If you think that your child may be dyslexic or if they are having difficulties learning to read, it is important to act fast. There is a window of opportunity between the ages of about 4-7 when children pick up the skills most easily and quickly, The window never fully closes but the older the child the more difficult it is to remedy any deficiency, eliminate the guessing habit and replace unhelpful strategies.The key to success with dyslexia or poor literacy skills is early and appropriate intervention.
The majority of dyslexics are unidentified before school age because, unless parents already have a dyslexic child, they may be unaware of the warning signs that may be present at the infant stage. Most children start school enthusiastically, bright, keen and eager to learn but, typically, those who are dyslexic will become deeply unhappy after a year or two, may suffer from frequent 'tummy aches' or other stress symptoms and may become rebellious and disruptive. In addition, the child will probably be struggling to read and write at the level of the majority of the class.
Do NOT accept any of the following common excuses for your child's difficulties,' Your child is lazy/ doesn't pay attention /watches too much television', 'Boys are often slow learning to read', ' Don't worry, s/he will catch up', ' S/he's just a bit immature' 'S/he's not academic', 'It's his/her lack of pre-school education', 'It's because English is his/her second language'... Note that all these excuses place the source of the problem with either the child or their parent, never with the teaching! Do make sure that your child can see and hear properly though, as poor hearing and/or sight problems could be the cause of, or adding to, the difficulties your child is experiencing.
Before seeking an assessment of your child's educational difficulties it is important to know that, 'There are no accepted criteria for distinguishing a dyslexic from any other poor reader. They all suffer from the same kind of problems which make it more difficult to learn the English spelling code. There's only one question that really makes any sense: is my child behind in reading or spelling? ' (Burkard)
Read more Find your child's Reading Age
www.rrf.org.uk/Burtreadingtestonweb.pdf
Read more Find your child's Spelling Age
www.rrf.org.uk/Schonell%20Spelling%20Test.pdf
Read more Free test to diagnose reading deficits, with on-line report. From age 6 - adult
www.theharrisontest.com/
Read more Free reading and spelling tests
www.literacytesting.com/free.htm
Read more Useful set of tests from the DfES
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary/publications/literacy/948809/nls_phonics028004screen.pdf
You are your child's best, sometimes, only, advocate. First, inform yourself on the reading debate - read all the pages in the section ' Teach your Child to Read ' - as, once armed with this information, you will be better able to make decisions about your child's educational future. Next, if your child is still at the primary stage, approach your child's school and find out what exactly they are using to teach your child to read. If you discover that the school is using a 'balanced approach' or a 'mixture of methods' then you will have uncovered the main source of your child's difficulties. In the UK 'a mixture' includes the National Literacy Strategy or, commonly, an excellent synthetic phonic programme such as 'Jolly Phonics' well diluted by the addition of whole-word strategies and books. Bonnie Macmillan calls it dysdidaxia -a problem with the teaching (p134) . But, 'Don't shoot the teacher. Teachers are mis-trained, mis-advised, and burdened with pointless paperwork as never before. The National Literacy Strategy was widely hailed as a "return to phonics" in the media, but in reality it is nothing of the sort. ' (Burkard)
You should be able to remediate your child's literacy problems yourself if your child is in the primary age group.
Go to Resources 10 for suitable reading programmes. If your child is already at the secondary stage it will be more difficult to undo the damage done from past reading instruction. An intensive, remediation reading programme given one-to-one will be necessary.
Some research indicates that there are two different types of readers: Objective or Subjective. The type of reader a child becomes depends on which of the two reading methods is used FIRST to teach a child to read. Children taught first and fast with pure synthetic phonics become objective readers, whilst those taught using whole-word or a 'balanced' mixture of methods become subjective readers. The method used first seems to form a habit or brain conditioning that impedes the future use of the other method (see 'Whole-word dyslexia' link at base of page). This is the reason why it is more difficult to remediate difficulties in readers who have received faulty reading instruction for even a short period of time. With this in mind parents should stick to their intuitive beliefs when teaching young children to read, ignoring the many official programmes available that advise parents to use whole word 'meaning' methods and encourage guessing. (Macmillan p131)
Sadly, empirical data indicates that older dyslexics / poor readers are unlikely to be changed into normal readers, i.e., ones who score at least at the mean on standardized reading tests. This is due to the self-reinforcing, positive feedback effect named 'The Matthew Effect', from the biblical verse in St. Matthew 25:29: "For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath", which can be summarized as, "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer." Early development of reading skills leads to faster rates of skill improvement with the result that the disparity between more skilled and less skilled readers widens over time. This doesn't mean that older dyslexics can't be taught to read but they will find it very difficult to make-up the many thousands of hours of reading experience that they will have missed out on. See 'Teenage Dyslexics' for appropriate advice.
Read more The Matthew Effect
www.balancedreading.com/matthew.html
Read more Stanovich: Matthew Effects in Reading
http://tortoise.oise.utoronto.ca/~kstanovich/pdfs/reading/RRQ86.pdf
If parents still feel that it is best to get their child tested for dyslexia, they can write to the Local Education Authority (LEA) themselves and request a free 'statutory assessment'. The LEA has six weeks to make a decision and it must comply with the request unless, having examined the evidence they believe it's not necessary. If the parents disagree with the LEA's decision they have a legal right to appeal to an independent, special educational needs tribunal (SENT).
To avoid delay, parents can arrange for their child to see an independent educational psychologist. This is usually very expensive and the results will not necessarily be recognised by the LEA. In addition, recent research has cast serious doubt on the validity of assessment procedures now in use.
Psychologists tend to use the term 'specific learning difficulties / difference' (SpLD) when they diagnose dyslexia. They often use a test called the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) when assessing children with dyslexic type difficulties. A child with dyslexia will typically achieve very uneven scores on the subtests of the WISC. This is known as an 'ACID profile' as the low scores are usually in the areas of A rithmetic, C oding, I nformation and D igit Span. The 'ACID' profile has little predictive value ie, many good readers have an ACID profile (Mortimore p54)
A professional assessment will also include an intelligence test despite the fact that using IQ tests as an integral part of diagnosing dyslexia has no real research base. 'The diagnosis for many years was based on these assumptions: if a child has a serious reading problem, but normal or above normal intelligence, the child must have a special type of reading disability- 'dyslexia'. Children with low reading scores and low intelligence are supposed to read badly because they have low intelligence.' (McGuinness 1998c p134)
'Miscue' (i.e. mistake) analysis is another popular procedure used to assess the strategies children use in their reading. In the whole-language, guru Kenneth Goodman's version of miscue analysis, only those errors that cause loss of meaning are noted eg. reading 'ship' instead of 'boat' is deemed a good sign as the student is using context clues appropriately, but misreading 'boot' for 'boat' shows an over-reliance on phonics and the child needs to be encouraged to rely more on context, i.e. guessing. Research has shown error analysis to be a worthless tool in reading assessment. (Hempenstall p27-30)
Children do some, or all, of the following as a result of flawed, insufficient or absent instruction NOT because they are 'dyslexic':
On discovering they have a 'dyslexic' child, parents need to promptly consider all the options available to provide them with a suitable education. Most parents remain unaware that home education, even on a short-term basis, is one of those choices.
The usual options:
- Relying on 'in school' support, an IEP: Individual Education Plan (BDA b3)
- Privately arranged specialist tuition. For school-attending children this can take place off the school premises during school hours, at the discretion of the school (Circular 10/99. Annexe A: Approved educational activities off-site www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/guidanceonthelaw/10-99/register.htm)
- Obtaining a Statement - see statementing .
- Only for the wealthy or for the few who can obtain a grant - a specialist school. This usually involves the child boarding, which can be an extra trauma for an already unhappy child.
Carefully chosen, specialist, remedial tuition can be very helpful, if it can be afforded, and as long as the child is happy to attend. School-attending children may find it too tiring to do both school and extra tuition on the same day or resent having to do 'work' at the week-end whilst their friends are able to play, and they still have to cope with all the problems dyslexia brings whilst in their regular classroom.
A parent comments:' The parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place. A position I experienced when my child was going through school.
THE ROCK. You want to do the best for your child and do what you can at home to support them. You look for private tuition, sit with them to do homework etc. However the child is often very difficult because they don't want to do the extra lessons at home, they don't want to do their reading etc. The constant battle to get homework done or even getting them to school etc creates a very stressful environment of arguments and tantrums and can have a negative effect on your relationship with the child and can affect other family members.
The reason the child is being difficult at home is because they find school a very stressful place where they're constantly put under pressure to get work finished, struggling with reading, or are fighting emotions where they've been told their work is just not good enough. They're very much aware of their limitations when they compare themselves with their own peer group. They often keep their emotions in check in school and vent their frustrations, anger, upsets at home. The last thing they want is to come home and find its a continuation of school more reading, more work etc.
HARD PLACE. When the homework, reading practise etc fails to get done at home, you are viewed, by the school, as unsupportive parents. If you go into the school asking for help etc. you are viewed as "pushy parents" (quote with permission) Sheridan Sharp www.dolphi.co.uk/lexicon
Choosing a remedial tutor:
If you plan to use an independent tutor to help your child, then check the CONTENT and the TIME frame of the programme that the tutor will provide, extremely carefully. A good programme will take 12 - 24 max., one hour, one-to-one sessions to remediate effectively. Some specialist programmes for 'dyslexia' take years to complete and leave children still unable to read properly. They should be avoided for your child's (and your wallet's!) sake.
Make sure that the tutor uses a evidence-based, highly structured, synthetic / linguistic phonic programme -see main methods 3 as the basis for their teaching. Also, avoid any tutor who claims to 'tailor the lessons to a child's individual learning style' or uses a home-made mixture of methods.
The chosen programme must work rapidly with positive advances to the child's reading and writing skills being perceptible to all involved - parent, child and tutor - within a very short time. Furthermore, the tutor should, 'Involve the parent... directly in homework so that she has a positive role and can maintain gains between sessions and after sessions have ended. ' (McGuinness 1998c p320)
Parental involvement in the tutoring process is vitally important as 'it engages parents in a constructive way with their children, so that they can be supportive rather than feeling helpless and overwhelmed...it provides parents with insights into the complexities of decoding an alphabetic script. Most parents who are fluent readers have no awareness of this complexity.' (McGuinness 1996 a)
Read more 'Must read' article by an independent tutor
www.rrf.org.uk/49%20Fiona%20Nevola%20Article.htm
Read more Find Places for them All. American
www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/taylor5.htm
It is assumed that most children with less severe learning difficulties will receive 'in school' help for their difficulties with funding from the school budget. The only way to get extra LEA funding for more specialist help is to obtain a 'Statement'. This is a document that sets out a child's needs and all the extra help he or she should get. Statements for dyslexia are notoriously difficult to obtain and the experience of trying to obtain one can be stressful and expensive (Osmond p4-6, p68-69) .
Even if your child eventually obtains a Statement it does not necessarily mean that all the problems in school will disappear. Newly home educating parents, with a ten-year-old son 'Statemented' for severe dyslexia wrote, 'We fought long and hard to keep B together body and soul during his educational nightmare... Forget the three Rs, B got the three Is… ignorance, indifference and incompetence. We just feel that every door we knocked on in our quest to gain some help and support for B was slammed in our face. ' (UK HE List)
It is important to note that a Statement specifies additional help in terms of money and expertise that the LEA will give to an educational establishment only. With this in mind, families considering home education long term should avoid the statementing process as it will not be of benefit to them and may cause complications with the LEA.
If your child already has a Statement you are still legally able to home educate. Since the Education Act 1981 the LEA has been obliged to make the provision for the child which is set out in the Statement 'unless the child's parent has made suitable arrangements' (Education Act 1996, s 325 (5)). Such arrangements may include home education but the Statement must remain in force (New SEN Code of Practice s8.95). Home educating parents are not obliged to provide any resources or educational content specified in their child's Statement. In the case of a home educated child, part 4 of the Statement should state the type of school that the LEA consider appropriate but go on to say, ''parents have made their own arrangements under section 7 of the Education Act 1996''.
LEAs have a duty to undertake an annual review of a Statement. The child's parents must always be invited to the review meeting which should take place in the most appropriate location. The range of professionals involved may be wider and in some respects different from those involved in a school-based review (s9.36)
Read more To obtain a copy of the Code of Practice, download from
www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/sen
