A question for parents of dyslexic children.

[Stripylikeatiger]

I am dyslexic as are my siblings and my father along with numerous cousins. dp has 2 dyslexic siblings and about half of his nephews (there are tons of them!) have dyslexia so I assume the chance of our dc having dyslexia is pretty high.

My dc are in the baby toddler phase at the moment so there isn't any way of telling if they are dyslexic.

I was wondering if there was anything you would advise to do differently with a dyslexic child? Should I try to introduce letters/words earlier than a child without dyslexia? I couldn't read until I was 10 which was very frustrating and I'd like to avoid my children being in the same situation.

I have started talking about the sounds of letters with my 21 month old and he seems to "get it" for example I'll ask him what colour is that horse? It's bbbb.... And he'll say brown (or blue or black )

Is there things I should look out for and ways I can prepare them?

Thank you! :)

I would introduce them to lots of nursery rhymes and poems at a young age. Try to draw their attention at a young age to the blending of sounds in words. Play games like what is the first sound in..."cat", then move on to last sound (and if possible middle sound).
Read a lot to them. Talk to them a lot.

Look out for spoonerisms eg. my ds said "par kark". If they struggle talk to them about what they see, and if stuff moves around try cheap colour overlays.

Also read about dyslexia, it isn't all negative.

It's funny you mention "par kark" my cousin used exactly the same phrase, very cute!

Thanks for the ideas, we sing lots of nursery rhymes but haven't looked at many poems so I'll look into getting a children's poetry book.

I do recognise that there are lots of positive aspects to being dyslexic, dyslexia certainly hasn't negatively impacted the academic achievements of the dyslexic people in my family, they all have degrees and I personally feel I have quite an unusual way of viewing a situation possibly thanks to being dyslexic but I hope my children avoid feeling the frustration I felt.

I think a lot of schools are better. Your children will also have a knowledgable and alert parent.

But do be alert also for other problems. A friend was very alert to ADHD because he brother was diagnosed (quite late), however he son then was diagnosed with ASD.

DS1 - eloquent, early talker, amazing memory but terrible at shape sorters, jigsaws, basic maths (2+2=76).

DS2 - good at jigsaws, shape sorters and basic maths (2+2=4) but not such a good talker - lots of spoonerisms.

So, differents signs for different kids. Both older now but early weaknesses and strengths still very evident. Both can read so moderate dyslexia rather than severe but both poor writers and spellers.

It's interesting you mentioned jigsaws, ds has no interest in even the simplest of jigsaws whereas I was very good at jigsaws, I could do a 2000 piece jigsaw by myself at 4 (odd child!) I assumed jigsaw ability was an indication of dyslexia, but it sounds like it's not.

Something my ds does which seems different to his little friends is he copies and remembers speech to a much greater extent to his same aged friends, I spoke to my HV about this and she said he was just further along with his speech development, I'll keep an eye on it.

Interesting about the speech... DS1 was a very precocious talker and memorised whole passages from books before he was two. He also recognised shop signs and bus numbers very early on. Likewise, he learnt the alphabet very quickly but then only learnt to read at around the average time rather than earlier as one might have predicted. I think he learnt by memorising the words as his phonological knowledge is poor - he still cannot read nonsense words. He had absolutely no idea when it came to jigsaws and had no interest in picking up a crayon for mark making. He could however glue together huge creations that would fill a room. He is 14 now and he still struggles with maths - I have seen him try and take away upside down. He doesn't know left from right. He's still very articulate and creative. I find it very interesting how they are actually the same person at 14 that they were at 2 in terms of strengths and weaknesses.