OG tutoring for reading issues without testing for dyslexia. Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Per I-ready, my 8 year old with ADHD was at grade level throughout 2nd grade, but she seems a bit behind to me. She reads graphic novels, but struggles with books with more text. When she reads aloud, she frequently skips short words and makes guesses instead of sounding things out. Her spelling is completely phonetic, but very bad—e.g. “sed” for “said” and many similar mistakes. She doesn’t let her poor spelling stop her from writing little stories, which is good—she really likes to write and illustrate little stories.

We are starting OG tutoring to help with the reading and spelling. Is it still worthwhile to get testing for dyslexia or will the tester just tell me to continue with the tutoring. The testing is very expensive so I don’t want to do it unless it’ll direct us to do something different.

[Anonymous]

I think its better to put the money to tutoring ecept if you want support from the school, then testing is needed.

[Anonymous]

We signed up for the waitlist at Children’s and Inova—they do take insurance, but the wait is over a year to be seen. We went ahead and did that and started tutoring in the meantime.

[Anonymous]

Phonetic spelling is okay at this age. The guessing while reading is not.

Work on having her slow down, point to each word as she reads, and THINK about what she’s reading. Ask questions before, during, and after.

If she’s still guessing when she’s reading slowly then look into tutoring.

[Anonymous]

My DC with dyslexia is now in middle school. Did 5 years of OG. Our tutor wouldnt begin until she had the testing so she knew where to focus energy.

Another perspective. It’s a long road, I would not waste your time and money on tutoring without having done the testing. It’s worth the investment as you also can get an accommodations with school. It also helped because our child has tested as “twice exceptional” multiple times and it allows educators to know that while there are specific learning differences, the child is quite intelligent can capable of thoughtful, in-depth work.

All said, I think you are flying blind without the testing.

[Anonymous]

I would get her tested so you know what you are dealing with. She may not even be dyslexic. The dyslexia remediation programs are expensive and take a couple years-no need to do them if that’s not the issue.

[Anonymous]

My adhd dd is 13, an avid reader, great student, and her iready scores have always fluctuated a lot, especially in elem. Her teacher always told me not to worry about it because they could see she was growing and had good skills. But the tests are boring and hard to pay attention to. So I would not jump to dyslexia without more

[Anonymous]

I highly encourage you to spend the money for testing. In the sum total of what you're going to spend on your child, college included, a 5K neuropsych is a drop in the bucket, but it's a critical drop, because there could be other things going on than just ADHD or dyslexia. You need the full picture, and a full neuropsych will provide it.

Your kid is young, and sometimes such evaluations don't reveal the full picture for young kids, who get tired of the questions and start losing interest and focus. If you want to conserve money, perhaps you want to wait a bit, while continuing with tutoring. But please accept that you might have to conduct several anyway.

Another thing is, if you want to suss out things other than ADHD, your kid has to be MEDICATED to conduct the neuropsych, otherwise the ADHD symptoms will mask everything else! This is very important. We had a short eval done by a developmental ped when DS was 6, which was inconclusive but tended towards ADHD with lots of other issues, and two neuropsychs, when DC was 10 and 16. His first revealed severe ADHD. His second, while medicated for ADHD, revealed autism level 1, that the first could not confirm (we suspected, however).

[Anonymous]

I don't think testing is critical at this stage. In fact, I would say it's not critical at all unless you are trying to get into a special needs school. They use the same questionnaires for ADHD that any psychiatrist would.

And I say that as the parent of a daughter who had far more reading struggles than yours and was eventually diagnosed with moderate dyslexia and inattentive ADHD.

[Anonymous]

The fact that she is able to spell phonetically is a good sign. Even though in your example, sed is the wrong spelling, she is able to hear the sounds and make reasonable choices. My dyslexic DD’s spelling was totally random at that age. She didn’t spell phonetically at all.

[Anonymous]

I do not think testing is necessary. If you can see where she is struggling and have an approach to target her needs, that is the best plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We signed up for the waitlist at Children’s and Inova—they do take insurance, but the wait is over a year to be seen. We went ahead and did that and started tutoring in the meantime.

We did the same. An official diagnosis will help when it comes to services at school.

[Anonymous]

OG tutoring is good for any kid. this area has horrid reading curriculum so it is a proven way to teach kids to read, write and spell.