<p>My son is going into 5th grade and I am starting to suspect that he may possibly have dyslexia. Any advise on testing. I am concerned about “labeling” and how that may effect his schooling and eventually his college admissions.</p>
<p>Three of my siblings are slightly dyslexic. It’ll be a little hard for him to learn to deal with it, but it’s better diagnosing it now. It’s better to start early learning ways to cope with dyslexia than to be in the dark about it. Remember, the earlier the better. There’s no shame in being dyslexic – seriously, it’s very normal. They just have to learn how to read a bit differently – no biggy. Relax! </p>
<p>I found this on a website, it’s a small list of famous dyslexics:
* Ann Bancroft - First woman in history to cross the ice to both the North and South Poles.
Web site: <a href=“http://www.yourexpedition.com%5B/url%5D”>http://www.yourexpedition.com</a>
* David Boies - Trial lawyer whose high-profile clients have included former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Jr., Napster, and the U.S. Justice Dept. in its antitrust suit against Microsoft.
* Erin Brokovich - Real-life heroine who exposed a cover-up by a major California utility that was contaminating the local water supply. Their actions had severe, even deadly consequences to the members of the community. With her help, the townspeople were awarded a $333 million settlement, the largest ever in a U.S. direct-action lawsuit. (Julia Roberts played her in the movie with the same name.)
* Stephen J. Cannell - Author and Emmy Award-winning TV producer and writer, who has created or co-created more than 38 shows, of which he has scripted more than 350 episodes and produced or executive produced more than 1,500 episodes. His hits include “The Rockford Files,” “A-Team,” “21 Jump Street,” “Wiseguy,” “Renegade” and “Silk Stalkings.”
Web site: <a href=“http://www.cannell.com%5B/url%5D”>http://www.cannell.com</a>
* Whoopi Goldberg - Actor and comedian, winner of an Academy Award for her supporting role in “Ghost,” also an Academy Award nomination for her role in “The Color Purple.”
Web site: <a href=“http://www.whoopi.com%5B/url%5D”>http://www.whoopi.com</a></p>
<p>Don’t worry. It’s just one little obstacle to overcome. You don’t really have to ‘label’ him either. Just work on a lot of reading exercises, take him to some sort of doctor or whatever to help him learn how to read (my sisters did it with just my mother’s help though) and chill. It’s really not a big problem. Just takes a lot of patience, love and understanding, so just be there for him. =]</p>
<p>My youngest son is also 10 and we had him tested the end of last year- yep- dyslexic. I still haven’t given him that name though. We went through a lot to get there. He was tested after Kindergarten and they found phonemic awareness issues (can’t tell one vowel sound from another). They worked with him then but he’s very bright, so it’s boring drills and it bored him. It truly only showed up in spelling at school- he never could hear the sounds for pre tests, got around 100 percent if we worked a tiny bit during the week. He’s always read four grade levels higher, even in the kindergarten test, but couldn’t sight read words. When we moved to public school in 3rd grade, I had them look at his handwriting, they thought it was carelessness. When I started researching the dyslexia, truly for a friends child and not mine, I was shocked- it read like his history. He was diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia and spent a LOT of time this summer at a clinic that follows the Lindamood-Bell Learning process but is not affiliated with them, it’s <a href=“Lindamood-Bell Instruction for Reading & Comprehension”>Lindamood-Bell Instruction for Reading & Comprehension. I will tell you neither school found it, I found it. I do have a teaching background, but I’m 19 years out of the classroom. The psychologist at school says they try not to label kids, labels do follow kids and sometimes makes it so they think they can not do certain things. They try and work with the learning method and issues each child has. We’ll see. We start school this week and we have a team meeting September 14 for him- we’ll see whether everything stuck from the tutoring when he had four weeks of sleep away camp in between!
Part of the reason we did private tutoring was for the label issue. If however you don’t treat it, you may have a frustrated under-achiever who can’t figure out why his brain is smart but it doesn’t come out in school</p>