Teachers or anyone with experience of Dyslexia

We are told at school that we can't assess for dyslexia etc. until a child is 7yrs old. Also is your SENco qualified to say it is actually dyslexia? Ours can only say that a child has specific learning difficulties with dyslexic tendencies! Not that is relevant at the moment - The dyslexia association has a website that may be able to offer ideas. Another thing to query is Irlens syndrome which is where a person finds racking words etc. very hard, the words seem to jump out of the page and move around. My nece has this and has a specific coloured overlay to put over pages and coloured lenses in glasses.

http://irlen.com/index.php this may help

HTH

Thankyou I will look at that website

She said that he showed traits of dyslexia and also that they were going to try different coloured overlays over the next few weeks.

We are a house of dyslexics, All 3 of my school age boys are quite bad, Matthew 13 being scarily dyslexic. We had Ben assessed at 7 as we knew he already was as we saw the signs and Tom who is 4 is also showing signs and we teach him at home with the things we bought the others.

I echo what Tigeresslady said, I have a real problem with Senco's diagnosing problems, they can say they think or suspect but they aren't normally trained to diagnose. Some of our children's problems stem from a reluctant senco not accepting that she needed to take advise from outside.

If you google you'll come up with loads of things for dyslexics, we use both sets of Ruth Miskin flash cards and her books, they have really helped both my boys reading. Overlays help some dyslexics, Matt is better with yellow paper and blue pens.

Give me a shout if you need to know anything else, I am dyslexic too but not as bad as the kids, it's really popular in my family? I am no expert but we've been doing this for over 10 years now. I would ask for him to be assessed by the ed psych.

The school have already got someone from outside in to work with him but I’m not sure exactly what she is.

I’m quite reluctant to tell Aaron that he has dyslexia partly because he hasn’t been formally diagnosed but also because I don’t want to give him an excuse, he is quite a lazy child and I don’t want him to give up an say “I can’t do it because I’m dyslexic “

Also my family are very good at giving people labels my nephew is the one with Tourettes and my half brother is the one with Aspergers I don’t want Aaron to become the Dyslexic

Your family would love my lot, the 4 dyslexics, one with failing lungs another kidney probs? I am against kids not getting homework if they're struggling, I think it can help you see where he is and he doesn't feel different and if he is anything like Matt he will see it as an easy get out of homework idea?

Boys tend to learn english slower than girls, they might have not tapped into what gets him excited about learning yet.

Make sure he is referred to the school's educational psychologist for diagnosis and help.

This is not an uncommon story, not that I expect that to make you feel any better.

Children younger than about 7/8 can be very difficult to diagnose with a specific learning difficulty or dyslexia as a high proportion of children without needs will show the same traits during their language and literacy development. For example almost all young children will reverse letters. skip words when reading, even write backwards at some stage up to the age of about 7 so it's almost impossible to differentiate between normal developmental errors or miscues, and those due to a learning difficulty. So that would explain why the school have previously said he was normal for his age ~ he probably was. It's only as children get older that it becomes more apparent and possible to diagnose. I can understand that you feel angry, but really there is little that could have been done by the school much earlier.

I am a Primary Deputy Head and SENCo with 15 years experience, but am not qualified to diagnose a learning difficulty, even if a child is showing 'classic traits'. The vast majority of SENCos are like me, just teachers who are responsible for the SEN children in the school ~ there is no formal training. Class teachers also receive no specific training for SEN, there are courses run by LEAs but the SENCo would probably be the one to attend these.A formal diagnosis can only be made by an Educational Psychologist and for this there has to be a full assessment, there may be a wait for one of these as school typicall only get 2-3 visits per year and it sadly depends on which child is at the top of the list or considered the biggest priority for assessment.

As for what you can be doing at home for him it is difficult to say as there are a wide spectrum of dyslexia type difficulties (which would be identified at formal diagnosis). One thing which may or may not have been mentioned is taking him to have his eyes tested ~ opticians can do the coloured overlay thing easily.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for all your replys

They have not asked us to get his eyes tested but I may do that anyway, they have asked us to get his hearing checked to rule out any problems there.

I have to take him to football now but I will check back later

Thanks again

Bird- it's nice to see a view of a senco, we have a fab one at the primary school now, like you, lots of years teaching etc but knows she isn't an ed pychc. The one at the senior school is basically Froyd?, I thought she was going to blame my children's dyslexia on breast feeding..

I think that there were pointers on all my children, but like you said it took till 7 for it to be obvious and boys tend to be a lot more imature than girls.

I feel your pain, I fought eldest daughters primary school for over 2 years, she finally saw the Ed Phyc 3 weeks before she finished year 6!

As for the labelling it was the best thing for her as she finaly had a reason why she was struggling and was no longer just stupid, so it was a blessing for her.

Her senior school have been fab and she has improved loads.