OP: this was our fourth grader. We did test for dyslexia—negative—and got an OG tutor. The tutor moved, and it was only once a week and some progress was made but he was still struggling with spelling. His reading is above grade level, including comprehension, fluency, etc. for him specifically I honestly think it has to deal with just how his memory works. He reads words, but they just don’t stick in the way that they do for some people. He has a terrible short-term memory in general.

It could be dyslexia I truly. But I also think that this is a weird situation caused by Covid that has affected this cohort of kids. And specific kids more than others.

We could not find another OG tutor and just went with a regular tutor, but upped it to twice a week and have had really great results. The tutor focuses just on writing and focusing on words that are continually misspelled (writing them in sentences etc). No reading, For our child, it was just repetition and practice.

He has improved leaps and bounds and we’re keeping the tutoring up because it’s just good practice since they don’t do a ton of writing during the day. I don’t think rote memorization is the answer if you can get an OG tutor go for it, but if not, I think a regular tutor a couple times/week focused on writing practice could help.

Look into UFLI

I don't know if this helps, but I had a 3rd grader in APS with atrocious spelling and writing. She was in the group that had Lucy Caulkins curriculum in K and 1st, then she missed the end of 1st with covid, and was virtual for all of 2nd. By 3rd grade, she was still writing like a kindergartener with lots of words that were missing vowels entirely. For example, "running" might be spelled "rng." It was really bad. You couldn't read anything she wrote. It didn't even look like English.

Now as a 5th grader her spelling is much, much, much better. Not perfect, but it looks like what I'd expect for a 10yo. She tends to miss words that even adults get wrong, but at least those words are close to correct, and she can often spot her mistakes

Her APS elementary added spelling tests in 3rd, 4th and 5th, with words grouped by spelling rules and that helped a ton. The new CKLA curriculum also has them reading and writing a lot more, and that helped too. We did nothing outside of APS except keep her reading and it got better. I'm not saying you shouldn't look into testing and tutoring, but not all hope is lost. There's lots of room for progress before MS.

I agree that poor spelling, alone, doesn’t necessarily mean dyslexia.
For what it’s worth, I had suspected my kid was dyslexic since around age 4… but you don’t really know at that age. Anyway, I formally requested that her APS school test her last year in 3rd grade. They did, and found her to be dyslexic (they can’t diagnose dyslexia officially, but “a specific learning disability consistent with…” etc.). So sometimes the free school evaluation can be helpful. She’s been getting extra help at school, but I also have/will continue to work with her at home. The cueing method in K followed by virtual 1st grade really did not help. She has made tremendous progress in reading… but yeah, the spelling, we are still working on that.

Anonymous wrote:I am a reading specialist and Orton Gillingham certified. I also have a 3rd grade son who did virtual kindergarten. He is a terrible speller. It was a hill I wasn’t willing to climb at the time. I primarily work with dyslexic students a ELs so I can provide another perspective. I do think you should explore dyslexia intervention and testing if you even slightly think it is an issue. But it is actually common in the 3-5 grade range of students to see proficient readers who cannot spell. These students had virtual foundational literacy. Unless parents were diligent they missed the constant physical writing activity that is necessary to learn how to spell. I am currently working with a group of 5th graders that will absolutely pass their SOLs but can’t spell. We are working on morphology and writing. You say your child is a fluent reader. How about comprehension?

Thanks for this perspective. I do think virtual learning impacted him here. His comprehension is also very high (above grade level based on his teachers).

All About Reading and All About Spelling are Orton-Gillingham based programs. Don’t count on the school system to fix the problem. Do some at home tutoring yourself.

I am a reading specialist and Orton Gillingham certified. I also have a 3rd grade son who did virtual kindergarten. He is a terrible speller. It was a hill I wasn’t willing to climb at the time. I primarily work with dyslexic students a ELs so I can provide another perspective. I do think you should explore dyslexia intervention and testing if you even slightly think it is an issue. But it is actually common in the 3-5 grade range of students to see proficient readers who cannot spell. These students had virtual foundational literacy. Unless parents were diligent they missed the constant physical writing activity that is necessary to learn how to spell. I am currently working with a group of 5th graders that will absolutely pass their SOLs but can’t spell. We are working on morphology and writing. You say your child is a fluent reader. How about comprehension?

I agree about getting some testing done. Another possibility is dysgraphia.

All About Spelling. Start with level one and work up to level 7. If your kid doesn’t have a solid foundation in phonics, this program will be immensely helpful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many good responses here from parents who had kids with similar struggles. Hope it helps OP.

This is OP and yes, this has all been super helpful and very validating that we need to dig into this and not accept at face value the easy narrative we've received from the school. I'd appreciate any other private resources for evaluation people have used (we will in parallel see what the school can offer).

You can do just the dyslexia testing, which would be less expensive. Or a place like Stixrud Group would do the full neuropsych testing. Ironically, our health insurance would not pay for just dyslexia testing, but they would pay for the way more expensive neuropsych testing, so we went that route. (The rationale, as explained to me, is that there is no medical diagnosis code for dyslexia.) Dyslexia and ADHD often co-exist, so that's what we screened for. It was also helpful to get the general IQ testing, because that shed a lot of light on what other strengths our kid was tapping into to be able to read with context clues. If you have a 2E kid, that info will be useful if you need to argue with APS over the right supports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many good responses here from parents who had kids with similar struggles. Hope it helps OP.

This is OP and yes, this has all been super helpful and very validating that we need to dig into this and not accept at face value the easy narrative we've received from the school. I'd appreciate any other private resources for evaluation people have used (we will in parallel see what the school can offer).

I'm the college kid mom from Page 1.

As our tester said, "In K, 1, and 2, they are learning to read. Beginning in 3rd grade, they are reading to learn." I'm glad you are digging deeper. Good luck.

Like another poster earlier, it makes me so mad that our school was so lax about my concerns. The teacher asked me "Why do you think he has dyslexia?" BECAUSE HE CANNOT SPELL! 12 years later and I'm still as angry as heck, but that anger got me to get him tested since it was clear that MCPS wasn't going to address anything.

Anonymous wrote:So many good responses here from parents who had kids with similar struggles. Hope it helps OP.

This is OP and yes, this has all been super helpful and very validating that we need to dig into this and not accept at face value the easy narrative we've received from the school. I'd appreciate any other private resources for evaluation people have used (we will in parallel see what the school can offer).

Anonymous wrote:I forgot that Brainspring can do an evaluation before you use their services. It will show what phonemes they don't know, it has fluency information, etc. I think it was $165 years ago, I'd guess $200-ish now. That's a quick and easy step if you want an inexpensive assessment. Nothing like a full neuropsych or anything but it would show what level they'd start your kid on and define some of their issues.

As far as I remember, there's no obligation to use them for tutoring if you get the evaluation.

I forgot that Brainspring can do an evaluation before you use their services. It will show what phonemes they don't know, it has fluency information, etc. I think it was $165 years ago, I'd guess $200-ish now. That's a quick and easy step if you want an inexpensive assessment. Nothing like a full neuropsych or anything but it would show what level they'd start your kid on and define some of their issues.

So many good responses here from parents who had kids with similar struggles. Hope it helps OP.