Help!

Look for a lindamood clinic in your area. Or, if you can do it yourself or are short on funds get the book reading reflex.

If these things don’t work or she struggles with either of these programs you can get a full evaluation later.

It is not too early to get an evaluation, follow your insticts. The earlier you know what is going on the better. Just follow your gut, no matter what the school tells you.

Well said, Moms!

Josie,

My son’s K-grade teacher suggested there was a problem but the principle poo-pooed it. By 2nd grade, my son was seriously behind but his teacher, who wasn’t maybe the best, said it was bad behavior, not a LD. At the beginning of 4th grade he was doing second grade work. At that point, I insisted he be tested although the current teacher and the principle said it wasn’t necessary. His IQ is in the 99% and his proformance is at the 27%. No wonder he was frustrated and acting out. Now that he’s getting help he is much happier and learning something.

I wish we’d testing in K.

Barb Bloom

Principal NOT principle! Sorry for all the spelling errors too.

Geez, kinda having an off morning here!

Barb Bloom

I just made the exact recommendations to a friend in a similar situation. With a child in kindergarten her “delay” could easily be developmental and not cause for concern. In my friend’s case her child has a history of speech therapy and she feels he isn’t hearing sounds in words and can’t rhyme.. I said get thee to a lindamood bell clinic. Intervention now certainly won’t hurt even if it turns out not to be a big deal. GOOD LUCK>

I agree with Barb and I say get the evaluation. Request it in writing. They will balk at this, saying it is too early, but it’s better too early than too late.

My daughter had “developmental delays” in k-5. Couldn’t rhyme, poor letter word identification, etc. By 2nd grade she was considered severely LD.

Don’t wait, request the evaluation THEN, if your fears are warranted, head to the nearest LMB Clinic!

My daughter in the 98% for IQ, 37% in reading at the beginning of 2nd grade. The school didn’t think 37% was too bad. I was incredulous. We went to LMB, now she scores high in reading comprehension; however, decoding skills in the high 60, low 70 percentile.

My youngest was soo not ready for kindergarten. His Bday was July 4th. Turned 5,then a mere 2 months later started Kindergarten. A couple years later we found all his various Learning issues,maybe they would have found them in Kindergarten,but lo and behold the little intelligent kiddo,didn’t meet criteria for special education. He got the ,he is bored,lazy,yadda,yadda,yadda. He had troubles,BIG troubles,but the split wasn’t there. It can happen to lots of kids. If I knew then what I know now? I probably wouldn’t have had him evaled. He didn’t get any help from the school anyway. Actually if I knew then what I know now,I would have pulled him out and into a private school:-)

I very much agree with Socks. If the child knows a couple of letters they will score within K level on the reading test. So therefore, it will not show the required discrepancy. Speech/language is the only school eval I would do in K. This child likely has problems that will show up on receptive and expressive language testing, so that’s what I’d request.

Janis

Also, there is a big risk that the poor kiddo tests low on IQ which is just not as reliable as people think. I am reading the audblox book and the mention a study where school psychs test the same kid and come up with scores from 67 to 117.

That book is pretty harsh on school testing and the emphasis that is placed on children’s deficits. They site many horror stories of testing gone wrong where the child just needed intervention to improve cognitive functioning. Schools do not provide help in this area so the child just gets a lifelong pass to a dumbed down curriculum in a sped classroom.

I was lead down a path when they tested my son where the school psych convinced me that they would help my son. I am so happy that thanks to this board, I had the good sense to move away from the schools interventions and so called help. I am not saying to not really work to understand your child’s areas of weakness but just be aware that schools do not have the answers they often pretend to have.

I say intervene to get those cognitive skills up but take all testing with a big grain of salt.

My daughter, by the end of 1st grade-beginning of 2nd had “severe specific LDs in all academic areas and significant processing delays, both auditory and visual”. I guess I feel like IF I had followed my gut in K-5 she would have caught up sooner.

Additionally, she was an older K-5. She turned 6 in November (school started end of August) and they kept telling me she was “developmentally delayed”. I kept saying WHY would she be dd if she is older than most everyone in this classroom?” They had no answer to that.

The K-5 teacher admitted (when I went back to see her, eval. in hand, at the beginning of 2nd grade) that she thought she was just being obstinate.

So…, I guess that is why I am so prone to say get the evaluation; however, I can see that in some kids maybe the discrepancy wouldn’t be significant enough yet. Thanks for the insight.

By pure coincidence, I was reading a review of the CTOPP test and eventually it gets to a case study of a kindergartener who was struggling with reading. She was given an IQ test and had an average IQ and scored within the average range on the Woodcock Johnson. Not enough discrepancy, but it was suspected that the child probably had a learning disability.So they gave her the CTOPP which did identify the problems.

http://alpha.fdu.edu/psychology/comprehensive_test_of_phonologic.htm

Janis

My daughter was diagnosed as dyslexic in kindergarten. The biggest predictors of reading difficulty in kinderegarten are inability to name letters/numbers and poor phoneme awareness. An evaluation can be helpful. My daughter also had the RAN which speaks to reading skills. True, with the results of the evaluation that I had done, (both independant and private, becaus the school’s eval showed nothing), what did it mean to the school? They almost failed a child. The programs the school(s) have are usually not adequate to help these kids appropriately. In our case, I mailed that evaluation to the Masonic Learning Centers for Children. They accepted my daughter into their program and she receives Orton-Gillinghan 1:1 tutoring twice a week. (Free) (she aslo gets help at school)
This is far superior to what the school offers.
My daughter had the CTOPP, RAN, PAT and the WJIII, among others. True also is that at this age, some parts of the tests the child with difficulties cannot do. This sometimes will make the scores appear higher than they are, due to what I am told is a “floor effect”.
The bottom line is the interventions for the child. An appropriate program NOW, at the appropriate time (when the child is poised to learn to read) is the BEST thing for these kids. Do what you have to to get it, either privately or (I suppose it can happen) through the school.

Just a note that the CTOPP tests phonemic awareness and RAN, so the RAN and PAT tests are not actually necessary if you can get the CTOPP. It should show the deficits. My own daughter had the WJIII in Oct. of first grade and she had to do very little to score at 1.0 in reading. It absolutely did not show her reading problems. We are having many referred children in my district not qualify for services when given the WJIII unfortunately. Maybe the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test might be better to use than the WJ achievement reading portion.

Janis

You are so lucky to be alert at this stage. I was told developmental etc. Dr’s said the slight speech probs were developmental etc… Luckily at the end of Kindergarton (and after a year of bullying and misery that still leaves marks) I decided to take my son out and try myself. I didn’t know anything about dyslexia but saw for myself that something was wrong. So I began wo testing to look for what worked. That led me eventually to PG and finally to Lindamood Bell. I don’t think the journey would have been any faster if I’d gone for testing and spent the $800.00 on a psych. Schools were never going to be any help until he’d failed 2nd grade. (I realized in retrospect) The bottom line for me is PG and LMB are very good ways to teach kids to read. If the schools aren’t teaching a phonetic program as good as theirs - how much worse could I do. I just wish I’d made this decision BEFORE Kindergarton and started at age 4 instead of 6. Teaching right the first time wo having to UNteach is SOOOO much easier. So what if it is developmental… PG and LMB are NOT going to hurt her if it is developmental and doing nothing will if it is a dyslexia problem. Good luck!!

PJK,

You are so right. Doing it right the first time can allow the child to find success without the unneccessary experience of failure that can do just so much harm.

Once a child develops a negative self image it is difficult even with eventual success to shake.

Just get the child what they need cognitive enhancement, (ie, memory, sequencing, logic, etc) phonemic awareness, and language skills.

Schools do a very poor job of this. I don’t think getting the child tested earlier will neccessarily bring you to developing these skills. My son’s school testing did not pick up his pa deficit, his logic defict or his sequencing problem.

Hi,this all sounds too familiar. My son who now is in the second grade is DYSLEXIC/CAPD/ADD-inattenative. He also was struggling in kindergarden. I agree to request evaluation,but make sure its in writing! I also agree that at this young age there may not be enough discrepancy for you to get any help from school………..you see I had very similar circumstance. In my son’s case he did not have discrepancy and only qualified for speech. The speech teacher that he had(wonderful lady-a real advocate for children) went out of her way to see ifwe could get additional services. I went to the speech dept. at childrens hospital and they reccommended medication-we have my son on adderall xr-lowest dose. After that the Dr. wrote a note stating my son’s diagnosis-ADD/CAPD/Dyslexia and then he was placed in the resource room at his school. My son has done very well-he is still not to where he should be but making great improvements! Unfortunately this can be a long road……..do what your gut tells you!! Good luck!

Wait until your child fails or test as soon as you feel something is not right. That seems to be the choice. Go for it.

How nice to realize this so early! There’s lots of great intervention programs out there (like LMB!) and the sooner she starts the more likely that any problems can be remediated.

I don’t think it’s worth it to “wait and see if she grows out of it.” The key is to start now and do whatever possible to get her on grade level or ahead.

Good luck! :-)