I suspect that my son who turned 6 this month is dyslexic.
Background: From 2.5-5yrs he qualified for speech therapy thru intervention and then thru the public school, for articulation delays. His articulation is fine now. But he does have a word retrieval issue, where he can’t think of a word when talking and will say ” um um , that animal, the ones that stinks, you know P.U.” and if you say skunk, he will say YEAH that’s it. He even will “forget” names of friends he sees daily, well I say forget but I think the knowledge is there and he can’t get to it, kwim?
He is in K in a private Montessori school, where he has been going since 3yrs old. He knows alphabet and letter sounds (he learned these at school), and his starting to read (3 letter words like mat and cut). He can read the basic Bob books (Mat sat. Sam sat. and the like). He does sound out 3 letter words outloud.
He sometimes “memorizes” words rather than reads them though. And he will guess really wrong things like “dog” for “rat”. He tries to look at the pictures when he is stuck on a word to guess. When he reads aloud and is stuck on a word (ie, dog), he won’t remember what sound “d” makes, and it will be very torturous for him to remember that sound. This happens sometimes, but often, and on words that he “knew” a few lines earlier. Today, he pointed at the word “in” and said “this is a new word”. But it isnt’, he has been reading “in” for several months.
His K teachers want him to repeat K, to get a better foundation before going on to 1st grade. He really has made progress in this environment, but lags behind all the other kids. So I think it’s a good school, but not sure if I should keep him there for to do K again
I am wondering if I should get him evaluated for dyslexia. I am reading “Overcoming Dyslexia: by Shaywitz and it all fits him to a “T”. The talking around a topic, etc.
I am reluctant to send him to Public school. I like the class size and ratios at the Montessori school and he loves it, but is starting to notice other kids reading really well.
We have a private school here just for dyslexia and LD that starts with 1st grade. It is expensive, but with sacrifice we could swing it.
I guess my question is what do you think of repeating K? What do you think of private LD school vs. Montessori? I haven’t visited the LD school yet.
Also, I am working with him at home and want to step that up. In a fun way, trying to keep it short and yet still helpful. I guess I want to supplement what he has learned at school, but I feel we are sort of stuck at the 3 letter level, and how to move on to longer words like consonant blends?
Having a hard time finding “early reader/emergent reader” books that are actually that.
I do feel glad that he is doing this well at this age thanks to his school. I have had “gut feelings” that things weren’t right (about the speech issues as a toddler) and now having these again that it is truly dyslexia.
His 4yr old brother is in same class at Montessori and is nearly reading himself, so that is tough.
Any thoughts or ideas you could provide would be so helpful. I have been reading a lot here and have gotten some good ideas already. I am so grateful to have found this board.
Thanks
Anne
Re: Help - Possible Dyslexia in 6yr old son
One positive thing is that most Montessori schools are using proper reading instruction, so staying there is likely more valuable than moving him to public school. I had my own child stay in first grade for extra phonics instruction, so I am not opposed to repeating a grade. I just think they need to wait and see how he is doing by the end of the summer before deciding about repeating K. First grade is more critical, so you almost want to reserve the option to repeat then.
Regardless, I have a suggestion of something easy to use and very effective for you to try at home. The books are called the Reading for All Learners Program Little Books. At the beginning of each book, there are sounds that you teach. Then he has to blend those sounds into new words, and then practice reading the words. Then there are review words from previous stories. Then the child reads the story. When he comes to a word he does not remember, you have him sound them out. These books are hard to memorize because they have characters like Mit and Mat, which forces the child to look at the vowel sound rather than just guessing the word. You’d have him reread a book a time or two until he can read it without errors. The books are cute and entertaining as well. I use these in my school and private reading therapy for practice reading decodable text. But it has been used as a primary reading program as well. If you can get him through Set 1 this summer, he would be likely be ready to begin first grade.
You could also buy sets 2-4 to do through his first grade year to reinforce that instruction as well. The other great thing is that the support materials are online, so you can print off reward certificates and the record keeping charts.
http://www.iseesam.com/
For a decoding program that works for dyslexic children, I prefer ABeCeDarian, which has some similarities to Phono-Graphix and Lindamood-Bell, yet it has more automaticity and fluency work built in. I have found it to be highly effective. The K level is now being revised and I am not sure when it will be ready, but it will be very user-friendly when it is:
www.abcdrp.org
I’d probably just suggest that you do the Little Books over the summer and then try the ABCD if that does not solve the problem.
Re: Help - Possible Dyslexia in 6yr old son
Hi, thanks so much for your replies. I will definitely look into those Little books and the AaBbCc program.
Janis, I do think he’s gotten this far b/c Montessori is doing things the right way.
I am comfortable with him repeating K. Because the 1st grade class is also mixed ages (6-9yrs old) and would be a huge transition for him. It is very independent-learning oriented, and I don’t feel he’s ready for that (nor do his teachers). They have seen other kids repeat K and then flourish. Kids in 1st grade have a weekly workplan and have to do X number of reading “works”, X number of math works etc. We like it that it’s so individualized.
We aren’t really considering public school. In this Montessori, they have the same teachers for 3-K and then the same teachers for 6-9yrs. I like that consistency.
I’m going to look into the local LD school. THey start at 1st grade, maybe he could go there after another year of K. If they admit 1st graders, they must evaluate them in some way? But you say it is too earlly to eval for dyslexia so I am not sure.
Also, from their website, it looks like they offer O-G tutoring after school. I am wondering if that is something he could benefit from later on.
Another possibly related thing - my son has amblyopia (lazy eye). Basically, the brain shuts off signals it gets from left eye. With glasses, he is using both eyes again. He was diagnosed last Sept. His vision is bad in both eyes, but the “bad” eye was really bad. He is going to a unversity amblyopia clinic. I asked b/c they also have vision therapy and things for LD that are vision related. They said at his age, it was too early to be talking LD (?) which surprised me but maybe b/c they just want his eyes seeing right first, both eyes working together,etc.
I am wondering if some of his delay is caused by not being able to see clearly til he turned 5 yrs old. Still this doesn’t explain the lang delay and the “talking around a word” (word retrieval problem). Before he could see, he wasn’t interested in letters (duh!) and it exhausted him.
He is very interested in learning to read and very motivated. Oh, also he seems to experience times where he makes a jump in learning - like he began sounding out 3 letter words - then these jumps seem to be followed by a “slump”where he seems to backslide, his writing gets sloppy (when usually it is neat when copying words etc)…Just wondering if this pattern of 1 step forward 2 steps back is common.
Thanks again for all your thoughts and suggestions. I appreciate it so much!
Anne
Nancy3
It’s good that your son is getting vision therapy for the amblyopia. So many children miss out on that!
It sounds as if your son might benefit from doing Audiblox at home. Website for this program is http://www.audiblox2000.com. It was originally developed as a preschool program (although it now goes through adult levels of exercise), so is suitable for 4yo and up.
Once a child is is functioning on an 8yo level or better, I prefer BrainSkills (http://www.brainskills.com) or PACE (http://www.processingskills.com), in part because they add in auditory processing exercises that tend to be very helpful for reading.
For a child your son’s age, I would also recommend the computer CD from http://www.soundreading.com. I believe the one you would want would be the the Primary Software. (Hop, Skip and Jump looks like their preschool program.) To be sure you order the right software, call the company. I do not care for their other products, but the computer CD is *excellent*.
Nancy
Re: Help - Possible Dyslexia in 6yr old son
I have amblyopia, pretty severely. Definitely work on the vision issues! Mine did not impinge on my reading, but on a lot of other activities.
If he has language problems and vision issues, it is only reasonable that his reading skills are going to take time to develop. He needs step-by-step instruction. Montessori has a good reputation, and if you are happy with what they are doing, it is better to stick with it rather than jump all over the place looking for a quick fix. There are few quick fixes, mostly just incremental improvements.
You might consider staying with the Montessori and adding some specific tutoring in reading skills a couple of times a week, This is what I do, and kids blossom with just a little one-to-one help in specific skills.
Re: Help - Possible Dyslexia in 6yr old son
We did vision therapy for a variety of vision problems. Our vision therapist had one patient who had lazy eye and she told me a good vision therapist should be able to correct it with vision therapy. Good Luck.
The one thing that we discovered by having our son tested in first grade when the teacher told us he is too smart to have this much trouble learning to read was that his processing speed is slow. This is a big hindrance to learning to read. Especially when they are first learning. The slow processing speed affects short term memory so learning to read was extremely painful. I think there are times he litteraly forgot what the first letters were by the time he got to the last letter. For years he sounded out words every time he met them. We’d seen them numerous times but he still sounded them out again and again. It didn’t seem to get better until we finished PACE and Master The Code.
I also think he has dyslexia. This I’ve concluded from reading Sally Shaywitz book Overcoming Dyslexia. So, between slow processing speed, dyslexia and vision problems learning to read has been hard work. And I mean hard work. It has taken us all this time and he is finally started reading on a 6th grade level and we’re most of the way through the year. But at least he is reading and his comprehension is good.
I know that slow processing speed has affected my sons learning experience. PACE is one program that helps processing speed. We discovered PACE last summer and had our now 12 yo son do it. It has helped quite a bit. I only wish I had found it sooner. After we finished the PACE program I asked the person who runs the program what the youngest age a child can effectively start PACE is and he said 6 years old. Although I wonder if 6 is really old enough.
Well, I am sure you know that speech and language delays are a risk factor for dyslexia.
I think what you need to figure out is whether he has the prerequisite skills to learn to read. My daughter, who is not dyslexic, did not really read much in K. I rationalized my son, who is, not learning to read on that basis. But, as I figured out, there was a world of difference in their prereading skills.
My son could not hear sounds, he could not segment, he could not blend.
He also could not retain visual patterns of words.
However, you can’t take your child for a conventional evaluation because reading level just isn’t an indicator of much at his age. The best indicator I know is the CTOPP (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, I think). It would be administered by a speech and language therapist and would evaluate the auditory skills known to correlate with reading. A cheap way to get a sense is to buy the book Reading Reflex and administer the reading readiness tests in it.
As far as holding him back, I certainly wouldn’t assume that another year would be the solution to his difficulties. He does have clear risk factors that would make me think that it is going to take more than time to get him reading. On the other hand, it would give you time to try to remediate his difficulties. However, if you decide to send him to the LD school, grade level would be less important.
Bottom line, I would try to find out what you are dealing with before making a decision. I was in much the same position as you with my son and I let it go until first grade (speech and language therapy as preschooler, virtually nonreader in K, word retrieval issues) IT was much harder to play catch up then. And eventually (in fourth grade), we ended up holding him back.
Beth