Reading Disability

[Kimmers]

I ran across this article when researching learning disabilities. (I am petrified of finding out my son has or will have one!) It is regarding reading disabilities specifically:

click.babycenter.com/b/?le=6ewK&me=qCr6&ce=2hlsIE&t=0

I was wondering, how do you know if your child has a reading disability...do they read slow, do they transpose letters, are they unable to pronounce words right...My son is in Kindergarten and they are learning the very first basics of learning to read and I want to be able to pick up on whether or not he will have a problem or not.

Any helpful hints on detecting this early?

Kimmers

[AustinsMom]

Kimmers, My son has a reading/learning disability, and we started noticing things by ~age 3. We have an older daughter, so we had a good basis of comparison, and I am an OT, so normal development was familiar to me. Also, ds is adopted, and we knew his birthmother had a learning disability, so we were probably on the lookout.

He had problems remembering the names of things--like my daughters friends names, names of colors, etc. He had absolutely NO interest in reading, trying to write as he approached kindergarten. And he had MAJOR problems learning the names of the letters of the alphabet. If you read stuff on dyslexia, you'll see that phonological awareness--conncecting the letters with a sound which combine to make words--is a primary weakness and a major predictor of later reading ability.

So it is definitely NOT a thing to worry about if your child transposes letters or makes letters backward at the kindergarten/1st grade level. If he has a problem you would probably already be seeing some signs, not the least of which is hating academic work. (You always avoid things that are hard for you...)

Good luck finding the answers to your question.

[eaccae]

DS doesn't have a reading LD but I *thought* he might early on. He didn't start reading until midyear 1st grade. He is now 2 grade levels ahead. The interesting thing with him - he couldn't learn his sight words. He couldn't seem to memorize "the" or "with" and it was almost painful to hear him sounding it out for over a year. And he was the SLOWEST reader in the world. I was sure he had at the very least some memory problems. When he was tested he scored "superior" in both the visual memory/recall tests AND auditory memory/recall tests which knocked me over. Even in math he doesn't "memorize" his rote calculations - he has to SLOWLY compute them even if it is 10+7. Maybe he THINKS he has to do that? I haven't figured it out yet. I will say that we got the Hooked on Phonics program and it is great! DH's cousin has it for her "LD" and possibly ADHD kindergarten son and he is doing fantastically - (far better than my little guy at that age). So if you are worried about the reading as the year progresses - it is a great investment - pricey but well worth the money. Anyway - with such a rough start - I really believed there was a huge problem but now he is 8 and reading The Hobbit. So basically I don't really know if you can tell by the reading slowly or not. In our case, DS exhibited the same things as Austinsmom's son - which is why I was sure there was a problem there - but it turns out that reading is his strongest subject. Just don't worry yourself too much over it until you think there is actually a problem - you'll drive yourself crazy.

[lofo]

Kimmers,
I agree, worrying is like a rocking chair- it won't get you anywhere!

Kindergarten is the place where they start learning but many don't catch on until later in the 1st grade so relax.

If the teacher sees a problem she should alert you. Ask how he is doing compared to his classmates- just on the initial letter concepts. Many reading disabilities don't present themselves until children start blending letter sounds together.

Lori
P.S. Did this have something to do with Natural Alternatives that I missed?

[Kimmers]

Thanks for the reassurance. My son writes alot of his numbers and letters backwards and also hasn't really grasped the whole putting letters together to make "words" yet and I always thought that by the end of the Kindergarten year they were reading but I guess I am not up-to-date on the curriculum they learn and at what pace?! I was just really worried about it and no, there wasn't anything on Natural Alternatives in my post but I knew AustinsMom and a few others here had kids with learning disabilities and so I was hoping they could answer my concerns. Thanks everyone!

Kim

[DenverSarah]

Hi Kimmers,
I understand your anxiety about LD's. I worry about my son too. However there are more and more stories out there every day about folks with LD's not only doing "okay" but ending up with extraordinary accomplishments. My older brother is dyslexic and is a very high-up Microsoft executive. Here is a link to an article that is in CNN about an ADDer who is also dyslexic and is going to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar!

www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/12/29/road.to.rhodes.ap/index.html

Just my 2cents!

[AustinsMom]

I agree, that LD may be alot of work, but it is not the end of the world. I don't think you should worry about this, but then again I think it's always wise to be proactive which means gathering all the information you need so you can understand if there is a problem. My experience is that others (teachers, doctors, even in our case a speech pathologist) may minimize the issue or want to take a "wait and see" approach. Early intervention with phonetic based instruction is very helpful and you do want to intervene at the first sign of difficulty, not wait till they are struggling. If you research online or find a book about what a kindergartner should be proficient in at the end of the year, you can see how he is doing. By now he should probably be halfway there on many items. So I wouldn't worry about a diagnosis, but focus on what skills he needs to master in kindergarten and make sure he is on target with those. If you find he cannot master them or is having more difficulty than you would expect, then you can use next summer to do some testing to help see what the problem is. But for now I'd just make sure he is keeping up with what is expected at this age.