dysTalk Dyslexia Early Identification - Articles - dysTalk

Once upon a time in a classroom not so far away, in a school not so long ago, there was an official procedure about identification of dyslexia. It went a bit like this: (delete as appropriate) concerned mum/dad/carer/sibling (often defined as over anxious in the staffroom) of a child in reception/year 1/year 2 would book a meeting after school with class teacher/senco/headteacher. They would express their concerns about the lack of progress their son/daughter was making in reading/writing/maths/self image. During this meeting the class teacher/senco/head teacher would often give 5/10/15 minutes of their ‘planning and marking time’ to reassure the often upset/angry/tearful/baffled parent that ‘everything was fine’ and that ‘they were slow developers/a bit lazy/badly behaved/ don’t listen/daydreams/should join the army/postal service/queue’. The parents would take that reassurance/scolding and, since they are not the experts, take the advice and wait to see how they do over the coming year/years/decade. Things may well appear just fine on the surface, they may well be able to keep up with the class and seem to acquire the skills and foundations stones needed for the next level of school. They could very well be sitting around the middle of the class and be bumbling along just fine.

Everything may appear fine and any mention of dyslexia being the root cause was normally quashed with the party line ‘you can’t tell if a child is dyslexic until they are 7’. In other words go away and wait until your child is really in need of help when all their self esteem and joy of school has been squeezed out of them/refusing to go to school/wetting the bed/throwing chairs across the classroom. If they are lucky, they are referred for tests to see if there is some sort of problem, a short report is written that is largely ignored by their teacher. The child can then generally swim around the bottom of the class where earlier labels stick that much harder. The outlook can be bleak. Hopefully they may be good at something at school like art, sport or music and may excel in this arena and make life bearable but if they are not, or the school misses it, an almost life sentence can be past on the child. Of course, schools are no longer like that, and if they are, shame on them. Yet, how do we identify problems early on in order to get a different outcome? I recently spoke to one mother who knew her daughter was very dyslexic but apparently, according to the school, was learning to read. The defining moment came when, at 7 years old, the child was reading her class book out loud word perfect, holding the book at arms length with the words facing her mum, who sat opposite. She had a very good memory for all the books that were read to her, but she could not read. There is a difference.

As a class teacher, you can easily concentrate on the children who are easy to identify and who can display much more pronounced or obvious needs, however a bit of investigation may well show up some interesting findings and avert disaster. I think the way to do it is not to think about dyslexia as simply a reading and writing issue, but more as an information processing and outputs issue. That way we are looking for the signs at an age appropriate/task level. Think about it, if we define dyslexia as just the inability to acquire the skills for reading then, of course, we can not pick anyone up until after they should be reading independently and fluently, in other words aged about 7 or 8. But the inability to read is an effect of dyslexia not causal. One of the reasons why children fail to learn how to read, despite developing a very numb bum sitting through endless extra reading lessons, is because they have a brain that works differently (not worse) and dyslexic brains have certain characteristics:

• Poor or underdeveloped phonological skills
• Medical issues (e.g glue ear)
• Trouble tying shoes
• Orientation confusion
• Late to establish a dominant hand
• Sequencing problems (especially the ABC)

If they show two or three of these signs it needs to be looked into more thoroughly. Talk to parents, ask questions”

• Did they, or do they have lots of ear infections? – glue ear cuts out all the high frequencies and since most primary school teachers are female much of the sound definition can be lost to them, based on the assumption that female teachers have high pitched voices.
• Do they find it hard to dress themselves? Tie their shoes?
  
• Do they switch from their right hand to their left while colouring, writing, or doing any other task?
  
• Do they have difficulty learning the names of letters or sounds in the alphabet? Do they have difficulty writing the alphabet in order or saying the days of the week?
  
• How good is their phonological awareness? Phono what?

I like to think of it like building an Airfix model (something I was never good at).

1. You have to find the right bit of grey plastic. Identification of sounds Can they match the same sounds in a pair of words? Identify rhyming words? Count the number of sounds in a word? Are they able to do it at pace?
2. You have to put said piece of grey plastic and get your fingers to put it in the right place. Sound manipulation. Can they segment sound units within a word? Add, take away and substitution of sounds?
3. Is the rear gunner in the right place and is it going to stay on. Blending. Can they put words together? This I think is the hardest and requires the most amount of integration and co-ordination of eyes, ears, brain and mouth.

All of these skills can either be tested informally or you can use one of the many tests around (I prefer the PhAB since it has it all in one place and gives standardised scores from 6)

What are the markers in early years education?

• When did they start talking? Often, dyslexics don’t start talking until they are two, two-and-a-half, three, or even older. Apocryphally, Winston Churchill’s first words at 4 were “would you be so kind as to pass the condiments.”
• Do they mix up their sounds? Spaghetti becomes bisghetti, hangaberg is a meal with chips.
• Do they have a stutter or clutter (Cluttering involves excessive breaks in the normal flow of speech)?

They can often have immature speech, they may say “wed and gween” instead of “red and green” in years 2 and 3.

They may well have been identified by health visitors and be in the NHS system and work with Speech and Language therapists already. If so work with them, if not refer them.

Remediation
Think, same message different medium, remember to keep it fun, play lots of games but tweak and adapt them.

Syllable games
Syllable count – say the word (eg. Smarty pants), then use counters or toys to count the syllables (smar/ty/pants).
I’m thinking of someone..can you finish the name or word Lou ... (Louise), This could be a good time to introduce some makaton signs.

Make compound words up using pictures. (sea-sick)

Sounds in words games
I spy initial sounds, end sounds, medial sounds, in that order from pictures and items in the classroom, bingo, sound swap – this can be great to give children one sound to be and then see if they can make words by standing in threes and then changing the sounds – it can also help with blending - don’t do this one at ten past 3 though...

Rhyme games
Picture or object rhyme games, “Can I have the object that rhymes with”
Odd word out, cat, bat, man, rat.

You can adapt games like twister and there are lots of pelmanism games on the market.

Sound differentiation
Evidence suggests that if children with dyslexia play a musical instrument or sing, it helps to build the listening and attention skills they need in a classroom that they find difficult to aquire in a formal setting. There are lots of sound CDs you could get hold of to make a game of sound bingo. Try getting hold of some old 35mm film tubs and in pairs, fill them with different shaker material. See if the children can find their partner from the sounds – its best to fill two with lentils, two with chick peas, two with marbles and two with something metal so the sounds are very different.

Patience is needed in enormous quantities. However, there is no quick fix and I would recommend that children have one to one lessons outside school by a properly trained dyslexic tutor, this includes a proper screening test when and where it is appropriate.

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