Is this dyslexia?

[Framex]

I am mum to dd who is in Year 4. She has just turned 9, so is one of the oldest ones and is doing ok I think - middle of the range for most things. She is pretty happy at school and well liked by peers and staff. I am however worried about her reading.

Her comprehension is pretty good, she reads to herself, can answer questions, make predictions and all that stuff. She can read what I think are quite hard words (like 'misunderstood', 'unfortunately', 'pleasure').

BUT, she makes mistakes on easy words ('it' confused for 'is' for example), can't read proper names (like 'Tilly' or 'James' or 'Wales') at all. She just guesses. She also rushes when reading aloud, misses words out or adds them in, and substitutes plausible words for what is there (ie 'he inched forward' comes out as 'he crawled forward').

I have mentioned it to teachers in the past, but school don't seem worried as they say she seems to understand what she reads. However, I don't think her reading is as good as they think. Certainly when we are out there is no chance she can read place names on road signs - she just can't break them down, and she seems to make so many 'basic' mistakes when reading out loud to me.

I think I am going to have to talk to school again - don't want to turn into pushy mother of course - but what can I be doing at home with her do you think? It feels wrong t go back to simple books when she can read longer ones happily, but I just don't get why she can't do the simple stuff?

I don't think it would be possible to say whether there is a problem without an assessment. Does the school have any sort of dyslexia screening computer programme? That might be a starting point.

There should be a local branch of the Dyslexia Association near to you, and they probably have a helpline. I suggest you try that.

Thanks for that Icimoi. I will go in and try to press school into looking at her reading more closely, and have a look for Dyslexia Association.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with their child? How did it turn out? What helped

What is her spelling like?

Bad spelling is a good indicator of dyslexia ...

She sounds very intelligent hence compensating. And yes, have her assessed.

My eldest child was already crumbling at nursery level so diagnosed fairly early on with severe dyslexia (and all the other DYS plus ASD). My daughter who is almost 9 and also year 4 - will be going for a full assessment. She seems to have stealth dyslexia.

What is her writing like framex is she able to write in sentences and apply basic punctuation rules?

I have 2 Dd's with dyslexia, Dd2 we knew about fir a long time and she is fairly classic in that reading is a struggle for her and her spelling is fairly awful. Dd3 was identified last year despite being a good de coder she does not understand much of what she reads. She never self corrects and will accuse the author of writing nonsense!!

She also has Asd and that was what has masked her dyslexia. She was tested by and independent Ed psych and her writing is so poor that she is almost off the bottom of the scale

If you can afford to get your Dd assessed independently then I would go for it. Although dont be surprised if the school dont actually put any of the recommendations into place, Dd3 has just changed schools and neither of the schools have put anything into place for her dyslexia.

Dd2 has just passed a Btec level 3 with distinction so her dyslexia hasnt held her back once we had found the right course for her, it is the same points as Alevels so can count towards uni

Good luck whatever you decide to do

Thanks both of you. It is very kind of you to share your experiences. What is 'stealth dyslexia'?!

I can't believe I didn't mention her spelling. It's awful! Well, in my opinion, anyway. Neither DH nor I are great at spelling - I still get the odd word wrong even though my vocabularly is pretty good - but DD's spelling is pretty poor. She can remember specific words if she has learned a technique for them, but 'which' is often 'wich', 'there' is 'ther', 'make' is 'mak' etc etc.

However, I don't have any other children to compare her with, so not sure if that is perfectly normal for Year 4??

Her maths is good though, as are her organisations skills and she is pretty dexterous, has good understanding of people and emotions and has lots of friends, so I'm not worried about ASD or other issues, just dyslexia.

No chance of going private though, so I will just have to see what school say.
I am waiting for a call back from the school today to have a chat with the SENCO. Will let you know what they say!

Hmm. I've had an interesting conversation with the SENCO at DD's school today. Apparently, DD is on their radar, and is being taken out of class for extra support with spelling - news to me!

She has said that she can do a screening test for dyslexia BUT that the local authority 'doesn't do' dyslexia testing - they just don't do it. They do have an Educational Psychologist who comes in, but she is for children with significant needs and would not test/diagnose for dyslexia.

The SENCO said that we were welcome to go private if we wanted. Otherwise, she could do the screening test, which should show if DD has dyslexic traits and then if that showed things up, the school could work on those areas.

So, what to think? It's good that DD's difficulties are being noticed at school. But a big to no diagnosis of dyslexia ever - they just go with whatever this screening test shows. Is that good enough if it shows that DD is dyslexia?

I've said to go ahead with the screening, but feel someone underwhelmed. What if DD is dyslexic? Is that really all that schools can offer?

Hoping that someone else who has been through this or similar can offer some advice . Ta

My DS was really struggling with reading and we've started dancing bears. It has been amazing. I established that he wasn't secure at reading left to right and and the programme includes a cursor which forces them too. My DS was forever guessing words and because he's clever enough a lot of the time he was right but dancing bears doesn't allow them to guess so he had to decode and read the word. They do books A, B and C and as your daughter sounds quite good already they do a fast track book which combines A and B.

They also do a spelling book called apples and pears which is supposed to be excellent.

You can buy the books online from sound foundations and it just takes 10 minutes a day and is very easy to do.

The diagnosis of dyslexia would be useful because when she is older she would be able to get extra time in exams. The screening tests are a bit pointless she will show up as having dyslexic traits which you can see. My DS is positive as he has a family history and is struggling with writing even though testing has suggested it's not dyslexia causing his problems.

If you don't get any more joy from the school get in touch with your local parent partnership and ask their advice. They are good at letting you know the avenues of support out there and they can help support you dealing with the school.

DS1 has dyslexia and his spelling is very good a lot of the time. He can read to himself but his form of dyslexia is mostly about his recall of words, memory of what he's just read etc. so memory and phonological processing are big areas of weakness. TBH it sounds like your school are not going to do anything that takes considerable investment or time (hope I'm wrong), but if that's the case then Dyslexia Action are fantastic. We used them, and when it comes to statements (EHCP) the psychologist from the LA trusted the report from the Dyslexia Action and was going to use it. Cannot tell you more as I'm still waiting for results (he has other dx too).

Curious about stealth dyslexia too.

My DS had similar reading issues. Misreading small words, skipping words and lines. It sounds really odd but it could be a vision thing. How the muscles control the eyes (rather than eye test stuff). We are midway through vision therapy (Engaging Eyes) and things are much improved (not perfect though). Could be her 'missing link'?