Dyslexia will they ever say it

What! Your 9 yr old can’t read and the school district won’t test him for a learning disability?! Schools are required to test kids with problems. Your school should have done the testing. Ask for it in writing and ask for their response in writing. They should give you a written response in a formal way called “Prior written notice” if they refuse to test him or if they refuse to offer an appropriate education (like OG). I think a school district would be afraid to put that in writing. This is outrageous. Go to
http://www.websitetoolbox.net/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/websitetoolbox/view/mboard.cgi?username=connie&pass= If this link doesn’t work, try entering Reed Martin in a search engine. This is an advocacy site for problems like yours. Read everything. Post a message on the bulletin board. You’ll get great advice. Good luck.

We were told the same thing when our son was nine. Didn’t they understand that they had never done any effective reading programs with him? Just the same flashcards that didn’t work the first three years they used them. So, we too had outside testing, then hired an advocate to help us say “You (the school) need to provide some recognized programs to teach our son to read, or you can pay for someone else (a private clinic) to do it.” The school district did pay for some programs and they began to train staff to provide the programs in their schools. Time is important and you need to push for effective reading programs taught by experienced teachers in a consistant setting. So, OG, Wilson, Lindamood, Project Read - daily by a trained teacher. Our son is now 14 and just started high school. He is reading more and our efforts on his behalf have kept his spirit alive. Best wishes. Ldonline has been a great support for me. I hope knowing that others with similar experience are out there helps you to be strong.

Hi, Angela. Just wondering how you and Toby are doing these days. I gather you moved, to San Diego area? You have a new job? Are you teaching RSP? If so, what level? And, what do you think of your new district? Finally, and not least, how is Toby liking the new school (special school?)? I think of you from time to time.

My situation is getting really hairy this year. Or perhaps I should say challenging. I am seeing an increase in autism cases and I personally feel totally unprepared to handle these well, plus I still have to serve my LD students (what I love). Thus far this year I have started testing a child who has a, probably, genuine reading phobia, but he CAN read. He simply refuses to read, he sulks and gets ugly and no amount of cajoling, promises, firmness, kindness, whatever make an iota of difference. He clearly has problems of a mental/emotional sort and I don’t know how I am even going to test him.

Another one has what I would classify as pathological anxiety. He becomes completely panicked, anxious, distraught, hysterical. He invests most of his energy all day in worrying about where mom and dad may be, whether or not his teacher loves mom and dad. He obsesses on what time it is, when such and such will occur. He can tell time to the minute (he is second grade) and he can read, at least decode. He cannot do math. I believe this one also needs psychiatric intervention. Parents are telling us they have an Asperger’s diagnosis. Well, typical Aspergers is mild next to this. His anxiety is so extreme, it is really difficult to tell whether, if the anxiety were reduced (with medication?) other aspects of Aspergers would be present or not.

There are a few more, but I won’t bore you. My LD student is becoming less and less of a majority.

Both the latter children you described do sound like they have extreme, emotional reactions to school/subjects, maybe even people. They may have developed a sort of phobia to their own feelings. Extreme anxiety and depression are both terrible things to feel. People learn to avoid them; then they learn to avoid the activities that bring them about — like trying to do school work they find very hard.

They may not have to take medication. There is a lot of very good, effective material out there on relaxation techniques that really work — breathing, release of muscular tension, imagining — used together. If you could teach them to relax themselves — slowly, over time, a little change each time — before they start to do the work they must do, you would be giving them a huge gift that might well change their lives. Think of being enslaved by anxiety and learning to free yourself of it. It’s very possible to do.

Carol

My son’s school will not say dyslexia they also say developmentally delayed. I just found out his teacher doesn’t even use levels of reading she said she just gives them books.

I got a remedial reading teacher to tutor him twice a week. She does well with him she doesn’t use OG program but her technique is what is recommended in Reading Reflex although she doesn’t call it that.

It is very frustrating when the school doesn’t seem to care if your kid is years behind in reading. All they ever say is he is working to his capabilities.

Maybe they should start working to their capabilities. Maybe they are working at their capabilities and that is a scary thought.

My son is smart too and it breaks my heart to see them treating him like he is stupid.

I agree, Carol…my son at the end of grade 1 would hit himself when he couldn’t figure out a word. Meltdown and tears soon followed…Since his reading was MINIMAL once we discovered he had been using his excellent memory to fake the whole-language primers, this usually started in the first sentence…I used to say ‘no wonder he can’t read, NOBODY can read while covering their face with their hands and moaning NOOOOOOOOOOOOO I CAAAAANNNTTTT…!” His teacher thought he was ADD and “will not/can not focus”; felt that the academic problems were the least of his troubles and that we needed a pediatrician, STAT - I disagreed, and against her advice, put him in a summer remedial program at a local private school.

It took 4 weeks in class of 8 or 10 kids, led by a SUPER teacher and dyslexia expert to get this turned around. FOUR WEEKS, and some good, sequential, phonics-based training with a multi-sensory presentation (spalding in this case) — but the magic ingredient was: A TEACHER WHO BELIEVED SHE COULD TEACH HIM, AND HE COULD LEARN.

There was no ‘magic’ really…but I still get weepy when I think of that summer…I feel this teacher saved my child SO much heartache…

By the way, this teacher also said to me that her motto was: “If learning didn’t happen, TEACHING didn’t take place!”

You can’t be all things to all kids, but maybe if you BELIEVE…magic will happen!
best wishes, Elizabeth

I’d let a doctor take a look first, it may be that medication will ease an EXTREME reaction that is so severe the child cannot benefit and cannot even relax enough to learn and practice self-control strategies. You have to have some kind of presence of mind to use strategies.

Yes, we are moved and sort of settled. This summer had its ups and downs as we tried unsuccessfullyto sell our house, find a place in San Diego, find a job…
But every little piece of the puzzle fell in place as if God and my dear departed mother were looking out for us. We are leasing an apartment just blocks from the Winston School in Del Mar, so Toby can come and go as a responsible high school student. Our place is small, but we are a block from the cliffs overlooking the ocean. We have sunsets on our balcony and climbs down the cliff to the ocean. Toby is happy at school. He has classes of eight or nine kids, including a lab science and an art class. I need to reaffirm with the school that my goals are for Toby to learn (read and write) independently, but on the whole we feel he is in a positive, accepting yet challenging school. My husband’s company has given him a sales territory here in San Diego. For myself, I have the job I have dreamed about. In a public school district I am working in a student learning center where students receive ONE-to-One instruction in Lindamood programs and others. I am in charge of a Fast ForWord lab where students are improving their auditory processing skills. I have 10 new computers, matching chairs, new tables…several aides that help me monitor students. After they finish with F4W they will move to the other classroom for Lips, VV, vocag., writing, whatever they need. Students come to us from their home school for two hours a day, every day. We are a DIS (designated instructional service). I feel so lucky to teach here and I am soooo impressed that a district is really doing the right thing. We began school with two weeks of training for ourselves AND our aides. Thanks for asking.

But if the reaction is quite understandable (like a bright child who can’t understand WHY he can’t learn what the others are learning, a typical dyslexic’s dilemma) it seems more sensible to work on the remediation first…drugs are helpful and necessary, even essential, for some, but should NOT be used FIRST…this is a school denying a child’s difficulties and subtly telling him HE is the problem…drugs won’t fix that. May help him manage to sit there and take it, but that isn’t HELP…

I think the test also is: Do the anxiety problems STOP outside of school, (or in relation to school) or is the child upset all the time, with many different triggers in many different situations? The second situation might lead me to suspect a chemical imbalance that must be corrected before learning can take place.

If the problem is AT SCHOOL, in response to SCHOOL DEMANDS…well, there are as yet no meds for dyslexia that I have heard of! :)
Best wishes,
Elizabeth