When Child Is Too Dyslexic for Dyslexia School?!? Help!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Be nice. She's tried smething, it didn't wrk and nw she's frustrated. (I"m giving up 0s fr lent)

Didn't mean to be rude, tho I could have softened it possibly. It seems to me that some parents try to cure their kid, so that was why i commented that. Not sure if that's OP's expectation or not. I know several people who are highly dyslexic and highly successful - to this day they prefer to listen to everything: news, books, training for work, you name it. They still don't read well, but they are rock stars in their fields

OP here and I’m not “trying to cure my kid.” What you’ve implied is insulting. I’m not an idiot. I have three kids with varying learning disabilities and all three have IEPs. I also have a dyslexic husband who went to a special Ed private school and now is a well-educated and gainfully employed individual. However our DC is not just confounding us but also a school that specializes in language based learning disabilities. Because their dyslexia is that severe. I know I cannot “cure” them, but it is deeply concerning to have a functionally illiterate child who is 10 and has has this many interventions at this point in public and private school. Cure? No. But I do have expectations for them to graduate high school and college because they are very bright and engaged with learning. They just can’t learn to read.

And no we are not in the position for one of us to just quit our jobs to tutor DC. That would be bad for them socially and emotionally. They like school. They make friends easily. And someone has to pay for the $50k private school!

Appreciate those who responded with productive and helpful suggestions.

No one said you are an idiot. At the same time, adjusting expectations when you have a child with a disability is important, as you know. If your child's dyslexia is so severe that it may not be remediated, then it might be helpful to shift to accommodating for it (e.g., audiobooks at school and home). You state that you have college expectations for a "functionally illiterate" 10 year old - depending on your child's interests, you may need to adjust this expectation. If your child wants to go to college, this is definitely possible with assistive technology.

Why are you being so hostile and nasty? its reasonable to want to do everything to help your child learn to read. Everything in school is based off reading. It's not the time to give up on this child and yes, there are options to help them but as a parent most of us would try anything to help our kids (except you). OP sounds like a great parent trying everything and good for them.

OP here. Thank you. Thank you for being kind.

There are a few nasty people on here. Please ignore them. You are doing everything you can and your best and instead of helping with school suggestions, they choose to bash for no reason. Don't listen to them and give up and keep doing everything possible to help your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Be nice. She's tried smething, it didn't wrk and nw she's frustrated. (I"m giving up 0s fr lent)

Didn't mean to be rude, tho I could have softened it possibly. It seems to me that some parents try to cure their kid, so that was why i commented that. Not sure if that's OP's expectation or not. I know several people who are highly dyslexic and highly successful - to this day they prefer to listen to everything: news, books, training for work, you name it. They still don't read well, but they are rock stars in their fields

OP here and I’m not “trying to cure my kid.” What you’ve implied is insulting. I’m not an idiot. I have three kids with varying learning disabilities and all three have IEPs. I also have a dyslexic husband who went to a special Ed private school and now is a well-educated and gainfully employed individual. However our DC is not just confounding us but also a school that specializes in language based learning disabilities. Because their dyslexia is that severe. I know I cannot “cure” them, but it is deeply concerning to have a functionally illiterate child who is 10 and has has this many interventions at this point in public and private school. Cure? No. But I do have expectations for them to graduate high school and college because they are very bright and engaged with learning. They just can’t learn to read.

And no we are not in the position for one of us to just quit our jobs to tutor DC. That would be bad for them socially and emotionally. They like school. They make friends easily. And someone has to pay for the $50k private school!

Appreciate those who responded with productive and helpful suggestions.

No one said you are an idiot. At the same time, adjusting expectations when you have a child with a disability is important, as you know. If your child's dyslexia is so severe that it may not be remediated, then it might be helpful to shift to accommodating for it (e.g., audiobooks at school and home). You state that you have college expectations for a "functionally illiterate" 10 year old - depending on your child's interests, you may need to adjust this expectation. If your child wants to go to college, this is definitely possible with assistive technology.

Why are you being so hostile and nasty? its reasonable to want to do everything to help your child learn to read. Everything in school is based off reading. It's not the time to give up on this child and yes, there are options to help them but as a parent most of us would try anything to help our kids (except you). OP sounds like a great parent trying everything and good for them.

I’m sorry but there is a huge disconnect here. How was your kid admitted to a private SN school with no neuropsych test? How did you get the dyslexia diagnosis? How are you doing anything and everything possible if he doesn’t even have a diagnosis you have not tested properly, so you don’t know what you are helping, and you won’t do of/asdec? I don’t get what’s happening here.

Not sure what your problem is. I don’t see a disconnect at all. The OP said the public school district tested her kid during Covid when kid was probably 7-8. Like many LD kids like mine, I presume virtual was a disaster for OP’s kid and it prompted the testing. The kid got an IEP and then moved to private after testing showed Specific Learning Disability and testing showed low scores in phonological processing scores. Private school based admissions on the testing and IEP. What isn’t clear about that? And OP said there’s also a family history of dyslexia or LD (she said husband and other kids). So it seems pretty clear why they would treat like dyslexia. Nothing seems confusing about this.

I agree that OP needs to do more comprehensive psychoeducational testing done by a private group for her kid. Especially since the testing was done in school during Covid and sounds incomplete.

I can also see how OP would feel blindsided by how the private school is responding. They reviewed the testing and IEP. They also presumably met the child before admission if it’s Lab/Sienna/Oakwood/McLean (OP said she’s in NOVA) which all require visits with their reading specialists and teachers before admission. The kid has been there for at least a year and now school is saying sorry not sorry we can’t help your kid. That’s kind of a cop out.

Truth be told. For kids with severe dyslexia private school alone isn’t enough. You need OG tutoring at least 4x a week in addition. Which is why we decided to keep our DC in public and push the money into tutoring. We knew that private would be a $45k+ cost and we would need one on one tutoring anyway.

While this is good advice, I wouldn't bother with testing and put that money into tutoring instead. They know the issues. THey've had testing done and no matter how hard this child tries, they are still struggling.

[Anonymous]

I posted somewhere above about my child with severe dyslexia. One other thing I wanted to add, she started ASDEC at the end of 5th grade after attending a sn school and it really improved her reading/ spelling. I do believe there was overall “ cognitive growth” at the time for her. I don’t completely know how to describe it, but I do feel she is usually a little later to absorb things but her mind has continued to grow and her maturity as a person helped. That being said, I still think she has developed her own way to decode and it’s not syllable division, etc but she is completely functionally literate now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Be nice. She's tried smething, it didn't wrk and nw she's frustrated. (I"m giving up 0s fr lent)

Didn't mean to be rude, tho I could have softened it possibly. It seems to me that some parents try to cure their kid, so that was why i commented that. Not sure if that's OP's expectation or not. I know several people who are highly dyslexic and highly successful - to this day they prefer to listen to everything: news, books, training for work, you name it. They still don't read well, but they are rock stars in their fields

OP here and I’m not “trying to cure my kid.” What you’ve implied is insulting. I’m not an idiot. I have three kids with varying learning disabilities and all three have IEPs. I also have a dyslexic husband who went to a special Ed private school and now is a well-educated and gainfully employed individual. However our DC is not just confounding us but also a school that specializes in language based learning disabilities. Because their dyslexia is that severe. I know I cannot “cure” them, but it is deeply concerning to have a functionally illiterate child who is 10 and has has this many interventions at this point in public and private school. Cure? No. But I do have expectations for them to graduate high school and college because they are very bright and engaged with learning. They just can’t learn to read.

And no we are not in the position for one of us to just quit our jobs to tutor DC. That would be bad for them socially and emotionally. They like school. They make friends easily. And someone has to pay for the $50k private school!

Appreciate those who responded with productive and helpful suggestions.

No one said you are an idiot. At the same time, adjusting expectations when you have a child with a disability is important, as you know. If your child's dyslexia is so severe that it may not be remediated, then it might be helpful to shift to accommodating for it (e.g., audiobooks at school and home). You state that you have college expectations for a "functionally illiterate" 10 year old - depending on your child's interests, you may need to adjust this expectation. If your child wants to go to college, this is definitely possible with assistive technology.

Why are you being so hostile and nasty? its reasonable to want to do everything to help your child learn to read. Everything in school is based off reading. It's not the time to give up on this child and yes, there are options to help them but as a parent most of us would try anything to help our kids (except you). OP sounds like a great parent trying everything and good for them.

I’m sorry but there is a huge disconnect here. How was your kid admitted to a private SN school with no neuropsych test? How did you get the dyslexia diagnosis? How are you doing anything and everything possible if he doesn’t even have a diagnosis you have not tested properly, so you don’t know what you are helping, and you won’t do of/asdec? I don’t get what’s happening here.

Not sure what your problem is. I don’t see a disconnect at all. The OP said the public school district tested her kid during Covid when kid was probably 7-8. Like many LD kids like mine, I presume virtual was a disaster for OP’s kid and it prompted the testing. The kid got an IEP and then moved to private after testing showed Specific Learning Disability and testing showed low scores in phonological processing scores. Private school based admissions on the testing and IEP. What isn’t clear about that? And OP said there’s also a family history of dyslexia or LD (she said husband and other kids). So it seems pretty clear why they would treat like dyslexia. Nothing seems confusing about this.

I agree that OP needs to do more comprehensive psychoeducational testing done by a private group for her kid. Especially since the testing was done in school during Covid and sounds incomplete.

I can also see how OP would feel blindsided by how the private school is responding. They reviewed the testing and IEP. They also presumably met the child before admission if it’s Lab/Sienna/Oakwood/McLean (OP said she’s in NOVA) which all require visits with their reading specialists and teachers before admission. The kid has been there for at least a year and now school is saying sorry not sorry we can’t help your kid. That’s kind of a cop out.

Truth be told. For kids with severe dyslexia private school alone isn’t enough. You need OG tutoring at least 4x a week in addition. Which is why we decided to keep our DC in public and push the money into tutoring. We knew that private would be a $45k+ cost and we would need one on one tutoring anyway.

While this is good advice, I wouldn't bother with testing and put that money into tutoring instead. They know the issues. THey've had testing done and no matter how hard this child tries, they are still struggling.

They're considering switching to a different dyslexia school and will need updated testing for that. It's hard to know if it will further sharpen the picture of what's going on with OP's child until they get the results. Sometimes subsequent testing shows a different/fuller picture, sometimes not. Sounds like getting it is a good idea. Hang in there, OP.

[Anonymous]

OP, if his IQ is low average - like 85? - remediation may take a very very long time. This is my son. It took about three-four years. We did asdec. Your son likely needs one on one instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Be nice. She's tried smething, it didn't wrk and nw she's frustrated. (I"m giving up 0s fr lent)

Didn't mean to be rude, tho I could have softened it possibly. It seems to me that some parents try to cure their kid, so that was why i commented that. Not sure if that's OP's expectation or not. I know several people who are highly dyslexic and highly successful - to this day they prefer to listen to everything: news, books, training for work, you name it. They still don't read well, but they are rock stars in their fields

OP here and I’m not “trying to cure my kid.” What you’ve implied is insulting. I’m not an idiot. I have three kids with varying learning disabilities and all three have IEPs. I also have a dyslexic husband who went to a special Ed private school and now is a well-educated and gainfully employed individual. However our DC is not just confounding us but also a school that specializes in language based learning disabilities. Because their dyslexia is that severe. I know I cannot “cure” them, but it is deeply concerning to have a functionally illiterate child who is 10 and has has this many interventions at this point in public and private school. Cure? No. But I do have expectations for them to graduate high school and college because they are very bright and engaged with learning. They just can’t learn to read.

And no we are not in the position for one of us to just quit our jobs to tutor DC. That would be bad for them socially and emotionally. They like school. They make friends easily. And someone has to pay for the $50k private school!

Appreciate those who responded with productive and helpful suggestions.

No one said you are an idiot. At the same time, adjusting expectations when you have a child with a disability is important, as you know. If your child's dyslexia is so severe that it may not be remediated, then it might be helpful to shift to accommodating for it (e.g., audiobooks at school and home). You state that you have college expectations for a "functionally illiterate" 10 year old - depending on your child's interests, you may need to adjust this expectation. If your child wants to go to college, this is definitely possible with assistive technology.

I had a functionally illiterate 10 year old with dyslexia. Instead of throwing up my hands, accommodating, and pushing everything audio, we continued to work on getting him as far as we could within his abilities. Now? As a 9th grader, he's in honors English and reads at a college level. Does he prefer audiobooks for his spare time? Yes and that's fine. Because he can read it if he needs to read it. He's a great writer even if he misspells words. That point is, don't determine someone's potential at 10 years old.

[Anonymous]

Last PP, that is so encouraging. My 10 year old has a 'moderate' dyslexia diagnosis -- school said reading level R (one year behind) 89% accuracy, 65 wpm.

I don't think of kid as functionally illiterate, decoding continues to improve, but there's definitely still whiffs like seeing 'possession' and guessing 'poison'.

Talking to Lab, I was a little concerned their approach would be to push into audio books, and I want my kid to be able to read competently before exiting high school.

For those of you who have been able to secure frequent tutoring (I should be so lucky!), do you have thoughts on whether your tutors were able to help with more sophisticated reading problems than being unable to read 'guitar' or 'trivia'?

I'm talking about not recognizing that one form of a word is related to anoher form of a word -- like you know what 'possible' means, but don't have a clue what 'possiblity' means?

Also, just being competent at context clue problem solving. We are far from there yet.

[Anonymous]

Have you looked at McLean? My child is there with same issues and has made good progress

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ Be nice. She's tried smething, it didn't wrk and nw she's frustrated. (I"m giving up 0s fr lent)

Didn't mean to be rude, tho I could have softened it possibly. It seems to me that some parents try to cure their kid, so that was why i commented that. Not sure if that's OP's expectation or not. I know several people who are highly dyslexic and highly successful - to this day they prefer to listen to everything: news, books, training for work, you name it. They still don't read well, but they are rock stars in their fields

OP here and I’m not “trying to cure my kid.” What you’ve implied is insulting. I’m not an idiot. I have three kids with varying learning disabilities and all three have IEPs. I also have a dyslexic husband who went to a special Ed private school and now is a well-educated and gainfully employed individual. However our DC is not just confounding us but also a school that specializes in language based learning disabilities. Because their dyslexia is that severe. I know I cannot “cure” them, but it is deeply concerning to have a functionally illiterate child who is 10 and has has this many interventions at this point in public and private school. Cure? No. But I do have expectations for them to graduate high school and college because they are very bright and engaged with learning. They just can’t learn to read.

And no we are not in the position for one of us to just quit our jobs to tutor DC. That would be bad for them socially and emotionally. They like school. They make friends easily. And someone has to pay for the $50k private school!

Appreciate those who responded with productive and helpful suggestions.

No one said you are an idiot. At the same time, adjusting expectations when you have a child with a disability is important, as you know. If your child's dyslexia is so severe that it may not be remediated, then it might be helpful to shift to accommodating for it (e.g., audiobooks at school and home). You state that you have college expectations for a "functionally illiterate" 10 year old - depending on your child's interests, you may need to adjust this expectation. If your child wants to go to college, this is definitely possible with assistive technology.

I had a functionally illiterate 10 year old with dyslexia. Instead of throwing up my hands, accommodating, and pushing everything audio, we continued to work on getting him as far as we could within his abilities. Now? As a 9th grader, he's in honors English and reads at a college level. Does he prefer audiobooks for his spare time? Yes and that's fine. Because he can read it if he needs to read it. He's a great writer even if he misspells words. That point is, don't determine someone's potential at 10 years old.

EXACTLY. To the OP, do not let this specific reading issue define your son or his intelligence more broadly. People with dyslexia can be quite smart, very intelligent, but may not be perceived that way and they may suffer low self esteem.

I send you tons of positive energy as none of this is easy and I trust you can wade through these responses to find the pearls. You got this!

[Anonymous]

I looked into LMB for my dyslexic daughter and I did not like what I saw. Extremely high cost for the classes and if you read online reviews many say that it was completely ineffective. It just seemed like too much of a gamble for me so I ended up using the Barton Reading program with my DC. (Bartonreading.com) The program actually combines the effective elements of LMB with OG, which is still considered the best method of teaching kids to read. You can contact Susan Barton to get a list of certified tutors to use, and also ask her questions about whether the program will be effective for your child. I’m not going to lie- it can be a pretty boring program, but it’s really methodical and it does truly work. You can purchase and teach the program yourself or you can hire a tutor (which is what we did).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you looked at McLean? My child is there with same issues and has made good progress

Does your child get specialized OG tutoring at McLean or do you provide your own tutor? I thought McLean was good for kids with learning differences as long as they are mild and parents supplement with their own tutors. The small class sizes help as well, but beyond that I can’t imagine McLean would be a better option than a school that specializes in teaching kids with dyslexia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, if his IQ is low average - like 85? - remediation may take a very very long time. This is my son. It took about three-four years. We did asdec. Your son likely needs one on one instruction.

Dyslexia is hard! My son has an IQ of 118 and it took him three years of twice or thrice weekly one-on-one tutoring, with intensive work in summer, to go through his OG program. He reads at grade level now in high school, but he was below grade level until recently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone recommend intensive older-elementary-aged tutoring programs or summer programs in NoVA or DC for intensive dyslexia remediation? This is for a child with *profound* dyslexia (3 grade levels behind) with severe language retention, processing, and memory weakness. No behavioral problems. Sweet kid. But obviously frustrated and has developed a low frustration tolerance due to trauma from public school and also Covid/virtual.

Child is currently enrolled in a private school that specializes in language-based learning disabilities, but administrators are concerned about lack of progress and are not sure they can provide sufficient services anymore.

We are at a loss about what to do bc child is already in a private special Ed school, is getting privately tutored 2x a week, OT twice a week, and speech therapy 1x a week and is still functionally illiterate. Public school was a disaster and left DC emotionally in shambles.

Help!

My son is profoundly dyslexic, dysgraphic and has combined ADHD. He started out in the single digit percentiles for all of the reading tests except for comprehension. We stayed in FCPS because he also is a very good in math and science and we wanted to support his strengths too. We fought for what we could get in his IEP and supplemented the rest. He qualified for AAP based on his test scores.

2-7th grade he went to a private tutor 2-3 times a week including summers. Wilson was our chosen OG method. I got instruction from his tutor and worked with him on his non tutor days, including weekends. We got him up to low average for phonemes and orthographic but he is still in thefirst percentile for RAN. He also had some Wilson at school in ES and took a reading class in 7th and 8th.

In order to keep up with reading comprehension, vocabulary, plots and character developments, increasing complex lots, background knowledge, we relied on audio books and reading to him. He received electronic books from 2nd grade through graduate school. Ear reading is just as beneficial as eye reading. We did this daily from second grad through 12th. This was key for him.

He was extremely slow on acquiring his math facts, but after that he soared in math and took ended up majoring in it in college.

In summers, he did a keyboarding program daily for 20 minutes and that was enough to keep up with keyboarding. I would take the timed tests for him as he was always too slow. He is still a slow typist but says he is fast enough for his brain. He has had a typing for all things accommodation throughout, including in college. Kurzweil is what he used starting in 7th grade but there have been massive improvements in technology, I am sure there are better things out there. He could scan in a worksheet and label everything by typing-excellent for biology and chemistry. There is also a math app he uses for calculations.

He got xtra time, a reader, and a scribe for all assessments. At first it was a human but by college it was all electronic. He took mostly Honors and AP classes in hs, except he was in a team taught class for English.

On advice from his evaluator, we stated transitioning from remediation to learning technology in middle school. I was his reader and scribe from homework until he was fully on technology fall of junior year in HS. It was a gradual change over. In HS iy was mainly on particularly frustrating days or when technology was acting up.

We opted for him to not take a foreign language, in HS he took additional math and science classes instead (supporting his strengths). I lobbied for ASL at his HS and they finally added it after he graduated.

Progress is very slow, but small steps add up over time. Things take more time. Persistence is crucial.

MS was the worst, then ES, but HS was an excellent experience. College as mixed, but receiving accommodations was the easiest part (he received them at three different schools, each had their own process but the end result was the same).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, if his IQ is low average - like 85? - remediation may take a very very long time. This is my son. It took about three-four years. We did asdec. Your son likely needs one on one instruction.

Dyslexia is hard! My son has an IQ of 118 and it took him three years of twice or thrice weekly one-on-one tutoring, with intensive work in summer, to go through his OG program. He reads at grade level now in high school, but he was below grade level until recently.

Yes, amazing, good for your son, but for children like mine and OP’s, who said her child had low average iq, there are also other iq issues at play. It will take longer. Your child has a high iq. That’s great.

[Anonymous]

I would consider making a new post asking for advice specifically about your district's services and accommodations for dyslexia. Then you can have a bit more information. MoCo offered text to speech and speech to text accommodations but they were sometimes hard for DS to use, especially if they required multiple steps to access (like the PDF version of the math workbook). The reading pullouts in his IEP often didn't happen due to not enough staff .

Your current school sounds like it's not providing access to a grade level curriculum by continuing to hold your child back instead of teaching subjects other than reading in a way your child can access them.

I hope something works out.