Dyslexia - early symptoms?

[shoppingbagsundereyes]

Dd is only 5 and I'm probably worrying too early but her short term memory is pretty poor ( when reading I will tell her a tricky word and she has forgotten it by the next page) and she's muddling her letters a lot. So back to front p and s and 2 and 3, b and d are used interchangeably. I know lots of young children muddle these but combined with the short term memory I've been worrying.
What were the early signs of your children who have dyslexia?

shoppingbags you are very astute in your observations and IMO absolutely right to put 2&2 together here. I have a dyslexic dd (now 10, diagnosed at 7 but I knew aged 4 she was Dyslexic but was too polite with waiting for school to listen to my concerns (oh how naive I was back then!!!!) and the time just slipped away, as did my daughter's self esteem. The best window of opportunity for literacy development is between the ages of 5 and 7 so the time to act is most definitely NOW. There are lots of ways you can help her, my suggestion is to please read for enjoyment and entertainment ONLY. This would be my No.1 recommendation. DO NOT under any circumstances slog over any words, just provide the word (even if it was on the previous page) and carry on. Help her to differentiate between b and d by making the shapes with each hand and imagine the 'e' in the middle to make the words 'bed'. Multisensory methods, tracing out the formation of the letters in rice, flower, glitter and saying them at the same time. When the weather is warm go out with a squirty water bottle and practice writing words in squirty water. Practise, practise, practise common combinations and groups of sounds in families, over and over and over, and then some more. Overlearning is key and there is no short cut. Do not allow her to sit spelling tests as she gets older - total and utter Waste. Of. Time. Sign her up to reading eggs www.readingeggs.com as she gets to learn her times tables when older, teach her all the short cuts and use 'Percy Parker's Times Tables' (available as an app but also viewable on YouTube). If you can afford one, enrol a good specialist tutor. When she is 7 find a good local Ed Psych, one who is familiar with the education system in your locality and what help is on offer to schools. Then get her assessed.

Thanks so much. Really helpful suggestions

Absolutely 100% agree with handy my Dd2 struggled all the way through primary. We knew she was dyslexic ,school refused to acknowledge.

She had some good support in secondary and got great GCSE's and was finally diagnosed in the first year of 6thform college.

Her short term memory is really bad as is her organisation. I would recommend a visual timeline to help with this as she gets older.

Good luck

I found this book in our local library and it was very useful:

www.amazon.co.uk/Dyslexia-dyslexia-dyspraxia-difficulties-ebook/dp/B008S9YMR2/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1380631995&sr=1-8&keywords=dyslexia+and

The first sign I remember was that DS could not do jigsaws or shape sorters. He learned to read at around the average time but was very slow to pick up a pen and use it. The fact that he could read meant that we didn't realise he had dyslexia until he was about 10. It affects his writing, spelling and maths much more than his reading.

That's interesting kitchen diner. One of the boys I'm currently teaching is dyslexic but reads pretty well. He struggles with organisation and processing as well as spelling.

Yup, Dd2 read well in the early days of school, actually started reading at the end of nursery (pushy school). She continued to read fairly well until she started getting longer books with whole pages of writing instead of half writing and half pictures.

It all went downhill from there, I think she had reached her level but wasnt allowed to stay there, she was pushed further.

Her writing was never at the same level as her reading, nor was her spelling.

At 7 after school had denied there were any problems we took her to a behavioural optometrist who found she had significant visual perception difficulties and very poor tracking.

Fast forward to now and she does very well although she doesnt like academic stuff. We spent alot on coloured lenses and vision excersises but it was worth every penny.

We are now doing the same for our youngest, who doesnt have the same level of difficulty but has Asd and visual perception issues.