Mine was an early walker, which can be a hint. It’s not that he excelled at walking, it’s more that he didn’t have the cross body coordination to continue to crawl.

He was identified with poor fine motor skills at 3. Suspected dyslexia at 4.

He can rhyme. He memorized short sentences at an early age. Flipped both letters and numbers. Couldn’t memorize math facts.

He’s in 10 grade now.

Mine sounds like yours OP. She has adhd and dysgraphia and does reversals in writing for b, d, q, p. I had her testing and her phonological processing and nonsense word reading appears intact. Her reading comprehension and fluency are above grade level. However her writing has many barriers and I fought to get her the right to type versus handwrite. She also writes how she speaks....very disorganized...and so she is doing writing tutoring. Unfortunately, schools spend very little time on writing and spelling so that has further hampered her. Her spelling is on the lower end of average and it's something we also work on each week.

OP this video is not a substitute for testing, but it contains some helpful insights. Susan Barton is pretty solid in her understanding of dyslexia and the reading brain.

How to Spot Dyslexia in a Writing Sample
https://vimeo.com/203740803

I'm the parent of a college kid with dyslexia. He was diagnosed in 2nd grade.

You said she seems good with phonics, but "seems good" doesn't really give me 100% she actually is good.

How is she with nonsense words? I'm assuming she knows "dog" and "kid". If she saw "dod" or "kig" in text, would she know how to say them?

Can she spell a nonsense word like "flug"? How is her spelling in general?

Mine could NOT read nonsense words at all, and was a terrible, terrible speller.

Sounds like it could be dyslexia. It's worth investigating.

Anonymous wrote:If you're only worried about reading/spelling and nothing else, you could have Kids Up Reading Coaches do screeners with her. That's WAY cheaper than a neuropsych eval - just a few hundred dollars. They'll check her phonological skills and her phonics. And then if you want, they'll teach her what she's missing.

Do you work for them? I've seen a few marketing-type plugs for Kids Up Reading Coaches on this forum recently.

Anonymous wrote:The downside for many is that they don’t have a spare 4k to throw around

How much do you think it costs to remediate dyslexia? I'm not dismissing the cost, but there are ways to look for that more cheaply (e.g., go through the school, see if local training programs in clinical/school psychology do testing).

I’d look for a tutor with a lot of experience with LD to work with her for a few sessions to get an idea of what might be going on. And absolutely reach out to the school to meet with the reading teacher and ask for a screening.

If you're only worried about reading/spelling and nothing else, you could have Kids Up Reading Coaches do screeners with her. That's WAY cheaper than a neuropsych eval - just a few hundred dollars. They'll check her phonological skills and her phonics. And then if you want, they'll teach her what she's missing.

The downside for many is that they don’t have a spare 4k to throw around

Anonymous wrote:I would get her evaluated, if only because it’s so important to get intervention started before 3rd grade if she has dyslexia.

Best case scenario is the evaluation comes back saying she isn’t dyslexic and you can work on reading with her at home.

But it’s possible she does have dyslexia and is able to compensate because she’s smart. It’s the case with many people.

You don’t want to wait until she’s in 4th/5th grade and she’s overwhelmed. At that point, intervention isn’t as effective.

+1

There's no downside to having her evaluated, but there is considerable downside to waiting, if she does have dyslexia. The earlier the intervention, the better.

Anonymous wrote:She sounds similar to my ds, who has a phonological processing disorder. We had him tested at Mindwell, and the testing discerned the very specific issues he has. He’s very bright, and tests at the 99th percentile for some things, and then the 9th percentile for other things.

He flipped b,d,p,g for a long time, and still does occasionally in high school. He taught himself to read, but it takes alot of cognitive energy. If you have the money for it, testing at a place like Mindwell can be very insightful.

My 8 year old is like that. 98th percentile verbal comprehension, 99.8th percentile visual spatial reasoning, 98th percentile processing speed, 94th percentile fluid reasoning, 99th percentile overall IQ … but 16th percentile working memory and 23rd percentile phonological processing.

ADHD and dyslexia.

She sounds similar to my ds, who has a phonological processing disorder. We had him tested at Mindwell, and the testing discerned the very specific issues he has. He’s very bright, and tests at the 99th percentile for some things, and then the 9th percentile for other things.

He flipped b,d,p,g for a long time, and still does occasionally in high school. He taught himself to read, but it takes alot of cognitive energy. If you have the money for it, testing at a place like Mindwell can be very insightful.

I would get her evaluated, if only because it’s so important to get intervention started before 3rd grade if she has dyslexia.

Best case scenario is the evaluation comes back saying she isn’t dyslexic and you can work on reading with her at home.

But it’s possible she does have dyslexia and is able to compensate because she’s smart. It’s the case with many people.

You don’t want to wait until she’s in 4th/5th grade and she’s overwhelmed. At that point, intervention isn’t as effective.

My 2nd grader isn’t a great reader, but she has the basic fundamentals. She rushes and skips words when reading out loud. She also reverses ‘b’ and ‘d’ a fair amount when writing. She reads graphic novels (but I think she mostly looks at the pictures). She refuses to read anything with solid blocks of text.

She had not problem with rhyming or word games and seems to understand phonics. From what I see online, it seems unlikely that she has dyslexia, but I’m wondering if others think she needs an evaluation.