My 14 year old son may be Dyslexic - looking for some help.

54and56

Hi all,

My 14 year old son is in Junior Cert. He's a smart boy and works hard. He is doing higher level everything and generally does very well in subjects like Maths and Science where he gets results in the 80's and 90's but not so well in subjects like English and History where his scores can be as low as 30%.

He started grinds for English in Sept and his grinds teacher has said to him that he should consider having a "reader" for his exams. I'd never heard of such a thing before but apparently kids who struggle to read (I assume there is some assessment of this need?) can have someone sit with them during the exam to read out the questions.

The thing is the grinds teacher said to my son that he has tons of ability for the subject and when question content is read out by the teacher in class my sons answers are of high quality but when he has to read the question himself his subsequent answers are very poor.

The other thing is my son actually likes to read and will often sit for 2-3 hours at the weekend reading his book and reads for half an hour in bed almost every night. This isn't something that's forced on him at all. I got him a Kindle a year ago and he just seemed to really take to it. He's constantly giving it to me to download new books for him.

The other thing is his handwriting is actually quite good and he is quite articulate in conversation. His vocabulary and considered choice of words surprises me from time to time which is why I struggle to reconcile his exam results with the fact I know he studies hard, is smart and in general communicates very well.

I only learned of this last night so I guess I'm looking for a bit of help to get my head around what the situation might be and how best to deal with it, particularly in relation to how to deal with his school and current English teacher who isn't very supportive and generally seems disinterested in his students e.g. his summer report comment was literally "Could do better" and he isn't much more insightful with feedback at the annual parent teacher meeting.

I'm feeling terrible that my son may have been struggling for years but at the same time I'll be delighted if there is a problem which we can focus on dealing with and providing the maximum support possible to him.

Not sure if this is in the right forum so please feel free to move as you see fit Mods.

Thanks for reading.

biddy21

He will need to have a psychological assessment done , that would confirm that he was dsylexic, before a reader can be applied for. Speak to the resource teacher in the school.

54and56

Thanks Biddy, I'll organise that.

Corkgirl18

By getting the assessment mentioned above, he may be entitled to a reader and a scribe in exams. You and your son can decide whether whether you want to use the reader and the scribe then.
Maybe inquire if your son can have a reader or scribe for his Christmas exams/mocks and see if it makes a difference to his test results.
I'd try to do some experimenting before the Junior Cert anyway to work out the best strategy for him.

54and56

Thanks CorkGirl,

I've been in touch with the school and they have agreed to assess him next week which I'm very happy about.

The Dyslexia Association of Ireland posted this on their Facebook page yesterday:
"The Junior Certificate 2016 applications for Reasonable Accommodations (RACE) have arrived in schools. The deadline for these applications is December 4th 2015. If you have a child in 3rd year preparing for their Junior Certificate you should be in touch with the school in relation to making final preparations for their application."

54and56

Mariah Fierce Landmark wrote: »

The Dyslexia Association of Ireland posted this on their Facebook page yesterday:
"The Junior Certificate 2016 applications for Reasonable Accommodations (RACE) have arrived in schools. The deadline for these applications is December 4th 2015. If you have a child in 3rd year preparing for their Junior Certificate you should be in touch with the school in relation to making final preparations for their application."

Thanks Beach, the person I spoke to in the school is aware of the deadline and assured me that should my son need/qualify for assistance he would be accomodated.

TBH I'm not too worried about his actual Junior Cert performance i.e. achieving X scores etc. My primary objective is to ensure that if he has an issue that it's correctly diagnosed and the correct supports are made available to him so he can achieve his potential in the LC and on into college where he's likely (based on current interests) to do something maths/science related.

spurious

Je_suis_Jean wrote:

Thanks Beach, the person I spoke to in the school is aware of the deadline and assured me that should my son need/qualify for assistance he would be accomodated.

While it's great he's getting tested, I'm appalled it has taken any school, his primary included, so long to realise there was an issue. So much avoidable stress for him.

54and56

spurious wrote: »

While it's great he's getting tested, I'm appalled it has taken any school, his primary included, so long to realise there was an issue. So much avoidable stress for him.

It was his Grinds teacher, who he has only been attending since September, who identified the potential issue!!

Thankfully we'll know soon enough if is right about it.

Hezip

I don't know how it works but im pretty sure you can get him diagnosed for dyslexia.
What I do however know is that if he does have dyslexia he can get exempt from Irish and also in my school History, The benefits of dropping irish is certainly the ability to focus on less languages ( it requires a lot of time in LC ) and then of course having free classes to study for diffrent subjects.

In my school people with learning difficulties are allowed to drop out of history for their JC.

54and56

Hezip wrote: »

I don't know how it works but im pretty sure you can get him diagnosed for dyslexia.
What I do however know is that if he does have dyslexia he can get exempt from Irish and also in my school History, The benefits of dropping irish is certainly the ability to focus on less languages ( it requires a lot of time in LC ) and then of course having free classes to study for diffrent subjects.

In my school people with learning difficulties are allowed to drop out of history for their JC.

Hi Hezip,

Thanks for the info.

I wonder if you are exempted from Irish from the LC does that prohibit you from joining the civil service or going to University other than Trinity?

Hezip

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Hi Hezip,

Thanks for the info.

I wonder if you are exempted from Irish from the LC does that prohibit you from joining the civil service or going to University other than Trinity?

Some universities I've looked at going into allow exemption from Irish, I am not sure about civil service. If your son has an idea of what he wants to do or where he wants to go then you can always call the place up and see if they accept students without Irish due to an exemption, or look for some info on their website.

Not all universities require Irish specifically however, UL for example requires just a language done for the LC other than English.

54and56

Thanks Hezip, my son doesn't yet know what he wants to do. We've always discussed trying to find an intersection between what he enjoys doing and what he is good at/has a talent for. I'm a firm believer that if you can pursue something you have an interest in and are good at as a career you'll never work a day in your life.

ATM he is very much interested in all things maths and science so that might be the direction he goes in (and if so I'd imagine Irish or a 2nd language would be less of a requirement) but he's only 14 so lot's of time for other interests to emerge.

seamus

Not having Irish generally won't limit anyone anymore, this archaic requirement has been slowly phased out for years.

All NUI Universities will accept a student who's been exempted from Irish, provided they declare it beforehand: http://www.nui.ie/college/entry-requirements.asp (see the "Language requirements for matriculation: exemptions Irish" section)

Irish hasn't been a requirement in most of the civil service since the 70s. Some jobs, like Gardai kept the requirement for longer, but it's been recently replaced with a requirement to have a pass mark in English and any other language at LC level.
Obviously teaching at primary school level will require Irish.
Civil service exams for entry or promotion used to give bonus points for doing it through Irish, but this has been recently replaced with a simple quota - a certain % (less than 10%) of new entrants must have Irish proficiency.

So not having Irish in this day and age is rarely career-limiting. Certainly outside of the civil service it will have zero effect on his life.

sryanbruen

seamus wrote: »

Not having Irish generally won't limit anyone anymore, this archaic requirement has been slowly phased out for years.

All NUI Universities will accept a student who's been exempted from Irish, provided they declare it beforehand: http://www.nui.ie/college/entry-requirements.asp (see the "Language requirements for matriculation: exemptions Irish" section)

Irish hasn't been a requirement in most of the civil service since the 70s. Some jobs, like Gardai kept the requirement for longer, but it's been recently replaced with a requirement to have a pass mark in English and any other language at LC level.
Obviously teaching at primary school level will require Irish.
Civil service exams for entry or promotion used to give bonus points for doing it through Irish, but this has been recently replaced with a simple quota - a certain % (less than 10%) of new entrants must have Irish proficiency.

So not having Irish in this day and age is rarely career-limiting. Certainly outside of the civil service it will have zero effect on his life.

It is stupid though that you must do HL Irish for LC. Primary school Irish is very basic! :mad:

LeinsterDub

sryanbruen wrote: »

It is stupid though that you must do HL Irish for LC. Primary school Irish is very basic! :mad:

HL Irish isn't anywhere near fluent. It's the equivalent of expecting a music teacher to know a few cords

sryanbruen

LeinsterDub wrote: »

HL Irish isn't anywhere near fluent. It's the equivalent of expecting a music teacher to know a few cords

HL Irish for me is a killer!

stargazer 68

spurious wrote: »

While it's great he's getting tested, I'm appalled it has taken any school, his primary included, so long to realise there was an issue. So much avoidable stress for him.

My partners son was diagnosed earlier this year - he's almost 17! They said he is very bright and has been getting along in all subjects but with lower marks than he could get. He is now exempt from languages and has a reader and longer time in exams. He is a much happier kid. He says now he knows what's wrong it's a huge weight off him.

LeinsterDub

sryanbruen wrote: »

HL Irish for me is a killer!

Not the point. We should expect those teaching Irish to have a decent level of Irish and HL Irish isn't that decent

54and56

Hi all,

Thought I owed it to you to give you an update.

My son was tested using the WRAT4 test.

I'll just give the calculated percentile ranks as follows:-

Word Reading - 66th percentile

Sentence Comprehension - 53rd percentile

Spelling - 45th percentile

Math Computation - 86th percentile

Reading Composite - 58th percentile.

Bottom line is that he shows no sign of a learning disability of any sort.

The maths score is consistent with what I expected. He's very smart and loves numeric/technical challenges.

The issue still remains that despite being interested in reading and being smart and articulate with a good vocabulary he just isn't extracting the key issues from content he reads and in particular exam questions where he frequently misinterprets what he is being asked for, consequently responds with the wrong answer and receives low marks despite knowing the content very well and being well able to answer the actual question he was in fact being asked. Very frustrating. It's like he glides over what he reads and doesn't concentrate on identifying the key messages in the content.

Not sure what more we can do other than continue to support him and encourage him to read more slowly and try to focus more. Hopefully it's something which will naturally improve as he matures.

Thank you all for your help, it has been a very useful support for me.

spurious

There are specialised exercises for various shortcomings, which the resource teacher in the school should be able to help with.

He's lucky in that he is within the normal range - one of the great unpublicised scandals of Irish education is that a child needs to be of normal intelligence to get any help, so Mary who might have a low IQ but tries her best ot make progress (sometimes to the point of tears) gets no help, while Annie, who spends her day messing and tormenting children like Mary does receive help because she is within the normal range and deemed worth helping.

It was one of the things used to sicken me when I was working as a teacher - the unfairness of it all for the weaker well-behaved child who really wanted to do well.

The danger with his comprehension problem is that while it might not affect his JC results , it could again result in frustration at LC. You will see stories here of people just copying out a sentence from the comprehension piece, or the question and hoping to hit the answer somewhere in the copied piece. The thing is, sometimes that works and can get marks in JC, while in LC it doesn't.

Even if he is not showing a deficit on tests, I would still pursue it with the resource teacher and ask what activities you could help him with to improve.