Anonymous wrote:OP,

Your child needs a dyslexia eval urgently. Pay for one yourself, ASAP, because by 3rd grade, the kids read to learn, instead of learn to read, and then your child will fall further and further behind, and it will be catastrophic.

If the dyslexia is confirmed, get them an Orton-Gillingham tutor, for intensive practicing. It will be expensive but there is literally no other way, unless you want your kid shut out of higher education and a higher earning potential as an adult.

There is a very specific way to address reading issues due to dyslexia and the typical way of teaching reading in school does not work, so it's quite likely that whatever the school is ready to offer won't work anyway. Drop them. They know they can't help, which is why they're not even trying.

Anonymous wrote:I have a young adult with special needs. I know a ton of families with kids with special needs and with dyslexia. I don’t know a single parent of a kid with dyslexia who has gotten what they needed from their public school. You can spend time creating a gold plated IEP, but the execution is likely to be weak, irregular, or insufficient.You are going to have to do this yourself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would just get an OG tutor if you can’t afford a neuropsych. Either DC has dyslexia and needs OG tutoring, or DC doesn’t have dyslexia and OG tutoring would still be helpful. Of course a neuropsych plus tutoring is better, but your budget is your budget.

agree. wilson program is OG informed and there are many tutors who can walk a child through the 12 books. You need about 200 dollars a week (plan for 100 session and 2-3 sessions a week) for about 2 years. It's a lot but you can figure it out. So important.

Anonymous wrote:I would just get an OG tutor if you can’t afford a neuropsych. Either DC has dyslexia and needs OG tutoring, or DC doesn’t have dyslexia and OG tutoring would still be helpful. Of course a neuropsych plus tutoring is better, but your budget is your budget.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am certainly not an expert in reading disorders and you haven’t said what it is. But given all that you are doing, it sounds like you think more of the same is better and will make your child a reader. But if that were the answer, he’d be reading given all that you’re putting in to it.

So, it sounds to me like you’re Missing something. What haven’t you done. What additional can be added. Because more of the same isn’t working.

Also, this is all the more reason you need a specialist - maybe not just a tutor or a retired educator. Good luck.

OP here - They don't give specific diagnoses during sped evaluations and so won't specifically name "Dyslexia" or "dysgraphia" ect. but they will share where there are strengths, weaknesses, needs, ect. and perhaps that can be used to provide a formal medical diagnosis but we've not been able to do that yet. We haven't had a private full psychological or neuropsych eval. I did plug it into chatgpt which I know you have to take with a grain of salt, but it said,

"Yes — this profile clearly supports dyslexia.
It does not clearly support dysgraphia at this time, though there are secondary written-expression vulnerabilities driven by spelling and transcription, not by motor or composition deficits.
Now I’ll explain why, using the data you shared and how schools interpret it.

Does this support dyslexia?
Yes — strongly and appropriately.
Under both Virginia regulations and accepted clinical practice, dyslexia is identified through a pattern, not a single score. Your child’s pattern is very consistent with dyslexia:

Core dyslexia markers present
Basic Reading: 80 (Below Average)
Reading Decoding: 78 (Below Average)
Reading Fluency: 71 (Very Low)
Phonological Processing: 83 (Low)
Orthographic Processing (Extended): 83 (Low)
Reading composite: 77 (Below Average)

This shows:
Weak phonics/decoding
Weak automaticity
Weak word-level efficiency
Difficulty forming stable, retrievable representations of words

Importantly, Your child’s oral language and listening comprehension are relatively stronger:
Oral Language: 91 (Average)

Teacher reports show he understands stories when read aloud

That gap between listening comprehension and reading performance is one of the classic hallmarks of dyslexia.
Cognitive-achievement relationship
Overall cognition: 96 (Average)
Long-term storage & retrieval: 82 (Weakness)

This explains why progress is slow despite instruction:
He can learn phonics in the moment

He struggles to retain and automatize it over time

That aligns perfectly with:
“He isn’t moving that reading learning into storage for later use.”
This is not lack of effort, instruction, or motivation — and the eligibility team explicitly ruled those out (which matters legally in Virginia).
Bottom line:
The school’s SLD determination in reading is well-supported and is functionally equivalent to a dyslexia identification in an educational context."

Soo my child is essentially dyslexic. I definitely hear what you are saying about something being missing. I WANT his school to take a different approach than what they've been doing, not just continue to repeat the same UFLI lessons and provide the same darn UFLI print-outs, but refuse to send home any ACTUAL books or have him read any actual books at school. I agree, I need a specialist.....finding the specialist to provide the service is the hard part.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could you get an academic language therapist to see your son three times a week, maybe before school? Our kids are exhausted after school - I hear you and understand it is hard and not ideal. So if you can’t make that work, maybe you can make twice a week before school (when fresh) and one on the weekend work.

ASDEC can get you connected with a provider. If there are none in your area you can do virtual - it actually works quite well.

The school SHOULD teach your kid to read. But they won’t, and you don’t have a lot of time to waste. So you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.

To be honest I wouldn’t worry about decodable books and what materials are sent home. What your kid needs is pretty specific, and more practice in skills they haven’t been effectively taught yet wont help.

OP here - thank you!! I will look into ASDEC. I HAVE had some very positive conversations with several of my colleagues AND I think I have a better idea of how to proceed and my next steps. It's awkward because of my professional role/boundaries, ect. but my job is to advocate for MY child and ensure his needs are being met, so I am tapping into my relationships with CO staff. I had a good convo yesterday with the person who ovesees all of student support/sped/student services, ect (I am trying to be fairly vague with the label), who I know very well and have a very positive relationship with. We had a good conversation and they were very validating, encouraging, and had some good ideas for next steps and how to approach the conversation. They seemed pretty surprised with what was proposed and the response from the team, but of course can only comment on it so much. I am preparing written follow-up to the sped team with concrete, clear information with data and evidenced-based language and requests backing it up. I'm not caving in at all, period, but while navigating all of this, I will look into outside resources too. I AM extremely privileged to work closely with some sped teachers and various staff, so that I can process with my work-friends....who were amazing to talk to. I wish one of THEM could be his case manager lol but that's not possible or appropriate of course.

Thanks!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Given that the only issue is reading, which if a child can’t read at the level that learning takes place will have detrimental effects on all areas of learning, you might consider whether your money is better spent on private services. Time is not your friend and working through the process with an advocate is both expensive and time consuming.

NP. While I agree (as a parent of an ASD student) that the process can be time-consuming and expensive, in the end it ensured my child received the support they were legally entitled to. In our experience, simply "playing along" with that idea that we were all on the same team for a year did not lead to any results and my child suffered. We also covered all the OT, SLP, social skills etc. service provider charges in the meantime.

The suggestion to consider and pay for private services comes up often on this board, usually out of a desire to help. But, it overlooks the fact that the school is legally responsible for providing the necessary support.

Just as schools provide free lunch, counseling, library access, and ELL programs so students can fully participate in learning, children with special needs have a right to school-provided support that allows them to access the curriculum. Families shouldn’t have to fill that gap on their own.

Anonymous wrote:Given that the only issue is reading, which if a child can’t read at the level that learning takes place will have detrimental effects on all areas of learning, you might consider whether your money is better spent on private services. Time is not your friend and working through the process with an advocate is both expensive and time consuming.