Big gap between IQ and reading ability

[Anonymous]

My rising 2nd grader struggles with reading and is very distracted, so we had her evaluated for LDs and ADHD. Came back positive for ADHD and negative for LDs. IQ was 98th percentile. The doctor said the ADHD might be causing the reading troubles—e.g. spacing out during reading instruction, intimidated by long passages, etc. But this seems strange to me.

With a pretty high IQ, why is reading so hard? She doesn’t reverse letters, she’s great at rhyming, she has an excellent vocabulary and she loves when we read to her….but when she reads, she is very slow, has trouble sounding things out, guesses incorrectly a ton, and often gets to the end of a sentence and has no idea what it was about. She absolutely hates reading…but loves audio books, podcasts and having us read to her. She also loves math, but hates word problems or reading instructions for math problems.

Anyone have any ideas of what’s going on? Do you have a kid with a similar issue? What helped? We are going to do an OG reading tutor, but I’m still curious as to why reading is so hard for her.

[Anonymous]

Forgive my ignorance, but if you were concerned enough about this to bring her to a specialist and have her evaluated, why aren’t you asking the specialist to explain this to you instead of crowd sourcing it?

Not trying to be snarky. It’s a serious question. When I read posts like yours, I suspect that the real reason for the post is that you’re impressed with the IQ test results and want to share that with someone.

[Anonymous]

I could have written the entire second paragraph. From my understanding, ADHD can sometimes look like dyslexia because people with ADHD can have difficulties reading; however it's often because they are skipping lines, or missing paragraphs and need to go back and re-read to figure out what they have missed.

[Anonymous]

NP. I think it's easy to underestimate how much ADHD impacts things. Flitting around, getting distracted, having trouble focusing, makes reading very difficult when you already know how to read - when you are learning how to read, it's that much harder.

Children need to practice reading. Children with ADHD need to practice a skill 10x as much as an NT child - so it will take her longer to learn to read and to learn to enjoy reading.

[Anonymous]

It might be time to consider medication and see if that helps.

Otherwise, daily reading with her. You can break it up and do twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the evening. Plus, read to her at her connective level so she continues to build her vocabulary, back ground knowledge, language……

A reading tutor could help too and they can give you things to work on at home between appointments.

[Anonymous]

Even micro inattention impacts learning. Also, is her working memory low? In order to read fluently and for comprehension, you have to pay attention and remember so many things at once -- letters, phonemes, words, vocabulary, sentences.

My child went from not reading CVC words to reading chapter books when she started ADHD meds in 2nd grade. She still benefited from OG tutoring and now that she's in high school prefers audiobooks because she's a slow reader, but treating the ADHD made a big difference.

[Anonymous]

Because reading requires focused attention on details, and she can’t do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. I think it's easy to underestimate how much ADHD impacts things. Flitting around, getting distracted, having trouble focusing, makes reading very difficult when you already know how to read - when you are learning how to read, it's that much harder.

Children need to practice reading. Children with ADHD need to practice a skill 10x as much as an NT child - so it will take her longer to learn to read and to learn to enjoy reading.

+1

I have moments like this. It can be so hard to understand why somebody isn't getting something. OP I suggest you do some research on ADHD, like watching Dr. Barkley's videos on YouTube. Just understanding why your kid struggles with something can be so helpful!

[Anonymous]

My high IQ non ADHD 2nd grader had something similar. It's called asynchronous learning and is very common in gifted children. If your daughter was properly evaluated this would have been explained. It will sync together later, don't worry.

[Anonymous]

You might also get her a visual assessment to see how her visual tracking is. Visual tracking problems can cause significant reading difficulty that may look like dyslexia in practice but isn't (and often won't flag as dyslexia in an evaluation).

Whether the issue is attention or visual tracking, I would consider trying having her read on a kindle and making the font much, much bigger - keep going bigger until she doesn't have problems. If there's just a few words per page, so be it. Then, as she gets better and builds those skills, slowly shrink the font back down to normal.

We did this with my non-LD gifted child. Her reading ability exceeded her (developmentally normal) tracking abilities, and she had difficulty at six with exceptionally small, dense text. Using a kindle for a few months helped her develop those skills, and then she transitioned back to physical books.

[Anonymous]

My kid had the same issue. He started OT in 2nd grade, and they did a lot of work on visual tracking. He started using a bookmark to help him keep on the same line which also helped a lot. It finally clicked and around December he started to love reading and his skill level rose significantly.

[Anonymous]

I have a dyslexic kid without ADHD, and my kid could not do any of the things your kid can do (couldn’t rhyme, reversed letters and numbers, couldn’t sound out words or read, even slowly). And he’s just as smart as your kid. Your kid has a different challenge than mine, though. I am sure OG tutoring won’t hurt at all, but it is super hard and boring, even with a great tutor. I’d be sure that is what she needs before you put her through it so that it doesn’t make her hate reading even more. (My kid NEEDED OG so we had no option and I’m a big fan of OG - but it is hard to do at intensity/fidelity)

[Anonymous]

Based on the mention of trouble sounding out, I would think this child would benefit from evidence based phonics (OG).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a dyslexic kid without ADHD, and my kid could not do any of the things your kid can do (couldn’t rhyme, reversed letters and numbers, couldn’t sound out words or read, even slowly). And he’s just as smart as your kid. Your kid has a different challenge than mine, though. I am sure OG tutoring won’t hurt at all, but it is super hard and boring, even with a great tutor. I’d be sure that is what she needs before you put her through it so that it doesn’t make her hate reading even more. (My kid NEEDED OG so we had no option and I’m a big fan of OG - but it is hard to do at intensity/fidelity)

It always amazes me how a very high percentage of DCUM kids are 98-99th percentile. Seems pretty unlikely.

[Anonymous]

Is there anything your kid wants to read? Self motivation is really helpful.

Our kid (really bright, taught himself to read street signs at about age 3) didn't want to read books - or even have us read books to him - until late 2nd grade. Then the floodgates opened. We had to get a second library card since you could only get 50 books at a time in MCPL - and 50 age-appropriate books wouldn't last him more than 10 days.