momsdream

Thanks jym. You sound very well connected to this area, which I suspect is related to your profession in psychology.

Here is what I have taken away from all of you:
1. I am not overreating, this is serious. Though, can be treatable if corrected early.
2. Private evaluations are best - and seem warranted in this situation.
3. Evaluations should be done by someone with nothing to gain from the outcome - pediatric neuropsychologist / CHOP (Penn gets more money from me! ).
4. not much point in me exploring methods of teaching until the diagnosis is done and a recommendation is made.
5. make sure the potential for a vision related problem is explored
6. If ADD/ADHD is discovered, parents are seeing good results with newer meds

Finally, as my former boss used to say : This isn't cheese or wine - It won't get better with time! Act now.

calmom

Momsdream, I sent you a PM. I can offer a lot of help & suggestions. Your daughter's combination of being a math whiz & difficulty reading is similar to my son -- it's fairly common, but it is also an indication of a particular pattern of dyslexia. Usually kids like this are strong visual-spatial learners, and are often highly gifted, so they tend to need to learn to read with methods geared to their learning styles.

Phonetic decoding tends to elude them, because they are global, big-picture learners -- they need to have all of the pieces of the puzzle in mind for thing to make sense to them, and often have difficulty with any sort of tasks involving sequencing or step-by-step learning.

Check these 2 websites for more info:
http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/VSL/VSL_List.htm
http://www.dyslexia.com/

jym626

Momsdream-
Yes- Get a good eval done first. You really need to know what you are dealing with before you try to intervene. With anything-- a car, a washing machine, an illness-- you need to diagnose before you treat. And CHOP may have the services to assess this, or they may refer you out to someone in the community. I am not sure. The person I know on staff there deals with the effects of chemotherapy and radiation on learning issues in pediatric cancer survivors, so wouldn't be an appropriate contact person.

I'd hold off on the vision eval at this point. The issues that were going on with SBmom's child that prompted me to suggest that route for her s. are different than what you are describing. Wait and see what comes from the neuropsych eval first-. It may be similar to what calmom is describing.
Good luck.

jym626

Here's the link for the International Dyslexia Association. This should give you a lot of info.
http://www.interdys.org/

SBmom

momsdream,

I am going through a similar time of figuring out how to help my son. I send you a e-hug; it is such a hard thing to watch your child struggle!

backhandgrip

This may be of no help whatsoever but I would put child to bed a little earlier and sit with them about 45 min. reading every single night- like, Cat In The Hat, and other easy books, pointing out simple words. Did you have an indication of this problem earlier? Is she hyper active? I've known parents who find the right sport for their child and this works wonders for their consentration. (Like Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis Center. They have MARVELOUS programs for the little ones.) I would spend the time every day with her and books. Even if this does not help her reading level it would be a great bonding experience for her and she will always associate you with books.

momsdream

BHG, thanks. Your suggestion is timely becuase that is exactly what we are doing. She doesn't seem hyperactive normally. But ,she does has an obvious reaction to sugar/juice/ candy/ etc. There are times when she goes to her grandparents home and then comes home bouncing off the walls. When I call my mom to ask what she had, it's usually juice that did it. The effect is amazing - within 15 mins she's all over the place. Thus, school lunch and snacks/beverages are always no sugar items.

Anyway, reading time has been increased so that I and read to her and she can read to me - even if she only reads a couple of pages.

editrix

I agree that reading at bedtime is a wonderful bonding activity, but if it were going to help her learn to read independently, it would probably already have done so. This seems to be pretty much the basis of the "whole language" approach to reading: immerse a child in books and language, and the child will begin to catch on; then you can build on those first bursts of understanding.

It works for a lot of children, but not for all. (One of mine caught on fine, and the other just didn't.) When a child is still struggling with even the easiest words by the middle of first grade--as my younger daughter was--I strongly recommend a professional evaluation. But it's great to keep reading anyway.

kirmum

jym is right on target, a pediatriac neuropsychologist should be your next step for a full assessment. Wish I had known that when my oldest was in first grade. We wasted a lot of time with reading programs and public school assessments until we got a neuropsych eval in 5th grade which told us how to teach him. Good luck momsdream!

An aside, Emerald, I've seen you mention Kumon often. It seems to me that it is purely rote and doesn't teach real math skills. Am I missing something? What do others think?

jym626

Thanks, Kirmum. It still surprises me, even though I have been in this field for over 20 years, that so many people do not know what a neuropsychologist is. I am glad you had a good experience with one.

kjofkw

Momsdream, I know nothing about reading disabilities, but I do have a story to share:
A friend of mine home-schooled his son. He was quite worried about his inability to read, until at age 9 it just "clicked"! He became an avid reader after that time. His doctor told the father, that he did the best thing in the world by homeschooling his son, explaining that he would have been "labeled" and frustrated had he gone through the typical education system. Homeschooling gave him the added time he needed.

I'm not pushing homeschooling by any means. I am only suggesting that perhaps time will help heal your fears. In the meantime keep watching, and asking the questions. If there is something that needs assistance, hopefully it will be found.

You're obviously a great mom!!!

momsdream

kjofkw - thanks for sharing that story. I have thought about homeschooling and would be all for it if 1. I had the patience to teach, which I don't 2. I could stop working. But, to your point, finding the right environment seems to be key here. A few parents "in the know" have been PMing me suggestions on alternative learning methods and schools to consider. I am open to the idea of changing schools, as is my D. There is a Waldorf school about 5 minutes away from me - The Waldorf School of Philadelphia - which I am going to consider. It may well be the next best thing to homeschooling.

I think homeschooling is great! Once I know what we're dealing with, I'll be asking you all for your opinions on various possibilities.

jamimom

I agree with the posters that your D needs to be assessed by a specialist to get a handle on the problem. It could be any number of things from vision issues, learning disabilities, ADD, and a multitude of other labels. It could also be a combination of all of these things, or none of them.

It seems to me your daughter has a lot going for her as she is enjoying reading at the more elementary levels, and she is really only in first grade. I've always had a problem with some schools' "watch that first step" situation. They don't teach kids to read in kindergarten and stress that this is totally unnecessary. Then all of a sudden, in first grade, nearly every kid in the class is reading chapter books except for your kid and a handful of others sent to the reading specialist! What the heck did I miss here? That is the modus operandi of a number of schools I know, public and private. Our neighbors who are husband/wife physicians were just fuming about this with their daughter, and their kids go to a very highly regarded Jewish school. No reading taught in Kindergarten, and this is told to the parents upfront because they don't want to hear about this. But all of a sudden in 1st grade, everyone is reading. My neighbors felt that they had to hire a tutor this summer (they were aware of this situation as this is their third child through this system), but they were quite resentful of the way this school operates. A lot of this is because parents start teaching the kids to read regardless of what the school says, so that when the reading books are cracked open, many of the kids are already way ahead. I was blind sided this way myself since I believed what the teachers were saying to me, and ended up having to work with my oldest son as he too was not reading until he was about 7 and a half years of age. Had I known that everyone in first grade would be reading at that level, I would have told the preschool-K teachers to go jump in a lake and pushed him to learn to read. And invested in those Doman flashcards that everyone seemed to be using when he was a toddler. But I can also tell you that I have one who really was still on level 1 type readers until he was 8, and another who was a poor reader up until he was 9 and a half, but both picked up and really moved after a point. Both are strong readers now--S1 graduated college this past year, and S5 is in 5th grade and makes 2nd honor roll, and reads well beyond his grade level. I believe the younger one has some learning issues, but after many assessments from many specialists no one can pinpoint his problems other than he is slow developmentally, but appears to be on a normal or even slightly accelerated learning curve. I probably should have put him back a year, but this school really did not feel this was necessary. Some vision issues were discovered, among other things, and he does wear glasses now. Reading out loud is a problem because he has a stutter. But he is working his way slowly up the aptitude chart, jumping 10 points each year, and he hit the 75th %tile last year. Because of a number of other issues that he had as a toddler, we really did not worry too much about the slowness, and he looks like he has made really good progress. And the reason he is in a private school is because he is not labeled and pulled out here as he would be in the public school.

The other curious thing about our public school is that it seems that about 65% of the 1st graders read at about a 2nd-3rd grade level---at the beginning of first grade, but the kids who graduate are not a lot to brag about given the socio economics of the area. The average SAT1 is below the national average (yes, just slighlly), but more incredibly there are not many kids in the higher echelons .

momsdream

jamimom, you hit the nail on the head! What you've described is just what happened. Everyone was bumping along just fine in kindergarten - arts and crafts - practicing letters - writing their names, etc. No reading. Suddenly, first grade starts and I *thought* everyone was on the same page - learning "on" "yes" "cat"........then, all of a sudden...whoooooooosh.......they're all reading chapter books...and the teacher sends home a note in Oct saying that each week 1 student will be "author of the week" and will read in front of the class. And the weekly spelling words started to get harder and harder. And my D says "mommy, so and so came in today and read a whole book to us"....and I wanted to call so and so's mom and tell her that she cheated over the summer, I know she did! And by Nov the teacher was calling me in and giving me the pity look becuase my D wasn't reading the Chapter books. I felt like I was the only one who didn't know the summer secret - have 'em reading by Sept 1.

I'll show 'em. Gonna teach my D some advanced math and ask the teacher why the rest of the class isn't keeping up!

SBmom

Also add in the fact that so many kids are arbitrarily held back in pre-school for one extra year to give them an "edge." That can mean normal kids are often with classmates a year older than they are, and can thus appear "slow."