Seeking advice - dyslexia

A year before i started grade 1, they changed how reading was taught in american public schools. They mad it rather than a phoenetic system,a system of visual memorization. They still apply phoneticas sure, but the emphasis is on what does the word look like? So you learn through memorizing visuals. Well memorizing songs and everything else verbally is quite different. Through that method i had everyone convinced i had read The Red Badge Of Courage when i was 3 years old. I had just memorized it verbally, I heard it a couple times and because of how my brain works that was all it took. It wasn’t just that book it was many books. It wasn’t till one day when i forgot to turn a page my mother realized her 3 year old genius child was actually her 3 year old dyslexic child.

The more you talk about your son, i see a bit of myself in him. As he is doing alot of memorization of verbal statements. Much like i did and still do. He is telling you something VERY important here. He is saying to you, “this is how i learn. I listen, and my brain works like a tape recorder i am not a visual learner.” You must pay attention to that massage very closely, and the closer you pay attention to it, the better he is going to do. Just like me.

If it iis infact dyslexia which it does sound like atleast in part…. Maybe there is something else there too i don’t know. But i have not met dyslexics who couldn’t rhyme or were mixing up verbal expressions… That doesn’t necesarily mean anything but just putting it out there for something you can consider also that it may not be just dyslexia you are going to be dealing with. And then maybe it is? But atleast much of it sounds like dyslexia i do agree with you….

The only way they could get me reading was through the use of a phonetics system. It was VERY repetitive. You heard everything saw everything and then it was all associated with a texture. Then when you are ready, they sit you down with a very easy book. When i was a kid it was Mac and Tab, and you would sound out the words with guidance and you would learn it was hard and horrible but worth it. Your child must be more than a functional illiterate with a mind like his, it is cheating society if he is not given the tools to go forward in the future and to give back to society as he is an intelligent kid who sounds like in time he will have alot to offer. Orton Gullingham? Guillingham? Dyslexia strikes again….. Oh well atleast i am able to make myself understood for the vast most part. That is my recommendation. Get him going with that system.

Wow thank you so much for your reply, it means the world. Yes, he certainly is telling me a lot. When I work with him I use a lot of verbal cues - I’m a real “intuitive” mom, with my eldest he learns visually so I mold to the child.

He’s incredibly smart and it’s so funny to have a child who can barely form a sentence at age 4 - but can belt out the song “Fergalicious” word for word. I love it, I love all the different things with my kids :)

I’m going to look into what you said you used. I’m hoping I can get that system at home. I want to start now, I don’t want him to always start out so far behind, that was the idea for repeating Kindy but now - now he’s behind again. Makes me hurt for him.

He gets so frustrated and cries when working with him on letters and reading. It makes me sad, it shouldn’t be so miserable to learn.

That’s why your response means the world, the more I can understand him, the better I can help. Yes there is more than just possible dyslexia, we already know he has ADHD. But I’ve got two other ADHD kids who read early, so I know the ADHD isn’t the issue with the reading.

Thanks again, take care!

Rather than seeking a diagnosis of dyslexia (which is really meaningless) you need to determine exactly how your child processes information so that appropriate interventions can be developed. Try the free online cognitive processing inventory (CPI) available at http://www.LDinfo.com

Mum’s tuition is usually accurate!
I am a dyslexia specialist teacher/trainer and have a web site where you can look at my article on Indications of Dyslexia.
There is stuff on teaching your child to read as well.
You can download games to play at home with your son.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
All the best

www.readingwithouttears.com
[Modified by: dyslexiaexpert on March 06, 2010 08:43 AM]

[Modified by: dyslexiaexpert on March 06, 2010 08:44 AM]

I just read your article and your mother’s intuition seems correct. I have two children who are dyslexic. You child needs systematic, cumulative, structure mutisensory instruction. In texas the Scottish Rite Learning Centers offer free afterschool tutoring. I went through the Take Flight program to get my certificaiton as a certified academic language therapist when my son was diagnosed and I currently volunteer at my daughter’s school with children who have dyslexia.

See if any of the local colleges or univeristy have training programs for Speech and Language or Communicative Disorders. They often offer testing at a greatly reduced price.

Also, check out these:
http://www.dys-add.com/testing.html#cost

http://www.webcastgroup.com/client/start.asp?wid=0681219062975&auto=true

Another option would be to get an evaluation here:
Info@BrightSolutions

In the subject line put “List of Testers”. In the body provide your geographical area.

I am overjoyed with the help provided here! Thank you so much, I plan to spend the entire weekend learning how to help him and reading everything I can find. I did open the IEP and testing is going to start. I’m tyring to find somewhere to affordably get him diagnosed, so far $1,000 seems to be the going rate and I can’t afford that.

You are all so wonderful and not long winded! When God gave me 3 special kids, he knew I was a fighter and there was no way I’d sit back and watch them struggle without giving them skills to handle their struggles.

Thanks so much

Christine,

Even without a formal diagnosis of ‘dyslexia’ it seems your ‘mom intuition’ is correct. From your description it appears your son is lacking skills he needs to achieve reading success. It is very dangerous to simply ignore these red flag warning signs of reading difficulty and assume the child will ‘catch up’ later. The research FACTS clearly show this is NOT the case. The statistics prove most children who struggle in the beginning of first grade continue to struggle. Most kids who struggle early do NOT catch up. University of Oregon’s Big Ideas in Reading has a nice chart and some stats that illustrate this problem http://reading.uoregon.edu/beginning_reading/scope2.php If a child struggles you need to intervene and help the child develop necessary skills otherwise they likely will continue to struggle (and get farther and farther behind). Early effective intervention is essential!

Reading is a complex learned skill that requires the acquisition and integration of many critical subskills. Students need to convert print to sound so they can tap into the brains phonologic processors designed for effortlessly processing spoken sound. To do this efficiently the student must recognize the sound structure of language (phonemic awareness), directly and automatically know the phonemic code including the complexities (knowledge of the complete code). They must process print from left to right (tracking), smoothly combine sounds (blending) and pay close attention to all the letters in the words (attention to detail). Learning the individual components in isolation is not sufficient. The student must not only master these individual skills but also integrate and automatically apply these skills when they read. In addition, as with all learned skills, practice with correct phonologic processing is essential to developing proficiency. If a child is missing any of these foundational skills they can run into reading difficulty. The key is sitting down with the child and directly and systematically helping them build all necessary skills so they can achieve reading success. Don’t leave it to chance for the child to pick up skills on their own… many do not!

From your description, it appears your son may be lacking some of the necessary skills. Based on your comments, you may need to check if he has acquired skills in phonemic awareness, knowledge of the code, smooth blending and directional tracking. I have further info on these skills listed below.

Phonemic Awareness: You said your son can not rhyme and mixes up similar sounding words. These could be indicators of phonemic weakness (a strong predictor of reading difficulty). Phonemic awareness (PA) is important for reading and spelling success. The great news is phonemic awareness CAN be taught. The scientific evidence proves that PA instruction has “significant and positive effect on both reading and spelling” (National Reading Panel’s “Teaching Children to Read” Summary Report) In other words we can directly teach children how to hear, recognize, and manipulate sounds within words and this intentional development of PA skills has a positive effect on reading and spelling. I have 2 articles you may want to read 1) Phonemic Awareness Explained http://righttrackreading.com/whatpais.html and 2) Free Activities to Develop Phonemic Awareness at http://www.righttrackreading.com/morepaactivities.html I would like to add a note… be sure you demonstrate the activities to your son. For example, when you ask him to ‘rhyme’ be sure and demo some words and help him hear what to do… if he gave you ‘hunt’ when you asked him to rhyme ‘hat’, he may be trying to give you a word with the same starting sound??? possibly not understanding what to do as well as a difficulty recognizing the sound structure of words. In addition, you mentioned your son had speech issues. Phonemic weakness can be interrelated to speech and hearing issues. If any hearing impairments are involved you need to have that medically checked and addressed.

Knowledge of Phonemic Code: You also mentioned your son knows his letters but can’t put sound with them. Is the print=sound relationship being taught directly or are they learning letter names and having to pull out the sound from indirect instruction????? (For example was he taught the squiggly ‘t’ is the letter name ‘tee’ and then shown a picture of a train where he has to determine and pull out the sound /t/ on his own….. Not only are these indirect methods much less effective, but if he has poor phonemic awareness he likely is unable to recognize and pull out sounds within words to distinguish the sound /t/) ????? Knowledge of the phonemic code (the letters and the sounds they represent) is absolutely an essential skill for reading success. The knowledge of the letter(s)=sound(s) needs to be taught directly (point to black squiggly ‘t’ and say sound /t/) and practiced until it is automatic. You may want to read the article “The Building Blocks of Written English: The Phonemic Code Explained” and try some of the activities listed in the article “Teaching the Phonemic Code in Reading Instruction, Effective Multisensory Activities to Directly Build Automatic Knowledge of the Complete Phonemic Code” http://www.righttrackreading.com/phonemiccodeactivities.html You can do a bunch of these activities with your son at home to help him learn the print=sound relationship. Teach sounds systematically, a few at a time adding new sounds as he masters the old ones. (don’t toss the entire alphabet soup at him at once as it tends to lead to confusion and frustration… ).

Blending: You mentioned that in sounding out your son said the sounds but could not read the word (‘aah-pp-Lll” and said “play”). This may be an indication that your son has not learned how to smoothly blend sounds together. Not only does a child have to know individual sounds but they need to be able to smoothly ‘hook’ the sounds together. For details on why blending is important and how to help your child develop smooth blending see the article “Blending Explained” http://www.righttrackreading.com/blending.html

Directional Tracking: While reversing numbers/letters alone is not necessarily a sign of reading difficulty …proper directional tracking of processing the letters in order left to right is essential for reading English (and also for our number system in math). Although this straight line left to right processing is NOT natural, it IS one of the essential components of reading our man made English language. Unfortunately, if your sweet bright son is using the natural system of gathering information by looking all around or looking at the word as a whole he has not acquired one of the essential subskills he needs to read English print. For more details on directional tracking and how to help your son develop this skill see the article Directional Tracking Explained http://www.righttrackreading.com/tracking.html

Well I’m getting a little long winded. I just wanted to share some of this information with you on some of what I interpreted out of your comments. Your son is likely struggling because he has not acquired the specific skills necessary for proficient reading. To help a struggling child, it is very important to sit down with them and teach them all necessary skills in a DIRECT and SYSTEMATIC manner. We are learning much about how reading works. The neuroscience reveals not only does proficient reading utilize phonologic processing pathways but these print to sound neural processing pathways first form in beginning readers. The neuroscience confirms that individuals who have not developed these correct phonologic processing pathways continue to struggle. To help your ‘sweet boy learn to read’ you do need to step in and intervene with an effective direct systematic phonics program that directly helps your son develop those proficient phonologic processing pathways so he can achieve reading success.

Take a look at this web site, it will provide you with loads of information: www.brightsolutions.us

In addition, here are some valuable additional links that might prove beneficial:

http://delicious.com/dhfl143/dyslexia

Best wishes. Let us know how it goes.

Oh my gosh THANK YOU. I had no idea those things are tied to dyslexia. My favorite cute word mix up is “alligator” for elevator. There are many.

He talked late, he can’t tie his shoes and won’t even try (poor thing). I think he’s possibly profound, we’re in round two of Kindy and he still can’t sound out the letters, let alone read.

I stayed up way too late listening to the first video in the list but I’m going to spend my free time learning how to teach him to read the way he can learn.

He was also late in choosing a hand. Interestingly, we had first born: right handed straight away by age 2. Second born: left handed (and left sided) by age 2 - no question. Third born: he’s not so sure although he leans right - I still see him write with his left at age 6 but not as frequently as age 4. I just thought we had one in the middle LOL.

He can “sing” his ABC’s but can’t put them in order even if he sings them.

I want his teacher to watch this stuff on the site. She’s been accusing me and my ex of being the problem all along and basically telling us we don’t spend enough time with him on homework and reading. Since I’ve got two older boys, I know I spend plenty, often more with him. Makes me so mad. My oldest read by age 4, middle by age 5.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If you’re still looking for reading materials, check out Child1st Publications’ dyslexia page that has products and other resources: http://www.child-1st.com/new_site/Dyslexia.html

Best wishes as you work with your son!

Hi- my son is also dyslexic; at 6 years old he could only remember about 6 letters of the alphabet. I cannot even tell you how many different programs we tried over the years. I even tried teaching him the letters in sign language, because there was a study done (I’ve forgotten where) that said they found success.

I myself am an educational therapist, so I feel like I had a pretty good idea of what to do with him. However nothing seemed to work, no matter how hard we worked or what we tried.

I finally realized that we wouldn’t get anywhere unless I helped him improve the skills that are behind all the dyslexia, which usually involve visual and auditory processing skills, although auditory memory is the biggest problem for most of the dyslexics I have worked with.

The other thing is that as my son grows, it finally sunk in that dyslexia is more than just a reading problem. It is something that affects all aspects of the child. My son refused to go to the store by himself to buy anything-he was worried he wouldn’t know how to count out the right amount of money.

He was always out of the loop during family conversations because his listening skills weren’t great, and because he lacked basic info that everybody else picks up naturally.

So if you don’t find a program that works specifically on his auditory and visual skills, you will constantly be playing catch-up.Today it is writing letters the correct way, tomorrow it will be sounding out the letters for a word; in a few years from now it will be reading comprehension-by the time he gets to the bottom of the page he will have forgotten what was written at the top of the page.

I’m not saying all of this will definitely be the case with your child, and I haven’t yet mentioned all the wonderful things my son CAN do (another post maybe, this one is too long), but keep this in mind when you choose a program. I have several [url=http://teachingthefuture.net]hands-on learning games[/url]that help improve auditory processing if you are interested.

The most important thing I guess is to remember that the same thing that makes it hard for my son is what makes him a genius in other areas…

[Modified by: rspeal on August 18, 2010 03:16 PM]

The place to start would be www.interdys.org. This is the web site of the International Dyslexia Association. There is a lot of information there including the characteristics of dyslexia at different ages.

As mentioned by others, you child needs multisensory instruction. He needs to write the letter in sand (using large arm movements) as he says the sound so that he sees, feels, and hears the sound, thus using all 3 learning channels to feed the information to the brain.

Make 3 card decks with the sounds he knows so far (use only short vowel sounds), and BUILD them into a word as he points to the cards. For example: /m/ /a/, /ma/, /ma/ /t/, /mat/. When blending sounds together, don’t go through them one at a time because he is forgetting the first sounds by the time he figures out to the last one. Some children can’t recognize separate sounds words. The sounds have have to be “smoothed together” as explained above.

Also, blend only one syllable words while he is learning to blend sounds together. Two syllable words have to be broken into two parts, and each syllable sounded out then joined together as chunks.

You can purchase a set of cards for blending by ordering “The Language Tool Kit” by Rome and Osman from Educators Publishing Service.

I’m sorry it’s been awhile since I’ve been back. I’m in my busy time at work and frazzled.

My son’s school came through with shining colors, I was surprised. He was run through a battery of tests (ok maybe my IEP request letter didn’t have a lot of options LOL) and given thorough testing.

Throughout the 2 hour round table, I repeatedly heard “he scored just above the warning level and does not meet the criteria for services” right after hearing “testing was slow, labored and he required multiple breaks and had several meltdowns and was most frustrated with himself when he was struggling”.

I thought for sure I was in for “sorry - he doesn’t qualify”.

However, the SpEd lady who was running the testing - she’s an angel. She put him through a test they no longer recommend PRECISELY because she knew that one portion of the test was repeatedly failed by kids with dyslexia.

There is a series of tests taht have to be done together (sorry, names fail me right now) and the last test involves pulling established information forward quickly. She placed pictures down quickly, one on top of the other like cards and he was given very little time to produce the name. According to her - he was instantly angry, frustrated and started yelling “SLOW DOWN, HANG ON”. These were pictures of things like a chair, a car, a dog, etc. He couldn’t do it.

And then she said “this is a classic reaction of kids with dyslexia and I think you are absolutely correct that he has it - however we cannot diagnose but what we can do is flag him as identified as a high risk and get his IEP started now”.

I was so relieved that I wasn’t going to have a fight ahead of me. I did that fight with his brother who has PDD-NOS many years ago.

Again thank you all for the resources. I have my work cut out for me but I’m a mom - I can do it. And suddenly his teacher has stopped being so ridiculously tight with her deadlines. She is sending his work home so he can finish at home when he can’t keep up and I’m getting his homework packet a week ahead now. I’m so glad.

I think the idea of combining the learning process (tactile, auditory and visual) will actually be fun for me because I’m extremely creative and that kind of task sounds like a blast. I’ve already got $200 worth of craft items listed in my head (felt, clay, pipe cleaners…on and on LOL). Stuff we can manipulate and work together with.

About the “reversing” syndrome so common with dyslexia. He has it very strong. Is that something that practice can help him with? He’s reading now, he had some sort of break through a month ago. But we get a lot of backwards words and his spelling…well we won’t go there LOL. Poor kid!!

So glad you guys are here. I know 9 years ago when my then 4 year old was diagnosed on the spectrum and I didn’t know where to start - online was where I found groups of parents discussing and talking about everything. I know this place will be a wonderful springboard.

Looks like I’m ~Christine, mom to A (PDD-NOS), J (Highly Gifted) and V (Dyslexic). Gotta love ‘em - why settle for “normal” when you can have EXCEPTIONAL!

Sounds like things are going well for you and for your son that is really wonderful! It’s always good to hear when things start to get better and more manageable.

Let me explain somethings that i have noticed being dyslexic about the way i for example functiona nd many others like me probably do too to some degree. Dyslexi8cs typically have extremely high IQs when we understand a concept no one will understand it better. But for some reason we function differently. I have to deconstruct everything i read and write as i put it toge4ther it is the only way i can put it together. As i writer this i think because i am auditory in sounds. So i disect each word as i type it for the sounds. Then i try to match what i have memorized that represents the sound in the word i need to use. But it is very common for dyslexics i think to function that way and it doesn’t stop at reading and writing. My brain disects everything. Literally everything. Then it has to put it all back together again. Anyone who takes a concept apart bit by bit then fits it all back together again tends to have a better understanding of it then most people who just gloss through it and over it in their education. Dyslexics do function differently. What tends to happen is we will have to deconstruct even our methods of compensating for our disability. Part of why it takes us so much longer to learn to do that. But once we have that kind of grasp we understand how our methods of compensation work and why and everything else pretty much about them. Which means they become easier for us to play with creatively than they would be for most people when we are faced with other problems for our learning differences. When we get something it’s like someone twists the key in the lock of our brains… Then finally when we have deconstructed everything and put it all back a few times and found our way through it, things seem to just click into place for us. It clicks in our brains and suddenly we get everything we seem to be being taught. A lightbulb quite literally goes on.

I still turn some of my letters around sometimes when i am fried or sick or not ok…. But generally with alot of repetitious training dyslexics can for the most part be taught to stop doing that and then there are ofcourse the tricks…. If i am going to mess up that way it’s gonna be a b or a d most likely and occasionally a j. I have not yet found a trick for j but i figured out how to handle be and d. I wrote D on the back of my hand in red marker for a while. And B on my left hand. Then turn your palms so they are facing you, stick your thumbs up and bunch the rest of your fingers into a fist, what you have then if you follow the outline is a B and a D. There are all sorts of tricks you can use to help yourself get it.

As for spelling…. That gets better too. But it will never be as good as other people’s in my experience anyway. But once your kid is taught to read the way they teach dyslexics to read and taught to think about words by taking them apart sound by sound it stops actually mattering because anyone who knows he is duyslexic then will see even when he is wrong, he is wrong in a very specific and phonetic way and he will still be understandable.

Atleast this is how i have found that i function and i am dyslexic…. And i have had 30 years to observe myself and other dyslexics i have come across in passing. I hope it helps you understand a bit better what is going on in our minds and how our minds process things. Why recall can be hard due to the fact that before we can name it we have to deconstruct the image and put it together again in our brains and match it up with a verbal word usually not a visual reference so it can be that much harder… But hopefully this information can be useful to you and to your son.

Have you looked at at the resources here at LDOnline main pages?

http://www.ldonline.org/article/5893

In addition, this site might be of value: www.brightsolutions.us

Glad to hear the school has been so proactive. Wonderful news!

With the backward letters — have you noticed any pattern? Are there specific letters that he frequently writes backward? If you find he is having specific letters, if you post which letters are the most troublesome for him — some here might be able to offer additional strategies to help.

In addition, is he mixing up letters in his writing like “b” for “d” or “p”?

Best wishes.
[Modified by: dhfl143 on April 18, 2010 10:25 PM]

He seems to do two things. He definitely has the b/d and p/q reversals. But in addition, he reverses entire words. So he’ll see “pot” and say “top”. If it’s complicated - like “lamp” (well complicated for him) he might say “map” or “pam”.

I’ve been looking at a lot of stuff. I need to build my arsenal. I’m going to get more intense in summer with it while he’s off. I don’t want him to lose skills and he’s done that once before.

Hi Christine,
I’ve been in discussion with some people researching ‘reversal’ with reading and writing.
Perhaps you could have him do a simple test, where he writes words backwards, and also writes from ‘right to left’ across the page, instead of left to right?

Then with ‘reading’, hold a page of text up to a mirror, and then see if he can read the reflection in the mirror? Which will be reversed.

So perhaps you could have him try this, and let us know how he goes with this?
Geoff,