Dyslexia Support Group
Dyslexia refers to any reading difficulty not associated with obvious problems (such as bad eyesight). Dyslexias include the inability to name letters, to read words or sentences, or to recognize words directly even though they can be sounded out. Dyslexia is not limited to reversing the order of letters in reading or writing; it may, for instance, include unexpected...
I'm in the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren group, and have been sharing stories about how my youngest (a boy age 8) cannot spell to save his life. His reading is also way behind that of his classmates. It's so bad the teacher has been giving him less math homework so he can concentrate on passing even one spelling test.
I Googled bad spelling to see how I could help, and up came several sites on dyslexia. I couldn't believe it: He has almost every symptom! He reverses "bs" and "ds," couldn't tie his shoes until this year, says "W" for "R," is good at math and has superior motor skills, can't write on the line, has atrocious printing, you name it.
His teacher thought he might have ADHD because he fidgets in class. He says it's because he can't keep up with the work and get bored. I don't think he has ADHD -- if he does it's extremely mild,
The bad part is that the school's tests won't be completed until June. So I'm here to learn what dyslexia is, how I can help him from now 'til then in case it turns up that he has it. He's the sweetest lil' thing and he's trying SO hard to do his work - but I can see that something is "missing" when it comes to spelling. His reading is better than his spelling and seems to depend upon his interest in the topic.
I Googled bad spelling to see how I could help, and up came several sites on dyslexia. I couldn't believe it: He has almost every symptom! He reverses "bs" and "ds," couldn't tie his shoes until this year, says "W" for "R," is good at math and has superior motor skills, can't write on the line, has atrocious printing, you name it.
His teacher thought he might have ADHD because he fidgets in class. He says it's because he can't keep up with the work and get bored. I don't think he has ADHD -- if he does it's extremely mild,
The bad part is that the school's tests won't be completed until June. So I'm here to learn what dyslexia is, how I can help him from now 'til then in case it turns up that he has it. He's the sweetest lil' thing and he's trying SO hard to do his work - but I can see that something is "missing" when it comes to spelling. His reading is better than his spelling and seems to depend upon his interest in the topic.
There is hope for your grandson. I have dyslexia, but I love to read and am ahead of my age in reading and vocabulary and, after a few years, did wonderfully with spelling. I learned to cope with my problem and work around it. My main spelling problem was, of course, switching around letters. For most of my life, I spelled friend as freind. I saw nothing wrong with it. I also have problems searching for a YouTube series I like to watch called Marble Hornets because I often get confused about whether it's Marbel or Marble.
You just have to work harder with him at home and let him know he's not hopeless and give him self-confidence. I've read that there are tutors for children with dyslexia to help them with reading and spelling.
The way I get around it is that I spend longer reading and don't have a problem with reading a sentence or even a whole paragraph over again if I have to to figure out what it means. I also often just keep going and then fix the problem in my mind when I realize it didn't make sense, if I realize it. I still get the whole story instead of getting stuck in one spot and not getting past it. It's much easier to read in my head because of this. If I read out loud, i have to constantly correct myself so that other people understand what I'm reading.
Practise and determination make perfect.
The only symptom my grandson doesn't have is that he has always been able to recognize rhymes and make them. Apparently that's a biggie.
In the meantime we're going back to original phonics (em, er, et, and so on) and trying to get him to hear those vowels and write them in. He's improving a little bit, so maybe he's also learning how to compensate.