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I can't respond in reference to children, but my FI is dyslexic. His issues affect him only in English writing, however. He has always had a really difficult time in college English classes, but his math is always perfect. He has always told me that he thinks his English writing skills would be much better if teachers hadn't, because they knew he was dyslexic, shoved him into remedial English courses in middle/high school- once he was in there with all the other degenerates (and trust me, in our area, they only stick the trouble makers in those classes, back when we were in school!), he received zero attention or assistance with his work. I think if he'd gotten the attention and assistance he needed, he'd be just fine today, and wouldn't struggle so. But the guy reads 24/7, I mean I was an English Lit major and I pick up a book maybe once or twice a week, while he runs through three or so novels a week between paperbacks and books-on-tape! This is my advice- make sure he gets the attention he needs, and don't let teachers take his skills for granted! He'll need a lot of help to get through English courses. And his issues could get better as he gets older- FI has lost a lot of the initial signs of dyslexia, and now his problems are almost solely with words/word order, but pretty much no backwards letters and such. I don't know what made my FI such a reader, but encouraging a love of reading, no matter what he's reading, is probably a good idea (for FI, it's mostly supernatural/fantasy/science fiction). I frequently catch FI reading aloud under his breath, which is a technique that seems to help him.
Anyway, I highly advocate a strong support system :) But I also think that tutoring and additional educational support is extremely effective, so that's worth looking into!
I'm no expert hah but this is what I can tell you from having FI talk to me about it over the years!
Diva - I am also dyslexic but I am also 37. But this is what I can tell you. All through school my parents would be told, 'she's just not working to her full potential.' And I can tell you that I was. This was very frustrating to me. I struggled in school.
Then I was off to college. It wasn't until I was failing my economics class and had my parents drive up one weekend for an emergency visit because I wanted to drop out of college that they even thought to get me tested for a learning disability. I was taken to a psychologist to be tested and finally we learned that I was dyslexic...I just wish it would've been when I was in grade school.
We came to the conclusion that I am a visual learner. I don't go well in lecture type classroom settings. So with all of this, I took the results of my report to my professors. I had to re-learn how to study so I could retain information. It was a challenging experience.
I don't get my letters/words mixed up but I do w/numbers. I'm not great in math/science. I have difficulty following a recipe or directions. It's really quite a pain. But I deal with it.
I think you should definitely get him tested to see what's going on. It would've helped me so much if I would've been tested in my youth.
Keep us posted.
Thanks so much!! He is very very very bright and a very happy student. He loves to read he's reading a 600 pager right now (peter pan) and he reads it aloud. it's very cute because he still gets confused with left/right and i always say no your other left and we just giggle now. he is being tested on friday. i feel really awful because i always suspected it. when he was 4 all of his letters were backwards (and in kindergarten) but everyone said that oh no he'll grow out of it. i was really bad about telling him he wasn't focussing or he was lazy :( until last week when i received his math test back then it just clicked. the teacher wrote that he was being careless on the paper because he didn't work out the problems (they were on the left side of the page vertically) well the answer blanks were on the right. He got 3 out of four answers correct except they were backwards. for example if the answer was 3589 he wrote 9853, so not necessarily wrong, just backwards. i was talking to him and asking him why he wrote them that way and he goes "no mommy that's right" and i was like no it's wrong and then i looked at it again and said ohhhh and everything made perfect sense all at once to me. his spelling is great but he can't write the words properly on the paper for example I rit well. I play basbal and i love futbal. but if asked separately he can spell each word perfectly. now that i have recognized the things that he is iffy on it's really easy to help him by wording things differently. i have seen a huge change in a week. he is currently a c student but his potential is so great that it's impossible for me and his teachers to believe he wasn't applying himself. i think he may have discalciua (sp?) and be slightly dyslexic.
I now see it as him being an individual and i explained to him that it's really cool that he sees things in a completely different way than most kids in the class and that he doesn't have to see things the same way as everyone else and he's still special (of course he says oh mommy i know that)... cute story he wrote i have no deia how to do that. i said sweets that isn't the right way to spell "idea" oh yeah it is mommy i double checked, i said check again, he did and said yeah mommy that's the right way i told you. i said well look at the question and he said d'oh i'm so silly!!! so i don't honestly see it being a disability or anything like that just a different way of thinking and am happy that i will hopefully get him the accomodations that he needs before it affects his self confidence and grades any further.
Don't be downheartened if he is. There have been many famous and successful people who have been dyslexic (Einstein and Richard Branson to name 2 off the top of my head). I read on Wikipedia that entrepreneurs are 7 times more likely to be dyslexic than the average population. The best thing you can do for him is encourage him and give him confidence in his abilities, which will enable him to do what he wants despite his confidence being bashed by the rigid schooling system.
oh i am definitely not downhearted! he is a very bright little boy, he just thinks slightly differently than everyone else. i just want him to excel to the best of his abiilties and be the best big guy that he can be. he's brilliant and funny and just a great kid and i don't want him to think that he's stupid because he sees words differently or because his left is actually his other left lol! (he gets left and right confused all the time).. i think it's a cute quirkiness and that he is in no way less intelligent than anyone else and he constantly amazes me every day (has since april 1, 2001) and i am just really happy and honored that i am his mommy.
Hi there-
This thread caught my attention and I felt like I should respond. I'm in my last semester of graduate school, getting my master's in speech pathology and we get lots of education on dyslexia, assessment, treatment, etc. Its great that you are getting him tested, and I'm sure they will give you some very helpful answers. Is a speech pathologist doing the assessment? Also, depending on the results from the test, I may consider getting him assessed for a possible visual tracking problem. This is done through a specialized optometrist. Sometimes the problem is a visual problem, and the child cannot correctly track the words. Hope this information helps!
Hi there,
I'm 26 and I have mild dyslexia. It's only with numbers. I have no problem writing them in correct order but I switch them around when reading sequences of numbers, (phone numbers, addresses, etc). I need to really focus when I'm reading numbers. It's especially difficult to read them out loud. I know, weird. But you know what, it really hasn't detered me in life. I'm aware of this problem so i make an extra effort when I have to deal with numbers, (every day). I always had As in math in school and I went on to be a lawyer. so really, as long as you're aware and address the issue it shouldn't limit your little boy. good luck and i'm sure he's going to be just fine.
I would definitely recommend getting him tested I was diagnosed with dyslexia aged 11, and as a result I went to special lessons with a lady who understood it. There are allsorts of things they can do to help eg. There are special books with simpler words but non babyish stories, and you can often get more time in exams to make up for slower reading.
There is nothing to worry about, and knowing about it can only make things easier
@Crebre - I'm in the same boat. I had conferences with teachers this week and we've decided to test for the same thing. My son is in 3rd grade.
Now that I've gotten some good advice (via your post) I'll be sure to tell the doc at the next eye exam to check his tracking and let me know if we need a specialist.
I never was tested in school, but I often struggled and have trouble with numbers and such - I may have the tendencies myself!
Hi crebre80,
I work in a dylexia research lab right now. We are based in boston, and there are quite a few researchers in this area working on different aspects of dyslexia. Many of our participants (children age 4-12) come from families with a history of dyslexia, and what we keep seeing is that these kids have very high IQ but lack auditory processing abilities (processing sounds, which is the basis of learning language/reading).
Our lab, in particular, is trying to examine the effects of early musical training on auditory processing abilities, and how this information can help children who are struggling to read.
And you may have heard of her already, but Maryanne Wolfe at Tufts univeristy is a leading researcher in developmental dyslexia, and she has written a few books on her research.
i know there isn't much that i can do to help, but i can say that many of our parents who are dyslexic themselves tell us that when growing up, the support from family and friends, and knowing that dyslexia doesn't mean they're "lazy" or "not interested in learning" helped them a lot. And many of them are very successful (presidents of companies, program directors, etc.). Good luck, there are a lot of resources on dyslexia out there that can be of tremendous help to childrens and parents.
OMG thanks so much for the huge support! I am not dyslexic and actually excelled in school (I made my first B somewhere in high school) lol!! I think his father may be though.. The teacher is doing the testing with the guidance counselor being present. He actually had an eye exam, what type of visual testing should be given?
Both my brother and I are dyslexic. It's effected us both very differently. My brother has always hated school because he would struggle reading and writing, and he didn't want to put in any extra work. I, on the other hand, didn't want people to think I was stupid when I was younger (like in elementary school), so I worked my butt off. I'm in law school now, so I feel like it didn't really inhibit me at all. Reading silently to myself is fine for me because my main problem is pronunciation and writing. I know what words mean, but I sound silly trying to pronounce them. Spelling is my nemesis. So don't worry even if he is. Just be patient and give as much help and encourage you can because it can be frustrating.
Hi I am currently going for my Orton Gillingham Certification, it does sound like your son may be eliciting some tell tale signs of dyslexia. The b, d and p are the most common I have seen children get mixed up with. For the b and d we tell the kids to put up their thumbs up on each hand and put them next to each other and remind them to make their bed and it will show them which way the d goes and which way the b goes. Also your son sounds as if he is having trouble with decoding certain words and when he sounds them out he gets the letters that sound like what he is writing. For example if he wanted to write ball, the rule for this is the fszl rule which is you double f, s, z, or l at the end of a short word after a short vowel. There are also words which we call red words, this means that the letters are not behaving and the letters that make up a word are not the sounds you are hearing such as the word iron. It doesn't sound like he has dysgraphia because from what I read his writing can be understood aside from some things being backwards. Again I am not a doctor or 100% certified yet, but just thought I'd share some helpful tips. Good luck and just remember you are only helping your son, I have a 3 year old and I would do the same :)
He's awesome!! He is definitely the smartest kid that I know! And I'm not just saying that, EVERYONE does! He brought his grades up drastically from a few weeks ago. It's so cute he reads everythng aloud to make sure he's understanding the subject matter, etc appropriately.
@querida: how strange our sons are both third graders and going through the same things.. it's great to be going through this with someone else!
@wm27: i would love all of the information that you can provide on dyslexia! I feel so bad because I called him lazy and told him he didn't focus at the beginning of the year and if he'd pay attention he'd do much better in school :(.. now that i realize what it may be i have completely changed my verbiage etc and he is doing much much better in school. i am so proud of him, in some subjects he raised his grade up NINE points, in TWO weeks!!! He is having issues with simple and compound predicate/subject so I am trying to find a way for him to easily remember...I have to work with him on his English though... I don't believe his teacher thinks he's dyslexic. his math teacher for sure thinks not (she says he just was being careless because he didn't work out the problems and that's why their backwards, i said that's what they say teachers say on the dyslexic website).... but i will give her the benefit of the doubt knowing that many teachers aren't specifically trained on dyslexia and that he is such a bright kid that it could appear that he is being lazy or not putting forth the proper effort... i believe that he has a minor form of dyslexia and will need slight accommodations...
I don't have Dyslexia, but I have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder) and have known since I was 9. That was when my parents started homeschooling me. They felt that they could better teach me. It worked out fine.
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Okay Hive I need your help. I believe my son is slightly dyslexic and he is being tested on Friday. He exhibits the usual tell-tell signs (backwards letters, left right confusion, skipping a few words when reading aloud, confusion on directional math aspects)... does anyone have any experience and do you have any advice?