Dd2 (6) just diagnosed with dyslexia - recommendations for good resources etc

[hazeyjane]

DD2 is in year 2, and has just been diagnosed with specific learning difficulites - dyslexia. In the assessment she came out as above average in most areas, but there is a big gap between her reading and spelling and all other areas. She struggles over small words, reversing them or blocking the words. Spelling is all over the place with letters reversed, words running into each other and everything is phonetic.

She has visual disturbances which she calls 'sparkles', she has blurring of words, and she gets very tired and sometimes nauseous when she reads.

So we have seen an optometrist, who has recommended some reading glasses to help with convergence issues, and is going to do an overlay test.

The school have put her in a small reading group focusing on read, write, inc and the senco yesterday talked about the possibility of starting a Toe to Toe (?) programme with us. They also talked about using writing frames (?)

I don't want to overwhelm her with stuff, as at the moment she enjoys reading in small doses, and loves making up stories.

I just wondered if anyone could recommend some good resources, apps, websites books - anything really?!

Also if there is anything else I should be asking the school to look at.

I've posted in sn children too.

Thankyou.

hi, it sounds like your dd's school is being very supportive. How do you feel about the diagnosis? I think my 5 year old ds may be dyslexic but really don't know what to do about it. His school are not interested.

I hope you get some good advice. I will be watching this thread with interest.

I saw the toe to toe book on amazon and have ordered a copy so I can start teaching ds at home. The reviews were great! It is great your dd is getting toe to toe at school.

My son is now 10 and severely dyslexic - dx at 6.

Toe by Toe is an excellent resource and I'm a great fan of it - but when I tried it on my DS at 6, he was too young and immature to cope with it. By the time he got to 8/9 and I was home eding him, he was more able to cope. It is an excellent programme but has to be done most days to get the best benefit. We ended up doing it every day during the week but not at weekends.

One of my DS's serious problems was a fear of books and reading so I was determined to get him to love stories and storytelling. So I signed up to an online audio-book club (about £20 a year) and downloaded children's books for him. I also joined Audible (part of Amazon) and so get a monthly audio book. Through this, we have listened to modern classics - such as David Walliams (highly rate him as a children's author), Michael Morpurgo and Roald Dahl. I also interested him in children's classics - so all the old classics - Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan, Starlight Barking (his all time favourite - can't remember how many times we've listened to that one!).

For actual reading books, I'm a big fan of the books by the publisher Barrington Stoke - they commission age appropriate stories but for a much lower reading age. My DS became very demoralised reading because he was on "baby books" but with publishers such as Barrington Stokes - the books have stories much more appropriate for his real age.

I'm also a big fan of the software by Nessy - there's all sorts of programmes in their range for dyslexic children and all are very good. DS learnt his times tables by using Nessy (dyslexics often have great trouble with times tables because of working memory issues).

There's a lot out there!

Thankyou so much, sorry i didn't come back on here sooner!

The school have been great, I had worries last year but the yr1 teacher said it was too early to assess, however at parent's evening before christmas, the yr2 teachers brought it up with us, as there was such a gap between her comprehension and her reading/spelling. she had also started complaining of the words being blurry and then mentioned the 'sparkles' she sees (she said they are like coloured blobs, worse on people faces, the white board and the page), i think up until then she thought that everyone saw them.

The SENCO and teachers have been great, especially about the idea of boosting her confidence so that she doesn't lose her love of stories and story telling. They said that encouraging her to do comic strips (she is great at art) would help her with planning stories, and not limiting her language.

Thankyou for all the recommendations TOWIE, the audiobooks are a great idea, she loves stories and wants to read the books her sister reads (who is only a year older) but obviously can't manage them, and Biff, Chip and Kipper are starting to lose their charm!

I am normally on the sn boards talking about ds (3.6) who has a genetic condition, so it has come as something of a surprise to get this diagnosis for dd2.

I started a thread on the primary ed board as well, which has been helpful but has also linked to some articles that question the usefulness of overlays and the whole are of the visual disturbances which seem to feature as an element of dd2's problems. It seems that the whole area of dyslexia is a far more contentious one that I realised!

I tend to stay away from any of the contentious dyslexia arguments. I had quite enough of that when LA's EP tried to argue during hearing that dyslexia was actually a speech and language problem, which, of course, wasn't because the LA was trying to place DS in speech and language unit!

If you're fed up with Biff, Chip and Kipper, then do try Barrington Stoke.

Books for children

If she loves making up stories, try Storyworld cards. There's a whole range of them on Amazon - just search for "storyworld cards"

Check out engagingeyes.co.uk
Also Bear neccessities by sound foundations.
Good luck