Reading - dyslexia? - in 5yo w PDA

[Treaclecrap]

I'm at the end of my tether with reading and spellings. It's clearly a massive struggle for him to do either, it almost seems unfair making him do either. His working memory appears to be very poor... which doesn't help my frustration at I'm trying to decode a word he's just identified on the previous page... He enjoys stories just only when they're read to him! :D

So I'm asking for help in making reading and spelling more bearable for both of us... And even dare I say it - fun?! Without knowing why he is struggling, I'm at a loss to know how to actually help him. I almost dread the battle with getting him to do anything ... But unless he 'over learns' as the teacher puts it... How will he actually learn to read and write?

He actively resists sounding out and blending, but when he does it, he gets much farther than merely guessing each word... But he hasn't accepted this yet... (It's a pda thing).

School have just given us 20 minutes on spellings and reading extra each week. They say they wouldn't do anything different with him if he had a diagnosis of dyslexia anyway. And apparently he is too young for a diagnosis anyway...

I can't see how he can make any progress. Fwiw we are on the pink set of stage 4 books, and have been for some time. I admit I'm not 100pc certain of what that means but we've not progressed which I'm now also worried about!

Should I get some coloured overlay films to see if it makes life any easier? And if so, where from? He struggles so much and it's having a big impact on his self esteem. (Along with the hypermobility and ASD etc..)

Sorry for the essay. Just feeling so useless!

My ds (5) is on pink books as are quite a lot of the children in the class I help with (4.6 to 5.6 yo, P1) so I don't think your child is unusual in his reading ability and his PDA will make it more difficult too. I believe dyslexia is not normally diagnosed before 8 yo. Having said all that, I would definitely keep channels open with the school about how you can help him learn. How is he with computers? There are some good programs around - we use readingeggs but some people on here like headsprout (I think that was what it was called). Some children seem to respond better to these that having us ask them to sound out the letters for the umpteenth time!

My ds has progressed a lot since he has been getting one to one help with reading at school. But it is still very difficult for him.

At home we do what is called paired reading. With his school book I start reading it to him and then he reads a few words. We continue with me reading most of the book and ds reading a few words or as many words as he is happy to read. This makes ds less anxious about reading his school book. His teacher says that me reading to ds is good for his reading development.

Also, recently ds wants to write a lot. His spelling is not good but I do find he is learning a lot about reading through writing. I think this will be the thing that will really help him and also help the teachers know what it is he is struggling with.

I bought a selection of the coloured overlays but they didn't help ds. He was even prescribed glasses with green lenses.

I have downloaded a free trial of the reading eggs as it looks good and will also try headsprout. I previously found toe by toe helpful and might go back to that.

Toe by Toe: www.toe-by-toe.co.uk/

It's well known and used in schools.

I think my 2 dyslexic DSs learnt to read more by Look and Say than Phonics. Their spelling is terrible but at the end of the day, it's the reading that is far more important.

Reading eggs seems like fun. Tried it last night for the first time and my ds was really enthusiastic about it. Only problem is we find the voice difficult to understand at times. My ds definitely got on better with toe by toe than the school reading books but he got bored with it, reading eggs seems like more fun.

Hi reaclecrap,

Dyslexia is a man made problem about deciding the visual notation of speech, or the graphic symbols society choose to represent the sounds of speech. There are three cognitive subtypes of developmental dyslexia, auditory, visual, and attentional. Which means that an auditory processing disorder, a visual processing disorder, an attention disorder, or any combination of these issues can cause the dyslexic symptom.

For more information you could have a look at the program of the 2013 International Dyslexia Symposium,
www.oxfordkobe.com/program.html
The CiteULike "Developmental Dyslexia" research paper sharing library
www.citeulike.org/group/12693/library/order/year,,
and the CiteULike "Reading: Acquiring and Developing the Skills and Abilities" research paper library
www.citeulike.org/group/15565/library/order/year,,
and there are many articles regarding working memory on the CiteULike "Human Memory Systems" research paper sharing library
www.citeulike.org/group/13873/tag/working_memory