Dyslexia maybe???

[Petie1104]

DD has Asperger's, she also has speech issues, she can't say r, l, s, t, v, g, k, qu, ch, and has trouble with even more, though she is getting better.  So, her first year in kindy we removed her because she wasn't learning and the teacher said that she would have to repeat and that her behavior was an issue.  We got that under control and sent her to kindy last year, once again we pulled her simply because once again she wasn't learning.  So this was the second year in kindy and she still wasn't learning to read.  We pulled her in Jan, and since then we have taught her to read much more than the school managed but....

She is now 7, she can't even read cvc words easily, she can read them but it takes ALOT of work.  Mind you, the school was teaching her to memorize the books so that they could avoid placing her in special services and they refused to give her speech ed because she was "passing" her classes.  Well, I'm putting her into school tomorrow as we have moved to a new state and I am hoping this school will be better.  The problem is, I don't think I should put her back into kindy, she is too old for that, so I'm going to have to enroll her in first grade and I KNOW she is going to struggle.  So, I'm hoping you all can give me some ideas of what may be the issue.

If she is reading a word, lets say it's "sip".  She will say, "s....i....sssiiii.....ssssiiiiip"  So now she has said the word sip, though she draws out the s and the i.  But she should be able to hear that it is sip.  The problem is, even though she knows the word sip, she knows what it is, what it means, how it is used, she doesn't connect what she has said with the word sip.  She's improving, but she is still struggling with EVERY word she reads, which means she doesn't like to read, which means it's hard for her to get any better because it is a fight every day.  We originally thought her problem was her speech impediment, but I'm not thinking that anymore because even words that don't include the sounds she has trouble with don't make sense to her.  Now, if I repeat exactly what she said when she was sounding it out, she'll pick up on it, she just can't get it when SHE says it.  Is this dyslexia?  If not what in the world am I dealing with and how do I explain it to the school when I enroll her?

[karne]

First, your dd will not be the only 1st grader just learning to read.  There really is a very wide range in the early years.  If I were in your shoes, I would meet with the new teacher and explain the process you have been through.  No one can tell you right now what the issue is-not the teacher, or anyone here, because she hasn't yet had enough instruction.  More than likely your dd would go into the regular ed classroom, the teacher would assess, and some support would be put into place for her.  You can request, in writing, for an eval for spec ed services, to get that ball rolling.  But, the evals do take some time, and in the meantime the school will be needing to put into place a plan they work with to determine if your dd can make progress.  There was a recent thread in the Learning at School forums talking about the steps that schools need to take now prior to making a determination for special ed services tha you might be interested in.

The school won' dx. dyslexia.  You would need a private eval for that.  FWIW, one of my children has dyslexia, and trouble with vowel sounds/rhyming was a first indicator, but that can also be seen w/kids who are just slower to learn to read as well.   

[Petie1104]

She has had instruction for the entire time I'ce been homeschooling her. I taught both her older brothers how to read so I'm not unfamiliar with teaching reading. Unless you meant official school instruction? I know noone here can give me a dx I was just hoping that it sounded familiar to someone. Her brothers both went through this for a short time but progressed past it fairly quickly and I don't know much about dyslexia other than it causes difficulty with reading, so I was just hoping for information on it.

Sorry if anything I wrote sounds bad, I'm using my phone to write this so its not easy. normally I concentrate on what to type. Now I have to concentrate on how to type it.

[Peony]

We had a similar issue, I kept DD1 home for K, worked on getting her dxed that year, it was very obvious then she had a learning disability. The problem that I ran into time and time again, is that almost everyone assumed that homeschooling= no real instruction. Anyway, she was dyslexic, and did go into 1st grade not reading a single word, she barely could recognize her name at that point. She was the only non-reader in 1st grade at her school, but it wasn't made out to be a big deal, she had a student that was paired with her that would read things to her. Every school district does things different, but here dyslexia is not a recognized dx, the school will provide limited group reading time with a reading teacher and that was it. We went to private therapy because I consider that to be a joke. She needed so much more then 30 minutes here and there with 5 other children.  DD1 did also have speech issues as well, her language therapist breaks down every sound and spent a year just on sounds and recognizing the letter, during that process, all of her speech problems went away. 

[karne]

I was typing quickly, so sorry OP-didn't mean to suggest that you hadn't taught your dd!  What I meant was that, IME, the school will want a track record of either progress/no progress with a scientifically based reading instruction program.  Again, my understanding is that part of qualifying for special ed services involves documenting such progress, or the lack of it.  At least that was our experience.

So, again, I would make your experience and concerns clear to the teacher/principal, and at the same time request an eval, in writing.

[LynnS6]

First and foremost, has her hearing been testing? I'm assuming it has, but if it hasn't been tested lately, I'd make sure she can hear well. What did her speech language pathologist say about her sounds and her reading? Has she had a diagnosis in that area?

Second there may be a relationship between her difficulties in pronunciation and her difficulties in reading. It could be dyslexia or it could be some sort of general issue with language (dyslexia is generally just with reading). For better or for worse, learning to read in English relies heavily on correspondence between letter and sound, and the ability to process sounds quickly. If she's drawing out sssssiiiiiiip, she may not be able to link that with the 'quick' version 'sip'. If she's doing that for each word, there's no way she can remember the words well enough to comprehend the sentence because they'll go out of short term memory.

I would talk to both the teacher and the school psychologist and say something like "I'm worried about my daughter's pronunciation. She can't seem to pronounce these sounds.... (give your list). I'm also worried that this is affecting her ability to learn to read. From the work that we've done at home, I know that she can sound out CVC words, but she can't link them to the meaning." You gave a really good description of what you've observed in her reading, and that might be able to help them narrow down where her areas of difficulty are. Unfortunately, you are going to have to wait a few weeks while they observe her, take notes, and figure out whether she is significantly behind her peers. Hopefully, the school will take your request seriously without your having to invoke IDEA, but you might want to put your request for an evaluation in writing.