MOOKS: Dyslexia

[savan]

Anyone here have experience with dyslexia?  What prompted you to have your child tested?  Was it obvious?

I think we're ready to have DS (3rd grade) tested this year.  His reading level has never matched up with the rest of his abilities at school.  He has always struggled to decode words and gets bogged down by a wall of text.  His 1st and 2nd grade teacher didn't indicate there was a problem but I suspect he was bright enough to compensate for it those years.  They require a lot more independent reading this year and I don't want him to struggle.  

[imojoebunny]

My DD doesn't have Dyslexia, but she has visual processing disorder, and Orton Guillinham tutoring has dramatically improved her abilities, she has had 3 years of it. My BFF's DD has Dyslexia, as does my other good friend's son. One began O-G tutoring in 3rd grade, and now in 5th grade, is a fluid reader in the "gifted" program. He had a ton of behavior problems prior to diagnosis. My BFF's DD is in 5th grade, and was just diagnosed. BFF is an English teacher, but did not see the signs in her DD. It wasn't until 4th grade, when reading becomes the method of learning, over teacher involvement, that she started to fall behind. I started DD in 1st grade because I knew the signs because I had the same problems and went to the Dyslexic school here (Schenk School, they have a good bit of info on their website) for tutoring, and know it works, so I started DD. If you can find an O-G certified teacher or tutor, I would start there for an evaluation. If not, you can do the full battery with a child phycologist, but that can cost a lot, and if you do not have other concerns, might not be helpful for getting anything out of your school. I do not know anyone here who got much out of the school. All pay for private tutors.

www.schenck.org

[Deleted]

I am dyslexic, diagnosed in 3rd grade. I worked with the special education teachers on reading through elementary school and never again after that. I still struggle with giant walls of text especially on a computer screen but I am fully functional and highly educated. You learn tricks as to how to make reading easier. There's a font you can install as a browser plug in that makes it easier for dyslexics to read.

The best thing my parents did was encourage me to read, whatever I wanted. We did a lot of used book stores, so I could own books. Put books in his hands, read with him or even just at the same fun as him.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[Marmee]

Our discovery started in Speech Therapy when she got her initial evaluation in Kindergarten before she could even read & things we thought were "cute" or normal are actually signs. Eventually the ST gave me a handout with signs...and DD1 is textbook pretty much. We had her tested at the end of K. It wasn't the teacher who caught it but DH & I felt something was up. We are lucky in that we "caught it" so early & she started Orton Gillingham tutoring the summer between K & 1st grade. She "graduated" by 3rd grade & is an advanced reader & has always tested very high on intelligence & school tests. This blog posts is almost identical to my experience with her as a preschooler:
imaginationsoup.net/2013/09/early-signs-of-dyslexia/

[Marmee]

Oh & I am clearly dyslexic but not ever diagnosed in school....I struggled bad in early school but faked reading until I memorized enough to pass. I'm no dummy, I'm an Architect who went to a top 10 grad school. I didn't realize/test dyslexic until AFTER DD1 in my 30s...it all made sense. She's exactly like I was as a kid. Neither of us will ever be good at spelling .

[savan]

Thanks guys. Marmee, I got a little teary reading that link about early dyslexia signs. I, too, always thought that dyslexia meant reversing letters and numbers, which DS does not do. He did/does however have some of the difficulties she listed. In kindergarten he struggled with rhyming, he had a hard time remembering a word from one page to the next, and he still struggles to blend sounds. His teacher was kind of baffled by his low reading ability because he's bright, well behaved, and otherwise shows no other deficiencies. We thought that he was just slower to pick it up but it would eventually click. Thus far he has managed to stay on level for his grade but it's way harder than it should be for him.

This week DH confessed that he had always suspected that he, himself, is dyslexic. Now it all makes sense. We have teacher conferences in a week so I'm going to see what the school offers. We'll pursue outside tutoring if need be. I feel guilty that it has taken this long for us to address it.

[auntie]

DS is a remediated dyslexic. He was dxd at the end of first grade. It was subtle- he's bright, has strong rote memory and developed a lot of coping skills. We sent him to a lab reading school for 2nd and 3rd where they did Orton Gillingham. He bridged to public school where he got some resource support in reading. He eventually caught up and is a college senior majoring in history and reading 300-500 pages a week.

[rugbywife]

We don't test for learning disabilities (dyslexia is considered a reading communication LD) until grade 3 here because kids can continue to develop skills until about the age of 8 and it is at that point that a gap in skills can be identified.

Essentially, students with reading LDs struggle with the act of decoding. They struggle to learn sight words (grade appropriate vocab that they should know from sight, not have to decode), they may have learned effective decoding skills (sound it out, re-read) but they still struggle to read at a pace and with enough accuracy to maintain comprehension (essentially, they are so focused on reading the text that they miss the meaning). Reading out loud is usually not something they enjoy, since it highlights their challenges. Their inability to decode text also affects their writing, in particular spelling.

Edited for syntax.

[auntie]

I would test soon savan. Trust you gut.

Dyslexia has the best outcomes when a child gets remediation services before the start of puberty. It's a bit like learning a language in that respect- fluency comes best to those who get help sooner. We started Orton a few weeks before DS turned 8. My niece's ex who is probably brighter than DS got help after high school and never became a truly fluent reader. IN college he relied pretty heavily on books from  Reading For the Blind and Dyslexic for textbooks to lighten his reading load.