My son has just turned 12. We have had him going to Sylvan Learning Center since January to help with reading and for part of that time to help with writing. He is a very good boy who tries hard but has great difficulty in writing and he is behind is reading.
In reading he is about a year behind or more. He can comprehend what he reads. His writing is very neat, but his spelling is horrible and the content is more like a 3rd grader vs going into 6th grade. I had his IQ tested once and it was a 104 which I think is average? He can be organized and always wants to make sure his homework is done and turned in but I have always helped him in the past and I want him to do more on his own. Last year in 5th grade, he really struggled and barely passed, he had a very hard teacher who poured on the work and required a lot of in class work. My son, if given time will get things done, but from what I see, he has a slower mental speed.
My son is also very athletic and does well in sports but as he gets older, I see the “thinking” part of the activities are making it harder to stay competitive. So is he just a slow learner? Or is there possibly a dissability? Thanks for any help. Also, he does well in math but when it comes time for story problems, that’s a different story. Thanks again for any help.
Re: Is my boy LD??
I agree with everything des wrote, five times over.
Sylvan just does not do much beyond more and more worksheets. If a kid actually needs to learn something, there is very little *teaching*.
Instead of Sylvan, put your money into a good private tutor who really knows about reading.
Often kids *appear* to read by using all their energy on memorization, making it slow, tiring, inaccurate, and increasingly difficult as time goes on and vocabulary increases. Sound familiar? The solution is to teach decoding skills so the student can develop vocabulary without the huge memory load. This is a process that takes time, and at first the student may even slow down as he is trying to change from one system to another. Persevere and he will speed up and get more skilled, much better than before.
Re: Is my boy LD??
des and Victoria have already covered the essentials (and we all agree about 98% of the time), but I would just add that you can contact the International Dyslexia Association in your state to get a list of qualified reading evaluators and tutors.
www.interdys.org
Janis
Re: Is my boy LD??
We all agree about 98%. That’s because we are the same person. :-)
Just kidding.
—des
I can’t dx LD online as you know. There might be other factors, but lets just say he “sounds ld” from your description. Has he ever been tested by school? That would be the first thing is trying to get testing set up. I think some parents would be better at recommending a course of action here than I would. With an IQ of 104, if this is an accurate test, does not sound like a “slow learner”. Processing may be slow for certain types of tasks, as he may organize them in his mind a different fashion, for lack of a better explanation. But you do need to get him tested. A 104 IQ is in the average range.
>My son has just turned 12. We have had him going to Sylvan Learning Center since January to help with reading and for part of that time to help with writing.
Most people here have not had good results with Sylvan. They have a KFC type approach with tutoring. High on drill and short on techniques.
> He is a very good boy who tries hard but has great difficulty in writing and he is behind is reading.
In reading he is about a year behind or more. He can comprehend what he reads. His writing is very neat, but his spelling is horrible and the content is more like a 3rd grader vs going into 6th grade.
This is all consistent with a pattern of poor decoding skills, which will make him slow in reading and likely explain the poor spelling. He probably needs help in learning to decode multisyllabe words and in spelling.
You need to find a good tutor who uses Orton Gillingham (or at least some research based) approaches. This will be logical, systematic, and multisensory. He should nto be allowed to guess at words, etc.
>competitive. So is he just a slow learner? Or is there possibly a dissability? Thanks for any help. Also, he does well in math but when it comes time for story problems, that’s a different story. Thanks again for any help.
Also consistent for learning disabilities in language processing. Perhaps he does not really understand the coach that well so that sports might suffer (this is speculation on my part). Ld children are often better at computation than word problems which require reading and understanding what they read fairly well.
Again this is mainly conjecture but he appears to be ld. I would definitely have him tested. Sadly most schools do not have the time or inclination to do appropriate ld tutoring but there are many exceptions.
HTH,
—des