Anonymous wrote:This is a rare disease and difficult to diagnose.

Is this sarcasm? About 17% of children have dyslexia.

Check out Lab School of Washington. The speech language department - specifically, Jim Ross. He's amazing.

Anonymous wrote:

And it is like a riot whenever FCPS runs a session on dyslexia at the parent education center. The stories you hear are terrifying. But this does seem to vary by school a bit.

Why is this? It is perplexing to me.

RE: FCPS and dyslexia --

Here are the slides from a presentation on dyslexia from 2014 to parents

http://www.fcps.edu/dss/osp/prc/resources/events/documents/PRCDyslexiaHandout2014.pdf

66 slides and only ONE of them talks about strategies or techniques for helping students learn to decode. (The "break apart strategy" for breaking multisyllable words into chunks.)

This despite the fact that intense, explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics and other decoding skills are what have been shown to actually remediate dyslexia.

There should be a LOT more emphasis put on what systematic, explicit instruction is available to students, especially those in upper elementary or middle school who might still need basic decoding instruction NOT just modifications and accommodations to help them get through the text by listening to it read aloud, us using picture cues to guess.

The reason schools do not provide more explicit decoding instruction past 3rd grade is that it would usually need to be done one one one and that is not cost effective.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ABCDarian tutor again:

Here is the ABCDarian placement test along with the directions for assessment. I suggest giving the test first to a friend or neighbor once before assessing your child.

http://www.abcdrp.com/samples/ABCDAssessment.pdf

If you want to give it to your child, and have any questions, feel free to post her results and I will give you my advice on what could be going on and how to remediate it.

I find this test especially the use of nonsense words, to be ample information in pinpointing where decoding errors are occuring.

Thank you.

PP - I do plan to do this. We leave for Mexico and will be gone a week. I'll do it when we come back and to look for you will try to post here first. If I don't hear from you, I will create a post titled ABCDAssessment. Hopefully you will see it.

Hope you have a great trip!

Schools don't put dyslexia on the paperwork because that is not one of the federally recognized categories. They have categories of disability (each with its own code) and they put the code for the primary (not the only) on the paperwork. Schools do not make diagnoses. They look for strengths and weaknesses and determine whether the weaknesses meet the criteria for disability. That disability must have an educational impact which inhibits the ability to access the curriculum. Once it is determined that the weakness rises to the level of a disability, proper programming is determined. So, in essence, the dyslexia label does not matter. They are tasked with determining the programming to address the disability regardless of its name. That may be small group, decoding classes or something else. It depends on the results of testing and teacher feedback. Teachers in most states are not required to be certified or even trained in an Orton-Gillingham based reading program. This is a very expensive and time consuming process which requires 8 months of supervision. That would require additional time to graduate, high tuition in college, and/or, once employed, a drain on tax payer money. If this certification or training were required by the state, we would have few qualified people to hire.

+ 100 on all of the comments on FCPS. And I loved the special ed teacher at our ES as well as all of DS's classroom teachers. But, FCPS just doesn't give the schools and teachers the tools they need to accommodate dyslexia. So, private school tuition it is so DS can finally learn to read!

And it is like a riot whenever FCPS runs a session on dyslexia at the parent education center. The stories you hear are terrifying. But this does seem to vary by school a bit.

Why is this? It is perplexing to me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ABCDarian tutor again:

Here is the ABCDarian placement test along with the directions for assessment. I suggest giving the test first to a friend or neighbor once before assessing your child.

http://www.abcdrp.com/samples/ABCDAssessment.pdf

If you want to give it to your child, and have any questions, feel free to post her results and I will give you my advice on what could be going on and how to remediate it.

I find this test especially the use of nonsense words, to be ample information in pinpointing where decoding errors are occuring.

Thank you.

PP - I do plan to do this. We leave for Mexico and will be gone a week. I'll do it when we come back and to look for you will try to post here first. If I don't hear from you, I will create a post titled ABCDAssessment. Hopefully you will see it.

Anonymous wrote:I would discourage any parent of a child with any reading disability to move to Fairfax County. It is a nightmare for families trying to get their children help. Meanwhile, their children lose self esteem, start acting out, hate school, and become anxious and depressed.

To answer your original question, no, dyslexia is not difficult to diagnose. There are free screeners available online. FCPS chooses not to offer dyslexia screenings. This should be a red flag to parents.

Would you mind sharing some links?

Anonymous wrote:ABCDarian tutor again:

Here is the ABCDarian placement test along with the directions for assessment. I suggest giving the test first to a friend or neighbor once before assessing your child.

http://www.abcdrp.com/samples/ABCDAssessment.pdf

If you want to give it to your child, and have any questions, feel free to post her results and I will give you my advice on what could be going on and how to remediate it.

I find this test especially the use of nonsense words, to be ample information in pinpointing where decoding errors are occuring.

Thank you.