Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
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Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
Hi,
I have always had a great sense of unease about DD2, August birthday in Year 3 and her struggle to learn her letters, read, spell etc so we took her for a full assessment and have been told she is v. brainy but achieving average to below levels which indicates dyslexia. We were also told that because she is achieving average levels school probably wouldn't be interested in any intervention as she is ticking their boxes and reaching the school's desired levels.
I am unsure how or whether to even approach school about this although the report says she should have 25% extra time in all exams so I suppose I will have to tell them for Sats etc. I have heard of IEPs - would it be relevant in her case to have one drawn up? The only thing is that I do not want her to be removed from any lessons for "extra help" and therefore drawing attention to any difficulties she may be having. Also this "extra help" may be in a group setting and could be counter productive to addtional tutoring we are already paying for. She is tutored for 1/2 hour each week because we were so concerned at how difficult she was finding reading and spelling and it was the tutor who suggested we get her seen and I would prefer to increase her time with the tutor to say two 1/2 hour sessions a week for continuity. After 6 months with her tutor her reading age had gone up by two years so I think things are going well with this approach.
Does anyone have any experience in a similar situation?
Thank you
I have always had a great sense of unease about DD2, August birthday in Year 3 and her struggle to learn her letters, read, spell etc so we took her for a full assessment and have been told she is v. brainy but achieving average to below levels which indicates dyslexia. We were also told that because she is achieving average levels school probably wouldn't be interested in any intervention as she is ticking their boxes and reaching the school's desired levels.
I am unsure how or whether to even approach school about this although the report says she should have 25% extra time in all exams so I suppose I will have to tell them for Sats etc. I have heard of IEPs - would it be relevant in her case to have one drawn up? The only thing is that I do not want her to be removed from any lessons for "extra help" and therefore drawing attention to any difficulties she may be having. Also this "extra help" may be in a group setting and could be counter productive to addtional tutoring we are already paying for. She is tutored for 1/2 hour each week because we were so concerned at how difficult she was finding reading and spelling and it was the tutor who suggested we get her seen and I would prefer to increase her time with the tutor to say two 1/2 hour sessions a week for continuity. After 6 months with her tutor her reading age had gone up by two years so I think things are going well with this approach.
Does anyone have any experience in a similar situation?
Thank you
Re: Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
Do you think that if you do whatever is necessary at home and with the tutor to improve her reading, writing, and spelling that there would be any need to do anything more than that?
Re: Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
Children at GS can get additional time - if she is entitled then pursue it.
An IEP can be as simple as ensuring key words are printed out for her so she does not have to copy them.
An IEP can be as simple as ensuring key words are printed out for her so she does not have to copy them.
Re: Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
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Last edited by Belinda on Sat Nov 03, 2012 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
Yes, there is some "dyslexia" which just needs some good teaching to read and spell, and lots of practice reading and writing and it goes away. Whether it was "true dyslexia" or not I don't know. Until you have tried this, you don't know, IMO. I think the "true form" (whatever it is) has a much lower incidence than the current proportions of children being identified as having "dyslexia" or "dylexic traits".
Re: Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
Thank you all for your replies. I have an appointment with SENCO in school next week and decided to see the lady in charge to see if they can put in place some of the recommendations in the report eg where she should sit in the classroom etc., work should be marked for content, not spelling unless that is the focus of the lesson etc. The report is 18 pages long and very comprehensive and states that she has "mild specific learning difficulties of a dyslexic nature". The worst area for her is reading speed where she is on the 10th percentile however the composite score for Matrices and Diamonds is the 96th percentile. To be honest I find it all a bit complicated.
I have spoken to all her teachers each year and told them I have a sense of unease and every single one has made me out to be a maniac! I did not have these thoughts with DD1 and DD3 is starting to try and read simple things and she is 4 /12. I just knew all along that the middle one was not making any progress in literacy - she is deeply fed up that she has never got 10 out of 10 in her spellings and we practice over and over and over again. We make up dances and clap our hands and anything I can think of to help her remember the words and she is in the bottom spelling group so they are not exactly hard words.
One thing that did come out was because we had drummed letter sounds etc into her in the early years because she seemed to find it so hard that it had masked some of her problems which felt like in trying to help her we had covered up what could have been noticed earlier in school.
Anyway we shall see what SENCO have to say.
Thanks again
I have spoken to all her teachers each year and told them I have a sense of unease and every single one has made me out to be a maniac! I did not have these thoughts with DD1 and DD3 is starting to try and read simple things and she is 4 /12. I just knew all along that the middle one was not making any progress in literacy - she is deeply fed up that she has never got 10 out of 10 in her spellings and we practice over and over and over again. We make up dances and clap our hands and anything I can think of to help her remember the words and she is in the bottom spelling group so they are not exactly hard words.
One thing that did come out was because we had drummed letter sounds etc into her in the early years because she seemed to find it so hard that it had masked some of her problems which felt like in trying to help her we had covered up what could have been noticed earlier in school.
Anyway we shall see what SENCO have to say.
Thanks again
Re: Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
It's quite an old fashioned and controversional view using a "discrepancy" in IQ versus reading and spelling related scores as a definition for dyslexia. In reality the reading and spelling difficulties and the teaching needed to improve reading and spelling is no different whatever the IQ of the child.
It's useful that you have the "diagnosis" as if she needs more time in SATS etc she will get it. However, you don't want it to become an excuse the school uses for her poor literacy performance.
It's very good that you have taught her sounds - even if it "masks" something - the more phonological awareness you give her the better. What is the tutor teaching her? Is she using the kinds of methods on the other dyslexia thread on here, or has she helped your child build up a sight word vocabulary? With a child with "dyslexic" tendencies you should be doing everything logically and along a phonics basis .......... so do be sure of that. It's quite easy to bump up a child's reading age by around 2 years by using the "sight" vocab that the reading age test uses - but is she improving on other more phonic based tests of her reading?
I think you are right to carry on with the private tuition if it is really good. A good tutor would be teaching you the methods so that effectively you are tutoring your child every day too.
School may not have the time or the resources of the wherewithall to do it quite so well and, as you say, being pulled out of class can be very unsatisfactory.
If the school spelling lists are not serving the tutor's purpose well I would think that you should be able to liaise with the school and change them. It is silly to persist with something that is confusing or demoralising. Having the diagnosis should help you to agree this with the school (she says hopefully!).
Good tuition should result in some pretty amazing improvements unless your child falls into a very small percentage of the population with some real cognitive difficulty causing the "dyslexia" ----- it would seem though that this would show up in other tasks though, not just reading and spelling.
Some schools are very cynical about mild dyslexia diagnoses in bright middle class children --- they would feel that it was just a parent seeking a reason for the difference in performance between literacy tasks and other academic tasks. They would not wish to look at whether it was the type of teaching the child was receiving that was not working for that child for some reason. It would just be put down as pushy parent hoping that the child would perform well in all fields.
Anyhow, if you can keep the school on your side that is very useful, particularly if you think the EP suggestions are useful. Do bear in mind though that although EPs can "diagnose dyslexia" they are not necessarily knowledgeable about the best ways to remediate a child's reading and spelling.
Good luck.
It's useful that you have the "diagnosis" as if she needs more time in SATS etc she will get it. However, you don't want it to become an excuse the school uses for her poor literacy performance.
It's very good that you have taught her sounds - even if it "masks" something - the more phonological awareness you give her the better. What is the tutor teaching her? Is she using the kinds of methods on the other dyslexia thread on here, or has she helped your child build up a sight word vocabulary? With a child with "dyslexic" tendencies you should be doing everything logically and along a phonics basis .......... so do be sure of that. It's quite easy to bump up a child's reading age by around 2 years by using the "sight" vocab that the reading age test uses - but is she improving on other more phonic based tests of her reading?
I think you are right to carry on with the private tuition if it is really good. A good tutor would be teaching you the methods so that effectively you are tutoring your child every day too.
School may not have the time or the resources of the wherewithall to do it quite so well and, as you say, being pulled out of class can be very unsatisfactory.
If the school spelling lists are not serving the tutor's purpose well I would think that you should be able to liaise with the school and change them. It is silly to persist with something that is confusing or demoralising. Having the diagnosis should help you to agree this with the school (she says hopefully!).
Good tuition should result in some pretty amazing improvements unless your child falls into a very small percentage of the population with some real cognitive difficulty causing the "dyslexia" ----- it would seem though that this would show up in other tasks though, not just reading and spelling.
Some schools are very cynical about mild dyslexia diagnoses in bright middle class children --- they would feel that it was just a parent seeking a reason for the difference in performance between literacy tasks and other academic tasks. They would not wish to look at whether it was the type of teaching the child was receiving that was not working for that child for some reason. It would just be put down as pushy parent hoping that the child would perform well in all fields.
Anyhow, if you can keep the school on your side that is very useful, particularly if you think the EP suggestions are useful. Do bear in mind though that although EPs can "diagnose dyslexia" they are not necessarily knowledgeable about the best ways to remediate a child's reading and spelling.
Good luck.
Re: Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
Getting extra time in school is about MINIMUM standards. IE if your child just sneaks into the bottom end of the very wide 'average' band then they will not be eligible for extra time etc. Average is not the 50th centile. For example, my DS is on the 16th centile on one particular scale. The 15th centile is the cut-off btw 'impairment' and 'average' and so he is considered 'average' 
It is not, as many parents think about enabling a child perform at the level that they might have done had they not had a SpLD.
As I understand it things have tightened up considerably recently. My son was recently tested for something else (than what I was referring to above), again he was 1 point above the very low cut-off and has lost the 25% extra time that they thought he was going to have. All the more frustrating as he suffers from multiple difficulties that compound each other but that is not considered.
It is not, as many parents think about enabling a child perform at the level that they might have done had they not had a SpLD.
As I understand it things have tightened up considerably recently. My son was recently tested for something else (than what I was referring to above), again he was 1 point above the very low cut-off and has lost the 25% extra time that they thought he was going to have. All the more frustrating as he suffers from multiple difficulties that compound each other but that is not considered.
Re: Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
Do you know where the rules are set out Drummer for year 6 KS2 tests and extra time? I suppose though these could change by the time this child reaches year 6.
Re: Dyslexia diagnosis in year 3 & IEP's
Mystery, thank for your input. I think school definitely think I am a typical pushy parent who is not satisifed with where DD2 sits within the class but when she brought home a piece of written work the other day I was really shocked at how she had spelt certain words. She doesn't seem to think the letter "k" exists for example. And fortunately i didn't feel like it was all me when the tutor suggested she had dyslexic tendancies. I also often wonder whether if the whole class had been put through the tests that my daughter did how many of them would have come out with a "mild learning difficulty". It is hard to know isn't it. That said in my heart of heart I know she has a problem with reading and writing. Trying to get her to write is nearly impossible and my DD3 (nursery) is catching up with the way she can write! Thank you for saying that the help we've given re drumming in phonics can only help - I felt awful after I thought we may have hindered rather than helped. I've bought Toe by Toe and we are slowly working through that together which I think is helping. We have stopped her reading aloud for a bit because she hated it so much and always made me reread it to her anyway because she didn't have a clue what she'd read. I also bought a book called the Gift of Dyslexia by Ron Davies which I found very interesting but then I felt it seemed a bit far fetched - does anyone else have any views on this book. It was after reading this that we make her spellings out of playdough to try and help her remember them.
The tutor uses a multi sensory approach which seems to be helping a lot and she enjoys the homework set - which we do together. I usually do the writing parts because she hates to write so she tells me what to put.
Anyway just wanted to pass on my thanks for giving us some tips and extra things to bear in mind.
The tutor uses a multi sensory approach which seems to be helping a lot and she enjoys the homework set - which we do together. I usually do the writing parts because she hates to write so she tells me what to put.
Anyway just wanted to pass on my thanks for giving us some tips and extra things to bear in mind.