My daughter is a first grader and has been diagnosed with ADHD, Mood Disorder NOS, and has also been screened for Dyslexia and due to her still young age the evaluation came back "Looks like dyslexia, but can't say definitely until we evaluate her again in 12 months."
I spend time with her every day going over a list of ten spelling words. I quiz her in the mornings, afternoons, and play games with her and have her spell the words with blocks, stickers, and then write them. Sometimes she recalls them for a short time and sometimes she can recall them for a little while. She constantly says that bs are ds and even confuses hs and ps!
I have repeatedly requested that she receive shortened lists of spelling words and have been met with the same response. "She needs more practice," "she isn't paying enough attention," "she needs more attention" and so many more along those lines.
If you have ever tried practicing spelling words with a dyslexic child with ADHD then you are well aware of the time involved just to get through each individual word. This week I told the teacher, "I am only going to study the first five words with her, If she can get through the first five, then I will go on to the next five". With constant repetition she sometimes can recognize words by sight for a little while. It takes hours worth of time to get her to write and spell the words with blocks and stickers and then by hand.
This morning I quizzed on her on only 4 of the 5 that I originally chose to work with her on. She recognized one word (use) by sight and then said "huge" spelled "big." She was able to sound out the word "rule" and the other word was tube. The word "tube" she also read by sight. The fifth word was June but we didn't get to that word this morning.
When I covered the words and asked her to spell them from memory she was able to spell "Use", she spelled "tube" toob, and couldn't spell "huge" or "rule" without having to look, read the letters out, and then immediately recite it once I covered it. Within 5 minutes I asked her again and she was unable to remember without cueing and prodding and help with the sounds the letters make.
This is all despite hours of one on one time with just me and Piper and she still is having extremely difficulty memorizing sequences of letters in words, sounding out words, and still having problems with individual letter sounds in general!
Yet, when she brings home her spelling tests she is always getting them right (with a few reversals in letters and maybe one or two words marked wrong). I am hating to be critical of my own daughter but I know first hand that she is seriously incapable of passing spelling tests without being reminded or cued with sounds of letters or other hints. The school insists that she is capable but I am doing it with her at home.
I have asked for her I.E.P to include shortened spelling word lists, and homework just to be able to focus more and have it be less overwhelming for her. I would like to watch her take one of these spelling words! I just can't believe that a public school system would be so resistant to understanding Dyslexia (or just any reading disability).
Dyslexics struggle to decode words by sounds and they learn the words through a different method. They learn shapes of words and rely on context clues, pictures, and other ways to remember each word. This is why Dyslexics can "fake it" up to 4th or 5th grade. By 4th or 5th grade there are so many more words introduced to their vocabularies that learning the shapes is ineffective because so many words can have similar shapes.
The school is making my daughter seem to be at a higher level of spelling then she is in order to continue to deny her an appropriate I.E.P. I do ask for this outside the I.E.P so I understand until the I.E.P is amended they don't have to follow any of my suggestions.
So now I am asking for the school to let me observe her taking a spelling test!
Has this school ever actually dealt with learning disabilities before? SERIOUSLY. If anyone has had to really advocate for their child I would love to hear war stories!
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