Right from starting school dd struggled and quite quickly teh school implemented additional support (daily one to one with TA or teacher, and weekly support from learning support teacher). Teacher and Learning Support both thought she had a specific learning difficulty - propably dyslexia. We wre planning on having her formally assessed during end of P1 (age 5) and let teh school know. I then got a call from teh learning support teacher to say that we sould save our money as dd was definitely dyslexic.
ANd that is hwo we have left it. She continues with support at school and has an IEP (although learning support teacher puts a lot of emphasis on her memorising words which dd finds really difficult rather than a structured phonic approach).
But it always nags at me that maybe she isn't dyslexic - just needs more time. Sometimes she seems very clever - she is extremely perceptive and can carry out very involved conversations about fairly complex subjects with a wide vocabulary - as long as you give her time to process her thoughts first! (and assuming she doesn't forget what she was about to say halfway through the sentence..). AT other times I feel she doesn't understand things very well and maybe isn't as intelligent as I think. (She can't count backwards from 20 for instance). Would a formal assessment help or would it not achieve anything new?