Hey everyone,

I'm hoping someone out there can maybe help me.  My 7 year old ds is having a difficult time learning to read.  When we first got going things were going normal then I started noticing that he would switch letter for example: bat became tab, dog = god and so on. 

I started to think he might be dyslexic, so I read several books on the subject, but he doesn't match the symptoms(?) I'm not sure that's the word i want.  But he will pick  out big words on a page and actually read them correctly (automobile, elephant).

I've tried hooked on phonics, sound cards, file folder games, repetition and it just doesn't seem to be working.  I guess I'm just wondering if this is typical or do I need to be reading different books.

Anyway if anyone went through this with their kids or has any ideas let me know.

Stacey

My oldest has many of the symptoms of dyslexia. She doesn't turn bat into tab...she turns bat into dat, and dog into bog. 9's are backward, and she has always had a hard time with left and right. She's almost nine. I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL IN THIS SUBJECT. All I know is my own daughter. But I've found that time, patience (LOTS of it on my part), and her own developed techniques are what helps. I'm not sure exactly how she "fixes" it in her mind, but she does. She still slips every now and then and writes backward, but she seems to be perservering in her own way. She excels at math, and is ahead of her public school peers in reading and all other subjects despite her letter and number reversal. There's no magic cure to dyslexia, from what I gather. People dealing with dyslexia all form their own little fixes for things. My dislexic cousin is a Harvard graduate, so don't worry about it too much. Lots of patience and kindness and encouragement is what they need most of all.

Oh, one more thing. Ask your son why he sees things that way. I can't remember word for word, but when I asked that of my daughter, I got a very detailed explanation (and it made sense!) as to why she thought that my left was different from her left, and why left was not always left, depending on the circumstances. If you can get into his head, you can help him get into yours. :D

Michelle,

It's interesting you should mention the left and right thing.  Because we just had this talk this past weekend and he was explaining it to me, about why his left was not necessarily his left at times or something to that effect and you know what it really did make alot of sense when I heard his reasoning.  But that was other thing I forgot he does have a problem with d's, b's, p's and q's. 

Thanks

I didn't think of that.  Do you know of any website or books that would be good to look at?

You might want to look at some books about visual-spatial learners. Visual-spatial kids often rotate letters and words in their heads. Many kids mix up d's and b's, but flipping entire words is less common. My younger daughter is highly visual-spatial and began reading near her 8th birthday. She has tremendous difficulty with handwriting because of the flipping and rotating.

The best books I've found on this are "Upside-Down Brilliance" by Linda Silverman and "Raising Topsy-Turvy Kids" by Alexandra Golon. Another good one that I'm reading now is "The Mislabeled Child" by Brock Eide. It discusses all sorts of learning disabilities.

HTH!

My ds9 is a slow reader and he did that at 7.  I did a lot of internet research and thought maybe he was dyslexic. He didn't fit the other symptoms.  It does just take some kids longer than others, so if their are no other signs it could just be a "late bloomer".  Some children are not good readers until 10. 

Part of the problem for him was that he has a capital D and a small d in his name, so the b was confusing since it was so similar to a way to make a capital.  Something has really clicked in the last 3 weeks since we started school and he is progressing nicely.  We actually repeated a quick  phonics run through last year in 3rd grade and did a lot of flashcards. 

Another suggestion I had heard was to have their eyes checked to ensure there were no visual problems.

Try these two (from my website):

Cram School
This site offers free courses in reading, grammar, spelling, and vocabulary.  The site also offers resources for managing dyslexia.  This website does request donations and also features Google advertisements.

Don Potter's Phonics and Reading Programs Page 
These links on teacher Don Potter's website will take you to a variety of free phonics and reading instruction manuals and programs available online.   This is a very comprehensive site including articles, resources, reviews and more.  If you need to learn all about phonics, this is a great place to start.  

My dd11 showed many signs of dyslexia when she was younger (esp the d's & b's and q's & p's) and to be honest, my approach was to not push her too much but do lots of reading with her.  Just this summer she has taken off like a rocket and eats up every book she can get her hands on (though she is reading below her grade level, at this rate she'll catch up soon) just today she started a slighty abridged version of Anne of Green Gables and read the first 8 chapters in a 14 chapter book in the first day!  And like my mom always says (she homeschooled my siblings and me and I have 2 younger brothers) boys typically read slower, so don't push them and they'll come along.  My brothers would have been labeled all sorts of things had they been in public school, but they weren't and consequently they are both avid readers now, though their wives will tell you that they are horrible spellers :-)

The most important thing is to not make a big deal out of it and make sure that he has plenty of reading material at or below his level that interests him.  I encouraged my dd with lots of easy books to increase her confidence and then let her decide when she was ready for harder stuff and even just today she asked to read our Bible story devotion in school (5 kids homeschooled).  I hope that was a little encouraging!

Hi, I'm a special ed teacher in a public school, so I really don't belong here, but I happened to see this thread and thought I'd offer a small suggestion.  About half of my students have problems with letter reversals and the vast majority confuse b and d.  Give your son a visual he can refer to when reading and writing.  I use simple drawings of a ball and bat for the letter b and a drum and stick for the letter d.  Arrange the pictures to look like the letters and put the letter itself in the upper right hand corner of the each card.  In my classroom, these cards are posted on the board where my students can see them from anywhere in the room.  It seems to help and when I visit their general ed classroms and catch a mistake, I can simply point to it and say "ball and bat" instead of "that should be a b", making it easier for them to see the mistake quickly. 

You've received some great suggestions already, so keep working with your son and don't worry about it.  Dyslexia is an inconvenience for most kids and with support, he'll figure out a way to compensate.

You all have been awesome with the ideas!  I didn't know that boys learn at a different speeds then girls so that explains alot.

But I just wanted to thank you all for responding.  If you think of more ideas I'm open.

Stacey

Boys are very different from girls, not slower, not stupid - just different.  A great book on this is "Why Gender Matters" by Dr. Leonard Sax.  It talks about the differences in learning styles just because genetically boys and girls are different.  As a mother of 3 girls and 2 boys this has been very beneficial.  Like did you know that a boys ideal learning environment temperature would be 68 degrees but a girls perfect temperature would be 72 degrees.  If its too warm, boys just can't focus - that's why your boy can run outside to play and you yell - "Put on a jacket, it's cold outside!"  And as soon as they get around the corner of the house, the jacket is off and they are yelling - "FREEDOM!!!" (not quite but you get the picture).  It's a very interesting study that if nothing else, it opens your eyes to some of those differences that people just don't think about.

HI,

My daughter is Dyslexic but also has a processing disorder so, keep plugging away.  Flash cards helped her with a lot of things.  But not the ones we bought.  I bought spiral bound index cards in the bright colors and helped her make the cards herself.  She was so proud of them, we kept them in the car and everytime we rode, she would drill herself and have me drill her.  This worked great for multiplication, colors, shapes, letters, numbers, etc...

Also, we used dry erase markers to write on the storm doors, windows, etc...   IT is so much fun to write and wipe off that both of my kids love to do work with them...

Magazine articles were easier for my dd to read, I guess she could see the bottomm of the article and know it wouldn't last forever.  (She avoided books for awhile)  But now in 9th she has actually started to like them.. A little! 

Sorry posted it twice. 

I checked out the link that led to Stairway to Reading.  It appears to be something that will be helpful.  There is a diagnostic so we can start where they are instead of back at the beginning again (which would discourage them). We will try it this week!  Here's hoping this will work.

It was Don Potter's Phonics and Reading Programs Page that Tonya recommended from her website www.hwtk.net/links.html 

Thanks so much!