Dyslexic child/what kinds of supports outside of school?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

What skills and supports did you/do you wish you sought for your elementary child with dyslexia beyond reading interventions?

Our 2nd grade child has recently been confirmed dyslexic (external testing) with school testing now bringing an IEP for specific learning disability, written expression. We’ve been supplementing outside of school with an OG tutor for quite awhile (part of why no SLP for reading).

We are at beginning of our learning journey but I understand dyslexia to involve many different aspects of brain function (with advantages as well as challenges)- beyond just learning to read and spell. I appreciate folks thoughts on what other kids of interventions can help a child with mild dyslexia handle the long term ride of a mainstream classroom.

Thanks very much.

[Anonymous]

Aside from the reading support, which it sounds like you have covered, what a dyslexic kid needs is going to be very individual. Some kids will need nothing else. My kid also needed math support and executive functioning support.

One commonality though is that most dyslexic kids feel demoralized by school. To counteract that it is really important to go all in on things they like and are good at - their sport or instrument or art or friendships - whatever. Just become the biggest cheerleader ever for the places where they thrive. School is part of life but it isn’t the metric of life. Make sure they really know that in their bones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What skills and supports did you/do you wish you sought for your elementary child with dyslexia beyond reading interventions?

Sports. Reading interventions make it hard to find time for sports. Sports develop discipline and skills, physical and social.

[Anonymous]

Audio books at their cognitive level did more for their language skills than anything else. It also helped with background knowledge and being able to chat with friends about the books everyone was reading. We always had one on in the car.

I wish I had had the band width to support them in a lifelong exercise of some sort.

Supporting their interests and skillsets helped too. They loved zoo camp (I am sorry it is gone), both in DC and the overnight ones in Front Royal.

[Anonymous]

I’m an academic language therapist, and I want to echo the recommendation for audiobooks. It’s not just that audiobooks allow the kid to keep building a base of content knowledge (which they do and is essential) but it keeps them learning new vocabulary. There are thousands of words that are commonly used in text that are rarely used in speech, even speech by super educated people. Text is almost a different language, with a subset of vocabulary and syntax conventions we don’t use in normal speech. Audiobooks allow a child to learn all those words and put them in their vocabulary, and then when they see them in print they are much more likely to be able to read them.

Many words are very difficult to decode if you don’t already know the word! The vowels could be pronounced short or long, the stress could go here or there, etc - being able to match up the sounds with a known word in a huge leg up.

The same is true with writing - you want your kid to get a feel for the music and rhythm and syntax of written language conventions. You can do that by ear as well as by eye, and that will help with their writing skills down the line.

[Anonymous]

My DC has mild dyslexia (and ADHD and dysgraphia). Diagnosed in 2nd grade and did remediation until 4th.

DC felt dumb until 4 th grade because they were slow to read and write. Something sort of clicked in 4th grade and they realized they were bright, just slow. That’s still true - almost in high school and DC is a very good student but requires extra time on tests and homework assignments which are reading and writing heavy take more time than I expect they do for other kids. History classes have become and ucexpected time suck.

Math facts were extremely painful to learn, and slow. I think I got frustrated because my DC actually has an amazing memory, but not for math facts. Math for a lot better when they hit algebra/more theoretical math and they were allowed to use a calculator (the whole class). Short math word problems were also hard.

My DC hates reading aloud at school now because while they don’t struggle with most words, names and words that can’t easily be decoded are still hard - so when DC learning about the Renaissance, so many names and places to mispronounce! I’m sure it was frustrating for my DC.

Spelling is also still atrocious but spell check mostly catches it. I try to ask DC to proofread everything but they mostly want to do things on their own.

[Anonymous]

My now teen son did Lindamood Bell around 2nd and 3rd grade and he went from like reading in the 10%s to 60% with several months of a relatively intense summer program. He was so angry and me at the time but out of the blue recently said that “that weird program you made me do got me to read” and he said all the OG supports and things we tried at schools didn’t do much. It was really interesting to be after all the things we did and tried - I think LB was what worked and that he randomly said that just a couple weeks ago, now that it’s years later.
By big backward ah-ha is getting to the basic able to read was worth it - and then even if he’s always going to be a slower reader and not be able to take on 10 APs because or of speed and things, he’s a solid B student at a good school

[Anonymous]

I agree with finding something they really like and excel at- it balances some of the bad feelings about school. I also would tell coaches that she had a hard time with left/right and did better with simpler directions instead of a laundry list. Luckily DD is very athletic so she has been very successful and this has helped self esteem. Also I have found club coaches to be better with the LD than any teacher!

[Anonymous]

We hired a tutor from https://www.asdec.org/.

My kids are both dyslexic and they have Tourette’s. I don’t know if that matters.

But a neurologist told me to find out what they were really good at and continue to stress that so that the things they weren’t good at, didn’t come to the prominent part of defining who they were.

They did become proficient readers, but not amazing readers.

They were both very athletic, and so being poured a lot of time and effort into that, and it helped with their self-esteem and having friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We hired a tutor from https://www.asdec.org/.

My kids are both dyslexic and they have Tourette’s. I don’t know if that matters.

But a neurologist told me to find out what they were really good at and continue to stress that so that the things they weren’t good at, didn’t come to the prominent part of defining who they were.

They did become proficient readers, but not amazing readers.

They were both very athletic, and so being poured a lot of time and effort into that, and it helped with their self-esteem and having friends.

+1 could have written the same post, child is reading at grade level in 6th and excelling in sports. Child reads for pleasure, I would not have guessed that even 1 year ago.


Side note, it has been a long 4 year journey and we still have 1-2 years of tutoring before child is remediated.

[Anonymous]

Interesting how many of our dyslexic kids are athletes! My daughter is same- multiple sport athlete.

[Anonymous]

Here are my suggestions, some based on good advice I got and some lucky things we did by accident. DS is currently thriving in college at BU and studying engineering. Was diagnosed with dyslexia at end of 2nd grade.

-I read aloud at night, books that were above grade level. He was the oldest so I was really reading to the non-reader siblings but he loved it and it built his vocabulary and love of books

-As others said, find something outside of school where they excel. I can’t stress this enough. Their confidence will take hit and hit so it’s critical to have something you’re good at to balance. For mine it was Scouting and theatre. Kept him busy, didn’t have much to do with reading, lots of accomplishment and things to celebrate

-we did private Wilson and then OG tutoring from 3rd-6th grade. In 7th the OG tutor worked with him on study skills and executive function skills. Set him up for success in high school.

-read Gift of Dyslexia

-help them articulate what they need and why. They’ll need to self advocate to teachers who don’t get it. There’s no shame in this. We always said it was the same as an allergy or needing glasses. You’re born with it and now do what you have to do to live with it

-push foreign language off as long as possible. Mine got an exemption in elementary and middle school and struggled through the minimum amount necessary in high school. Do ESL or find away around, if possible. Maybe that’s not universal but it was the most challenging subject by far for mine

-be aware of rest. School requires so much more work for them. It’s exhausting

For my DS, it was always a battle between not letting it define him but knowing it’s ever present. It’s not easy. But it’s possible to be in mainstream and even honors classes.

[Anonymous]

My son excelled in Chinese. He was a visual learner and tackling something that was not a romance language worked for him. Japanese and other alphabets can also work. He did some Chinese in middle school so only had to take one year in DCPS to meet the language requirement. He was opted out of language in college.

He also loved being in scouting and soccer and was successful in both. He was another graduate of Lindamood Bell - if you can afford it. I actually hired his former SLP to teach him all 46 phonemes and spelling variations. He actually became a good speller and was less frustrated because of it.