What signs made you first suspect dyslexia...?

[Blossom4538]

And at what age? What do your children struggle with?

Dd is struggling with reading and spelling, sometimes mixes letters and finds different font faces tricky to read.

We still haven't got a formal diagnosis of Dyslexia for our DD1 (now 14), however I would say that we first started having concerns when she was in year 4 or 5. We let it slide for too long, secondary school support has been a joke until we went straight to the LA and said we wanted an EHCP - at which point they then did some full tests and she scored really badly. So we're finally getting somewhere, but later than we would have liked. We're not pushy parents by nature, but realising the hard way that we have to be for some things.

DD1 struggles with spelling, understanding questions and sentences, she frequently misses out letters when writing words. DH also has dyslexia so we were looking for signs, but as DD1 is in top sets for everything else apart from English the school seemed to be prepared to dismiss it as being any kind of issue!

I first noticed at end of nursery that DD couldn't recognise numbers or learn days of week or other simple sequences. In reception she was v slow to learn phonics, couldn't get digraphs (phase 3) at all. Persisted into Y1 when I started supporting with dancing bears etc.
School took notice and she was first tested in Y2 which didn't show her as dyslexic but school started interventions anyway and she got diagnosis in Y3. She is Y5 now, has support including a private tutor but she's still about 2 years behind.

We suspected it in reception when DS3 was obviously struggling massively with learning to read and write in comparison with his siblings when they were at that stage. He just couldn't decode at all - he became very good at reciting off by heart the very basic books he brought home, so that the problem was masked a bit in school. When I pointed out to the school what was happening, they began varying the books so the extent of the problem became obvious. He used to reverse letters and couldn't remember basic spellings. The school was initially a bit blasé about it eventually began paying attention and tried out various strategies which weren't very successful. Eventually then did put him in a special needs group, but the TA who led it told me it wasn't really helping him as it catered for all sorts of difficulties and if anything it was holding him back.

What eventually helped him was when we paid for a formal assessment when he was in Year 2, and then got a specialist dyslexia tutor for him out of school. She worked wonders with him, and really gave his confidence back.