[senco-forum] [SENco-forum] dyslexia

As a mother of 4 with SpLD first and then through LA resistance to
supporting them  an SpLD tutor 2nd I agree that thorough testing when the
child registers difficulty - according to child, parent or teacher, is a
good age.

I love the idea of supporting in a dyslexia friendly way from day one so
that no one needs to be 'labelled' and can be 'supported' in class, but it
is only a start point at best and a cop out at worst.

I'm with Mary Kelly and I am glad that the time she puts in to find out
where on a continuum a child lies in a crossover of areas (including IQ)
lies as in reality without identification and testing early on the 'problem'
is just pushed further down the line.

My oldest daughter did not get help until she was at University. She
suffered a lot before that but I was too busy trying to support the child
that was so bad that she had have a Statement of Educational need! The one
with the statement is doing fine. the one with likely APD and chronic short
tern memory has been ignored and has to learn to cope best she can with her
multicoloured highlighter pens and the allowance of taking exams in a quiet
room as no one, including me, knows how to help her.  The youngest has just
hit high school and guess what - while on School Action Plus I am being
told - 'He is not as bad as the rest so he does not need any additional
support'.  Probably my mistake for spending 2 hours minimum every night
re-jigging or 'differentiating' his homework into a form that allows him to
succeed rather than to fail. On the up side my math is improving and I am
being forced to learn 2 languages!  Anyone need some good cards for German
numbers and colours?

As for EP's and the debate on how, or 'if', dyslexia can be identified - The
first one explained that it was easy for teachers to overlook High
IQ/dyslexia as they (the teachers) were only averagely intelligent, and
then, stunned by the results from overlooked child 3 -overwhelmingly and
undeniably dyslexic- proceeded to over look child 2, noting her explanation
and spelling of 'desiccated' for 'deserted' as  'charming'. Or say her lack
of mental math was not much of a problem as it was 'average' - when her
overall IQ is 135.  The 2nd & school EP when faced with child 2 stats -of
WISC NV 141/ v 93 the BAS NV 91/ NV 141 agreed that 1:1 teaching was the
only way to go at this late stage (Year 5).  Then said off the record that
the LA did not allow this to be written down, hence our rush to then pursue
the statement to Tribunal. EP3 was the 'score on a scale of 10 how you are
feeling about.....type'.  Honestly at this stage I did not think it was wise
to tell him.  The feeling of farce when faced with a room of 12 people at a
transfer meeting for an all but illiterate 10 year old, for which the cure
seemed to be to decide what piece of furniture we all were ....

Although to be fair I have now learned the importance of rating a child's
feelings and thought of self via the 1-10 scale, but at the time..   So on
to EP 4 a fine succinct piece of mechanics with test scores to die for all,
neatly laid out and no one thereafter to interpret them.  Dropped the report
to school, sat back and waited and nothing happened as no one there could
read, interpret, understand or get the appropriate support in either.

More training was needed, nothing was forthcoming so I forked out and did
the Dyslexia Diploma training myself, just to wipe the smug smile off the LA
Cognition & Learning manager if she ever dared asked me again why I thought
I knew what was best for my daughter.

As a family we suffered horribly for years and I don't mean in a middle
class 'Oh no Olivia is not going to make Grammar shall we go private?'  I
mean years of stress and illness and tiredness and thoughts of suicide(from
a 9 year old when literacy hour came in), school refusal and frustration
with LA stupidity, ridiculous homework demands due to lack of
discrimination, lack of teacher training, or worse, lack of interest and all
the while trying to balance the overwhelming feeling of failure with trying
to remain positive, be good parents and school governor/supporters.

So - yes to better teacher training that includes assessment and testing
using summatative and formative means to ensure those with 'problems' to be
identified early and appropriately supported. Or at least computer screeners
in the mean time as a start point.

Yes - to 'dyslexia friendly' teaching that harms no one until the children
become an independent, knowing their own way of learning.

Yes - to 'personalised learning' if there is enough training so that
teachers become more flexible in Primary and Secondary in order to teach
successfully from Pscales to Einsteins in one breath, magically doing away
with any need for SEN labelling and support.

Or are we are going to have to accept mixed age classes as has been
suggested by the powers above so that all can work at their own level?
Who will be qualified to work out what that level is, or should be?
Whatever happened to that debate where most on this site decided that it was
not OK to advance or hold back a child for a year?

Sharon Tringham

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