Tell me about getting your child tested for dyslexia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've also had some success with grad students who are studying special ed. Sometimes it's hard to find an OG certified instructor and they can be over booked. We've had some really talented students use All About Reading with my dyslexic DS with good results.

Just wanted to chime in and make sure anyone looking to hire a tutor knows there is a difference between OG trained and OG certified. MCPS is now training staff, so there are a lot of teachers who can say they have been OG trained. That’s a 30 hour course with an instructor and modeling but no work with students. After the training teachers are able to use OG in classrooms/for interventions. To be certified in OG, there are hundreds of hours of practice with a student, and a practicum supervisor giving feedback after observations.

I didn’t know the difference at first, and wanted to pass along what I’ve learned!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t wait for the school to say “something is wrong,” because they won’t. They will keep “waiting it for click” and MAYBE giving your child some time with their reading specialist, which will be USELESS for dyslexia.

Thanks to Covid and virtual school, I was lucky enough to catch the problem early on with my child at the end of her K year (she was just shy of 6). It was so bad that I made the case to the school to let her repeat K and worked one on one diligently with her (daily) using the ALL ABOUT READING curriculum/program. She is NOW at slight above grade level but at AGE level.

Meanwhile, I had a neuropsychological eval done at Children’s along with a learning disabilities eval. Insurance covered the neuropsychological eval but I had to pay for the learning part since it was not medical. Because it was done at the same time I got a big discount.


BTW, the county refused to have her tested (FCPS) - I had to meet with a panel and they denied the test because she was very young and they wanted to see if her starting taking meds for ADHD (since she had recently been diagnosed- at the time by ped only as i was on the waitlist for the complete neuro at Children’s) would solve the problem, plus the fact that our principal had allowed her to repeat K. Just their typical wait and see…

One thing to consider is that during her evaluation the doctor told me she had been lucky to have an intervention done early because, as she put it, if a child gets to 3rd grade not reading fluently (for grade level that is), it will be very hard to acquire complete fluency. Not impossible of course, but it just becomes very hard and requires more work and intervention.

Because of that, if you have the $$ means, I would take your child during this summer to an evaluation at MindWell (faster). And probably not even that… I mean, what would be the point of having a diagnosis? It is not like the county will help gim if he has the diagnosis. You will still need to either work with your child one on one or find an EXCELLENT tutor who uses OG. They are like unicorns I have found.

Another approach, and probably the one I would take to my child if he were a rising 3rd grader, would be to fork the money for Lindamood Bell for a boot camp - everyday, 4 to 6 hours for 3 to 4 weeks. Something along those lines - they have a proprietary e evaluation and would tell you how many hour your child would need to get to grade level. I would expect you would have to spend at least 8 to 10k with this.

IMO, it would be a wash out of what you end up.paying a good and effective OG tutor 3 hours per week for God knows how long. The advantage of LB to me is that it is fast, and it doesn't keep dragging on.


Good luck op. Whatever approach you choose, DON'T TRUST the school system to effectively help your child in this.

j

I just want to be clear for others reading that the bolded is illegal. An IEP team can refuse to provide assessment for some legitimate reasons -- like they think that there is no reasonable suspicion of disability. But a team cannot refuse to assess a child due to "being too young". Part of IDEA, places a "child find" obligation on schools to find all disabled children. That obligation begins even before kindergarten. There is no "too young" to be assessed. Furthermore, a team cannot refuse to assess a student until they are placed on medication. The IEP team is obligated to assess a child for disability in the unmitigated state -- no team can insist that your child take medication before assessing.

Another trick teams use, not mentioned here, is to say that they want to "wait" to see -- see if the child magically improves by a certain age (usually age 8) or see if the child "responds to intervention". Again, these are not legal reasons to refuse to assess.

This is why every parent should be taping IEP meetings. If your team does this, write a letter to the dispute resolution office or to the associate superintendent for special education. IME, they recognize the illegalities and are motivated to fix them before they become liabilities.

[Anonymous]

Lots of good advice in this thread! We got a lot of pushback from our school as well when we began to suspect dyslexia and DS reached the point of complete reading refusal. I was able to get him past reading refusal using All About Reading with lots of bribes and rewards and then we were lucky enough to find a really good tutor through Decoding Dyslexia VA. DS was at a beginning 2nd grade reading level after completing the first book of All About Reading and when he started tutoring after 3rd grade. He did 5 hrs/week for the next 14 months and ended up above grade level when we stopped tutoring. Now in MS he has decoding and comprehension well above grade level though his fluency still lags a little. I'm glad we got testing and a diagnosis but the single biggest thing was starting structured instruction.

[Anonymous]

OP, don't forget to keep reading to your child and/or get them audio books at their cognitive level. That gives them ongoing exposure to reading comprehension and intellectual development. After my DS's diagnosis, my DH read to him every single evening and that's something that was tremendously beneficial for DS and really strengthened their relationship too. Looking back, this was one of the big things we did right.

[Anonymous]

Kids who are assessed and have Dyslexia can be qualified by their school staff for Bookshare for free and can sign up for Learning Ally for an annual fee.

Bookshare provides free access to hundreds of thousands of books for people with disabilities, including dyslexia.

We found Learning Ally to have more options when it came to human reader voices, but both Bookshare and Learning Ally are useful.