I'm wondering if you can give me some advice?! I have an 8 year old daughter who's starting in year 4 next week. Last year she had an assessment and we were told she had a specific learning difficulty but they wouldn't label it, but I'm pretty sure it's dyslexia.
She has 3 short sessions with a learning support teacher each week but I really don't think she's improved. Her spelling is terrible and I've tried getting her to use the computer but the spell checker doesn't work as her spellings make no sense. She is very good at communicating verbally and has beautiful handwriting but with only a week to go before she starts back at school is becoming anxious and at times tearful.
Her reading level is much lower than expected and without meaning to compare, her 6 year old brother is on a harder level books than her.
Is there any advice you can give me as I feel the school are not being very helpful and are not giving me answers.
I understand that there isn't a magic wand you can wave but with only 3 years left at primary school I really want to do all I can to help her and make her happier in school.
I'd like to know if there is likely to be much improvement, if she should be getting better and if there is anything we can do at home to help??
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Lottie91
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Try not to let her get anxious and see that you are too. Tell her lots so people have difficulties and we can help her. I have a blog on my website. ruthyoung.co.uk and a blog on Facebook....Ruth Young - author. I put tips and games that you can play to help make learning fun. Keep in touch with me and I will try to help you further. Ruth.
Hi I have a son who is now 14. I had him privately assessed in yr 3 and he is severely Dyslexic. I have battled with schools since. I would advise you to keep on at the school and not give up. I did not battle enough and am suffering the consequences. Any help you can give her at home will help if you can afford it there are some good places you can go and get a free assessment Encourage her with things she is good at. My son is good at swimming so encourage that as it is good for his self esteem. Also if you can get your school to let her use a laptop in school that will help. My sons primary school said they would but never did and the same with secondary school now with alot of fighting they have supplied one but my son will now not use it as does not want to be different. If this had been sorted a few years ago he would have done it. So i wish that i had been more persistent as maybe he would have got one earlier. His work is 100% better when he uses a laptop. He is also very good verbally it is just the writing down. I hope maybe some of this helps just be positive with her and don't be fobbed off by school. I also didn't want the school to think i was making a fuss if i could go back i would have made a lot more fuss. I do now he is my child and no one will stand up for your child like you will.
Hi I totally understand my daughter is 8 and due to go into year 4 and she can read a little but only at year and her writing as that of a reception, you have to push and push has she had the educational phys do an assessment on her to confirm her needs , ask is she on action school plus which means she is entitled to up 20.5 hours one to one or small group tuition, however they will not confirm if she is dyslexic it make take a private assessment to prove she has dyslexia, you have to fight fight all the time and request to she her Individual education plan which will show what she needs to achieve each term and how this is being monitored and request a monthly meeting with her teacher and special needs teacher so you know how she is progressing if you feel you are not getting anywhere speak to your local parent partnership they are really helpful, good luck
I agree with Ros. Pressurise the school. I made the mistake of trusting the school but we've had little help from them. Children with learning difficulties get taught by teaching assistants who are often not qualified for this sort of work. Although some will be good, there are many who don't understand learning difficulties. If the teachers don't understand, it is highly likely that the TAs won't either. I am fortunate to have been able to pay for assessments to be done privately although it is very expensive and at times I have had no money at the end of the month - it is for my child to get the best chance they can without paying for his education in full. I also pay for a private specialist tutor twice weekly and she has helped enormously. My son used to vomit every school morning and had developed severe school related anxiety. He is an intelligent boy but did not receive the support he needed from school and I have had to fight them all the way so far. I have to ensure that I write formal letters to school and have regular meetings to ensure his support is provided. He is going into year 6 next week and I am dreading the battle again as he has been happy over the summer. He is supposed to be using a laptop, coloured overlays, coloured paper etc but usually has to ask for the teachers to use them. This way he is made to feel different and it is not fair. I had the dyslexia assessment done by Dyslexia Action when he was 7. It was the best thing I did. Exam arrangements are also important to get done in time (extra time etc for processing difficulties). There will be charities local to you who can provide support to you. We have local dyslexia groups and parent groups where I live but I have so far managed with the support of our private tutor and reading blogs and Dyslexia sites. This is my personal experience but I hope that it helps a little. You are not alone and your daughter deserves to be helped!
my daughter struggled so much and because she was on the border with her reading they wouldn't put full support in at school she needed. i tried to encourage her and not voice my concerns in front of her but pushed and pushed in school. I don't always believe in pushy parents but in these cases i found the more you push the better. What i found so hard was how much effort she put into her schoolwork and when she showed me i couldn't read it . i think the best advice i can give is don't let her see your frustation and concern as with my daughter this would make her worst. Dig your heels in and don't be pushed around or be fobbed off shes your little girl and deserves the best. xx
I so know how you feel, i have had the same battle since last september! The school kept telling me that my daughter was not dylexic, i knew she was. We evetually took the decision to get her privately diagnosed, which was a hard decisio having 4 chikdren it was expensive thing to do, but we did and had to cut back for a few weeks. But it was the best thing we have dine for our daughter, I was led to believe that without a diagnosis the school are not obligated to give the child any extra support, so an assessment would not have guaranteed any help. After the diagnosis, the school were still very unhelpful, so much so i began looking at other schools and asking what they would do to support my daughter, With this information i arranged a final meeting with the headteacher who is also the senco, and the class teacher. The meeting became quite heated with me having to tell them what i expected them to put in place for my daughter, which they didnt like, but hopefully fingers crossed from september she will have an iep, which will hopefully will be releant, and three short sessions on extra help with a teaching assistant. Although im still not confident about it i feel that i am going to have to monitor very closely what they are working on. I feel now that you have to remember at all times this is the grounding for your chikds future so if you do not stand your ground now it may be too late. I will do anything with in my power to help my daughter get the right education, and if the school is any good they should want this too. You can always seek out the director of education in yourr area and threaten to take things further, that was going to be my next step. If you need any advice please feel free to email me at zphelps@btinternet.com i am more than happy to help if i can. Good luck
Get to your local dyslexia action centre and speak to the manager. Mary Robinson in Hull was fantastic and offered me an half hour consultation. Book your child in for a full assessment @dyslexia action with the education psychologist at Dyslexia Action. Get your child to attend Dyslexia Action and attend their lessons, usually in pairs. You can take her out of school. Contact the parent partnership, KIDS, in your local area. They are a brillant service and will offer advocacy to you and your child without interfering. When we got the results of my eldest test, parent partnership came to talk to me and my husband and arranged that the school and all parties got together. The SENCO in the school can only test for traits for dyslexia action, it needs a education psychologist to confirm this. That is the reason why we went to dyslexia action in the end. He also recommended we meet with our GP as he thought my child had tendancies of dyspraxia and yes he did. We were referred to a consultant for this. Very often local authorities will not diagnose because it means resources. They will tell you that a diagnosis will label your child, what a load of rubbish. A label offers resources and that where you need kIDS to help you. You need to get the codes of practice and the SEN toolkit from central government. This is free and can find details on the internet. You need to find out if your child is on school action, school action plus, and final measure is statemented. I gave my children no choice of attending dyslexia action and fortunately for us it has paid off. Both my boys are 13, one is statemented who is severely dyslexic and dyspraxic and will achieve a to c's and my other son has moderate dyslexia. Dyslexia action is expensive but worth every penny and they do finish after level 3...someone in your family will have dyslexia. I believe you can apply for a bursery. Not sure whether this helps.
i shall like many other posts i have replied to give you the link to ym own write up on dyslexia scribd.com/doc/97539169/Dys...
i aswell would say dont trust, or leave it up to the schools. they are very limited int what they can do, and most teachers as like any adult still dont understand what dyslexia is, or anytjhing else like adhd etc. so how can they help and deal with it if they dont understand or have the skills to do it.
Just read your links and I find them very informative, thank you.
Please also recommend the book by Thomas G. West, "In the Mind's Eye". He explains that there are many varieties of dyslexia, and that one if them is dyscalculia, trouble with elementary arithmetic. He shows us that several of the world's greatest thinkers were dyscalculic and could not get their secondary school maths, yet they made huge contributions to human knowledge in science and math. These were persons like Einstein, Maxwell, Faraday, Tesla, Edison.
Another autistic woman, Temple Grandin, could not get high school geometry, yet she designs world class humane cattle processing facilities! Look for her video taped lectures on YouTube or find her books. Two of Grandin's books are "Animals in Translation" and "Thinking in Pictures".
The school system is stuck in one mode of teaching and learning, yet that mode does not work for at least half the population!
We dyslexics, visual thinkers, and right-brainers need to find our own strengths in spite of the system. If the schools taught walking, half the population would be in wheelchairs!
Thanks for all the writings you have shared about your own experiences. Cheers! digits
Many years ago I was diagnosed with Dyslexia. Since then my mother fought tooth and nails to get me the help I needed. Do not worry if you are annoying your school teachers and headmaster. Your daughter needs your full support, she needs to know you are on her side no matter what and that together you will fight the system.
Read everything that gets in your hands about dyslexia. Try and learn together with your daughter about dyslexia, learning about famous people who have had dyslexia and succeeded in achieving great things in life is telling her that her schools years might be at times hard but that it does not last for ever (I mean school).
If her school is not giving her the support she needs, push for it to be better. There is a lot of bureaucracy you will have to get used to.
Also get help outside (I spent years at several psychology centres and somehow I have learnt coping mechanisms that come out automatically).
You need to teach her school teachers, teachers assistant, everyone that wants to listen what is dyslexia. As my mother uses to say: "I wish that dyslexics where born with a horn in their foreheads, that way everyone would see and say: oh! she has dyslexia". Unfortunately you cant tell your daughter has dyslexia by looking at her. If she was missing a limb then everyone would be able she needs help with dyslexia there is nothing they can tell. People might say she is lazy, because she looks intelligent but does not perform to what it looks she should. They may say she must be dumb because she does not read at the level of her pears. That is all untrue, she will have to work twice as hard as everyone else to get half way of what everyone else get to. As an example simple fractions and some multiplications where always very hard for me but I had no problem and actually enjoyed algebra and trigonometry!
Encourage her strengths, there are things she is bound to be good at, and thing she loves to do, do encourage her. Every thing she does, every bit she reads every homework she does, every exam she will take takes her a great lot of effort.
This is a life time thing. I still make spelling mistakes and they would be a lot more if it wasn't for word processors! I still struggle to say my left from my right, in handwriting I still struggle between 7 - F between p-b-d-P. It takes me months to learn the names of new workmates etc. It takes me forever to read a book (and understand what I just read). But I have learnt to not get frustrated any more I know that is part of who I am.
Your daughter will have her own things she limps from, with help she will learn coping mechanisms that will make her quality of life a lot better.
Don not worry what the school might think of you, they should be there for her, you are there for her, it is what is best for her that matters.
Get her properly diagnosed else where and talk with the school, the governors, the council your MP until she gets what she deserves. What you do in your school might end up helping not only your daughter but other children with dyslexia current and future. There will be at least one teacher in the school who will understand and be on your side.
As many people have already said, keep the pressure on at school, whilst keeping your worries away from your child. Discuss useful role models - have a look at xtraordinarypeople.com/ and see if you think this would be useful to look at with your child. A diagnosis of Dyslexia is a good idea you can go to a Psychologist or a specialist teacher with the AMBDA qualification, though you will still have to work with school to have any action based on the recommendations in any assessment. As for your daughter's use of the computer, touch typing is something I teach to children of her age, regarding her spelling a program that might be more useful at recognising what your child is trying to write is Word Q (to cut the cost you don't need to purchase the speechQ element), I usually introduce that to students once they can touch type, it works on word prediction so she can see and hear the choices and click on the correct one, works better than a standard word processor. There is a month's free trial on the website. Hope this advice has been helpful. Remember you two are not on your own many people have had similar experiences, hope the new term goes well.
Buy the book TOE BY TOE and start with her at once!!! My son was 9yo before I found this book and it saved his life and mine. He is extremely clever but didn't know the rules behind reading ~ and neither did all the educational tutors, that he wasted years going to!!
Don't waste any time! Start with her NOW on Toe by Toe. You will see a difference to her reading and then her spelling afterwards.
Don't hesitate for the sake of £25 and 10-15 minutes a night!! Or she will struggle for years to come :o(
Hi, I have a son who has just gone into year 5, with similar difficulties to you daughter, he was assessed in year 2 as dyslexic. Going into year 4 he had a reading age of 5 and half. Luckily I had a fab teacher in year 4, and she got a fair bit of extra help for him. I bought the book Toe by Toe with him, and they find 10 minutes most days to do it with him at school. It has helped him massively already! Going into year5 his reading age is now 7. I know have a new teacher though, and yet again I'm having to go into to advocate for my son! I would highly recommend toe by toe, and to try and build a good relationship with class teacher. You know your daughter and her difficulties better than anyone else, keep pushing for the help she needs, good luck!
I have read the comments above and they all give so much very good advice. I have written a blog about how I support my dyslexic child with his homework and how I liaise with his school. I am a SEN teacher so I have a great deal of experience. I give lots of tips that I hope will be useful. Here's the link: squidoo.com/workshop/dyslex...
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