Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Advice on Special Needs and the 11 Plus Exams

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Pippa255
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri May 04, 2012 1:37 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by Pippa255 »

Thanks for the link, those books look like they'll be great later on. When my son was tested last Dec his reading age was 5 years 8 months, 11 monthe behind his actual age. The school use the big cat phonics sysyem, his tutor encourages him to push the letters away as he reads, he uses a coloured overlay which helps. He loses his place all of the time as his visual tracking is poor. His test showed score of 106 for verbal reasoning, 98 perpetual reasoning, 80 working memory (quite a problem for his ability to follow instruction), processing speed 75, he was on 29th percentile for reading, 21st for decoding, 2nd percentile for reading comprehension which was explained as due to limited decoding skills, spelling was 21st percentile. Theconclusions stated he has good above average overall abilities in verbal reasoning. The discrepancy of scores could show a level dyspraxia.

There are lots of recommendations but I need to get my son ready for school so must finish here!

Thanks again for suggestions and advice
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by mystery »

I thought that the visual tracking theory of dyslexia had long since been discredited; however like any educational research there seem to be pieces of research that support it and pieces of research that refute it.

However, I believe there is a school of thought, and an evidence base, which says that poor readers eyes wander all over the place and when they learn better reading skills this won't happen. Or does your son have some kind of physical sight problem?

What is Big Cat Phonics like? I know there are some nice looking books in this Collin's scheme but does it add new letter-sound correspondences logically one by one so that a beginner reader with "dyslexic tendencies" can learn to read without too much muddlement?

How would the dyslexia tutor describe her approach? Does she leave you with something logical to do each day with him which you can see is improving his decoding skills? Are you seeing any measurable improvements in decoding skills since she / he started working with your son? What does pushing the letters away while he reads mean? How would this work for sounds which need to be read two or three letters at a time e.g. igh?

Sometimes schools and tutors tell you that they are teaching your child phonics systematically, regularly etc etc, but in reality for lots of different reasons they are not.

If your son has above average verbal comprehension skills (i.e. what he hears, not what he reads) then ultimately he will have above average reading comprehension skills once he has been taught to decode effectively. This is what you need to concentrate on . Be sure your private tutor is doing the most beneficial thing. Everyone has their own pet methods and some are more effective than others.

With RWI and many other current synthetic phonics schemes you should find books appropriate to his current phonic knowledge. I'm afraid I don't know Collins Big Cat - it might be worth asking on some other fora how effective it is in mastering early decoding skills for children who need more than average "repetition / overlearning".
Pippa255
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri May 04, 2012 1:37 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by Pippa255 »

I wrote a long reply which for some reason didn't post..

Shortened version, my son wears glasses for reading and writing, he was borderline for needing them but we felt it was worth a try. His consultant was concerned when he couldn't perform some visual tracking exercises such as forming a figure of eight with his thumb.

I'm not familiar with other synthetic systems but big cat definitely didn't work here. I will purchase toe by toe and word shark as they sound worth a try especially overe the summer holiday period. When he reads to me each day he reads 'The Oxford reading Tree' which is a box set of 30 books. He can read most of levels 1 2 and 3, we dip in and out of the higher levels as he gets very bored. The books from school haven't generally been right for him but we try a couple each week.

His tutor helps mainly with writing as he is developing his cursive style with her. School were reluctant to try him with cursive as he has the usual dyslexic problem of b d p q muddlemeant. They wanted him to be secure in these before moving on! They tried 'writing without tears' but didn't have experience of teaching this cursively so when he moved away from print it was though best to stop it.

I'm looking at an independent school on Saturday (not a specialist school). I will take all the valuable points on board and feel much more prepared thanks to this forum. I plan to call other local schools too next week, fingers crossed we find the right one for him. Thank you so much especially 'mystery'
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by mystery »

OK, I might be jumping to big conclusions here, but from what you have said so far it would seem like he is not being taught synthetic phonics systematically at home or at school.

Most ORT books - unless you are talking about the newer phonics based schemes and I am not clear about that from your message - are "whole word" methods i.e. you kind of learn to read new words by seeing them again and again, and then hopefully learn to read similar words by analogy.

A lot of research however points to the fact that some children do not learn to "decode" well this way, and can get very muddled by it, particularly those with what some might like to call "dyslexic tendencies".

The decoding score you gave was very low relative to his verbal comprehension. Has anyone at school, or the tutor, shown you "synthetic phonics" - it's all about reading words by building them up from the individual sounds, reading them consistently from left to right etc etc.

E.g. in Read Write Inc if a child was reading the word "bead" for the first time they would sound it out b ee d as they would have learned that ea can say /ee/, then they would "blend" all those sounds together into the word b ea d.

I really think you would probably derive some benefit from working through something like RWI or Toe by Toe, or some of the other phonic reading schemes that are suggested on some of the sites I mentioned. You need to be sure that any scheme that you buy does gradually and logically build up the reading of the various letter-sound correspondences. Otherwise you will end up with more muddlement and guessing.

RWI is the only one I can describe to you what to buy, it's not necessarily the best, but I've recently seen friends' children make strides with it. You can buy the black and white story books and the speed sound cards (the ones for home use) quite cheaply on the web. If you also bought the phonics handbook for teachers it would help you to make sense of the scheme. There are other elements to the scheme too, but it would seem that reading is the weakest link at the moment from what you say?

A tip for b d confusion when reading is to explain to the child that the stick with which b starts looks like a closed mouth, so to say b, start by shutting your mouth. You can't do the same with d. It works for p too. Clearly it won't help p b confusion, but with lots of practise, particularly with the earlier phonic readers it will probably sort itself out. Even if it doesn't I wouldn't worry too much about it right now as your child can just try the various possibilities when reading the word - which is good practice for good decoding as sometimes one needs to do this where there is a possible alternative pronunciation for a word e.g. read or read, wind or wind etc etc.

Joined up writing does in some people's view help with b, d, p confusion. I personally don't think b, d, p confusion is a reason to put reading or writing on hold, or to despair that one's child is permanently "dyslexic". In toe by toe you will find a b, d, p exercise which you could repeat every day ad infinitum, but also just through learning to read, in a logical fashion, and the writing practice you are doing, it should sort itself out over time.

I really do think should look into synthetic phonics a bit more. There's a lot of research that points to the fact that children with "reading difficulties" benefit from systematic phonics teaching and it really does not sound as though school, home or the tutor are providing him with that at the moment. It is also unlikely that the independent school will either. Sure they'll probably say they do phonics, but it's not going to be to the detailed level your child is going to need to remediate his current decoding skills, and it might be confused by other methods like being told to read the whole sentence and try and work out what the unknown word might be from the rest of the sentence, the first letter etc etc.

Even something like 50 hours of well - delivered one to one work through a good scheme will make a marked difference with about 80% of children with reading difficulties at this early stage. And then with the remaining 20% of children with difficulties (an estimated 2% of the population) a cunning tutor can usually find some other way in.

I think you might do well to try posting on the RRF board. There are some tutors who contribute on there who have taught "remedial reading" to many children during their lifetimes; I only work with a small number and as a volunteer my hands are tied to a certain extent by the school approach to reading, and the limited time pupils come out of class.

For a good gripping read, you could also try reading the old classic "Why Johnnie Can't Read" !!

If you get yourself armed with some really good materials and set aside at least 30 mins each day in the summer hols (maybe split it up into smaller blocks throughout the day) you will see a huge difference.
Pippa255
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri May 04, 2012 1:37 pm

Re: Dyslexia friendly Primary Schools

Post by Pippa255 »

Thanks again for all your advice.

It definitely feels like I've been stumbling along trying to help his reading! I find working in an organised way very difficult myself which doesn't help him!

I will buy the materials you've suggested and start from the beginning with him. It sounds like a need to be methodical. The school has been giving extra reading session this term but think that is more listening too him than anything else. The school seems very good with the high achievers but the. Budget doesn't seem to be there for weaker ones. I tried to get a reading scheme set up as i'd heard volunteers had been turned away...I couldn't believe this when my son wasn't getting the extra help he needs!
Must dash or we'll be late for school!
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