avid reader but still dyslexic - he needs a propper assesement, not someone saying he can read above age so is not dyslexic.

He will never grow out of it, when you meet with the head insist on an assessement by an educational psychologist. I've been assessed by two different Ed Psys and found to be dyslexic, but the one time I was assessed by a teacher she said I wasn't and couldn't possibly be dyslexic because I spelled a long word correctly - It was a long word, but spelled phonetically.

Hi

I just wanted to post my support here as I also have a son in Year 6 who is about to start secondary school. He was going to the local primary school and was also accused of being lazy and causing disruption to the class and in time I could see that he was lost in some areas, but not in others. We saw a child psychitrist with him because we didn't understand the reasons for his behaviour - and I felt he was not trying to be disruptive, but trying to be heard. He's never been behind, always enjoyed reading and always has these amazing ideas. So because he kept up with schoolwork - the school were not interested in helping him. Even after an educational psychologist assessment stating hm to be dyslexic. I was lucky enough to be able to pull him out of school for a year and send him to a specialist dyslexic school which has helped him enormously in many ways, and also helped me understand how he learns etc. But I can't afford to keep him there any longer, so he will be starting a mainstream secondary school in September.

My son takes forever and a day to get anything down on paper, his handwriting speed is very slow - but he's able to type quicker so he does use a computer more and more for homework. And organisational skills are not there at all - so I worry for him in his next school - will he know where to go? What to take with him? etc etc

Amazingly - my son loves the Highwayman poem too - and is greatly moved by many things. It makes me sad that he is understood too - not just for him - but for others too because they are missing out on a huge amount! I also feel angry at schools trying to put our children into boxes, and because he doesn't quite fit - write him off as lazy etc. etc. A lot of fight ahead of us and I will be ineterested to read what others say in this thread

Good Luck,

Bernadette

Hallo, I wonder how you got on? My DD is also 10. She reads very well, but is a dreamer and highly disorganised. She has been assessed by the ed pysch, and found to have some specific learning difficulties.

This is what they seem to prefer to call dyslexia now. They are reluctant to use the word dyslexia as it covers such a wide spectrum, and as you indicate, isn't always just about reading, it is more to do with how the brain processes.

Sorry, meant to add, it is definitely worth pursuing so that he can get the organisational support he will need at secondary school. For my daughter it is all to do with auditory memory- she is highly forgetful, and can't access the right things in her brain. This means she is slower to get through work. It really needs to be recognised by the school.