Re: Grading question-- from a parent

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Thanks you all for your responses. I am going to talk to the
teachers about shortening his list. Last year when most of the
words were one or maybe two syllables, he could handle 15, but this
year it's 20 words and most of them are two and three syllables.

> I notice that you said your son has a medical diagnosis for
> dyslexia. I'm curious as to how that diagnosis is made. I know
> where I live, dyslexia isn't diagnosed very often.

My little guy had/has a speech issue called apraxia, and he has a
pretty severe case. He was first diagnosed by a speech pathologist
at age two, then by our local children's hospital's Speech and
Language CLinic at age 5.

The Speech and Language Clinic also had a reading specialist who
diagnosed the dyslexia. Not that that was terribly difficult--
studies show that kids who have speech issues after age 5 have about
a 50% chance of reading issues, and kids like mine with severe
speech issues after age 5 have about a 100% chance of reading issues.

Yet, I've come across several
> students who I feel sure were dyslexic, but their IQ's were
> average or low. I feel so frustrated and unable to help some of
> these kids.

My son has always stood out because the discrepency between what he
SHOULD be doing and what he IS doing is so obvious. He's lucky in
that he's had intervention almost from the start, which is why he
can read at grade level, even if it's difficult and choppy.
Dyslexic kids need a sensory-based reading curriculum (like one of
the many kinds of Orton-Gillingham) and very specific/intense
instruction on sounds and how they relate to each other.

A previous poster mentioned dyslexic kids' inability to read
nonsense words. This is SO SO true! If your school uses DIBELS,
the first- and second-grade Nonsense Word Fluency test is a terrific
mechanism for flagging potentially dyslexic children.

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