If your child is struggling with reading and perhaps you're beginning to wonder if they are dyslexic, it is important to act fast. There is no biologically critical period for the learning of literacy as it is a cultural activity, but there is a window of opportunity between the ages of about 4-7 when children pick up the skills most easily and quickly. The window never closes but the older the child the more difficult it will be to remedy any deficiency, eliminate the guessing habit, replace unhelpful strategies and prevent a general apathy for school and education. The key to success with reading difficulties is early and appropriate intervention, though PREVENTION is preferable -see Ruth Miskin's advice, below.

Most children start school enthusiastically, bright, keen and eager to learn but, typically, those who are failing to learn to read will become deeply unhappy after only a year or two and may suffer from frequent 'tummy aches' or other stress symptoms. Some children become rebellious and disruptive as an outward show of distress, maybe even receiving the 'Attention Deficit Disorder' label, whilst others become unnaturally quiet and subdued and do their best to avoid all attention; the dreamers at the back of the class.

''The signs are there for mums and dads who care to look out for them. If you have a child who brings books home but doesn’t want to read them; a child who is suddenly either too quiet or too aggressive at school; a child who has clearly memorised her early books or who is being described as “possibly dyslexic” or “plateauing” by her teachers — be alert to the possibility that, no matter how old, she may never have learnt to read properly.'' (Miskin.Sunday Times 26/03/06)

The role of the Senco, the special needs coordinator, is crucial in most schools. The Senco leads on special needs teaching, attends case conferences, liaises with children's services. Yet there's no qualification for the job; Sencos can be appointed without any specific training. How many parents realise that the professional advising them about their child's dyslexia or autism may know less about the condition than they do? (Guardian Education 8/03/05)

Do NOT accept any of the following common excuses for your child's difficulties,' Your child is lazy/ doesn't pay attention/ needs to concentrate/ watches too much television', 'Boys are often slow learning to read', 'His/her brain is wired differently from other children',' Don't worry, s/he will catch up -s/he's just a bit slow developmentally', 'S/he's not academic', 'You haven't read to him/her enough at home', 'It's his/her lack of pre-school education', 'It's because English is his/her second language'... Note that all these excuses place the source of the problem with either the child or their parent, never with the teaching! IMPORTANT: Do have your child's eyesight and hearing thoroughly checked as poor hearing and/or sight problems could be adding to the difficulties your child is experiencing.

You are your child's best, sometimes only, advocate. If your child is still at the primary stage, approach your child's school and find out what they are using (or have used) to teach your child to read. Until recently the programmes provided by the DCSF (NLS, PiPs and Playing with Sounds) were a damaging mixture of methods, but these have now been withdrawn and replaced by 'Letters and Sounds' (May 2007). This is a synthetic phonic programme in line with the Rose Report recommendations. Its use is not mandatory and schools are free to choose any high quality phonics programme - use the link below to evaluate your school's phonic programme. Unfortunately, even if your child's school is now using Letters and Sounds or another genuine, synthetic phonic programme, there is no guarantee that their teachers know how to teach it properly.

Parents will find the following document useful for evaluating their school's 'phonics' programme:
www.syntheticphonics.com/pdf%20files/Criteria%20for%20evaluating%20a%20phonics%20programme.pdf

Many teachers, due to poor training, a disinclination to change their ways or, possibly, an ideologically-based aversion to the explicit teaching of phonics, use synthetic phonic programmes incorrectly; they may continue to teach the multi-cuing strategies, expect children to learn the high frequency words by whole-word memorisation, and use non-decodable story books. If your child brings home whole-word books (colour-banded, predictable/repetitive text) to read such as Oxford Reading Tree, along with lists of words to memorise by sight for spelling tests, then it is highly likely to be a 'mixture of methods' school. Bonnie Macmillan calls it dysdidaxia -a problem with the teaching (Macmillan p134). But, 'Don’t shoot the teacher. Teachers are mis-trained, mis-advised, and burdened with pointless paperwork as never before' (Burkard)

For a multitude of reasons a child can have difficulties learning to read even though the school is using a genuine synthetic programme first, fast and exclusively. It is absolutely essential that the school implements some one-to-one tutoring immediately it is noticed that the child is failing to keep up with his/her classroom companions and that the tutor uses MORE of the SAME programme, NOT something DIFFERENT; prevention rather than intervention.

Ruth Miskin, creator of the Read Write Inc. programme, explains, 'I think there will always be a small group of children who will need one-to-one tutoring - even with the best synthetic programmes, best training and best implementation; there are some children who have particular needs that cannot be met in a group - and not just SEN children.

We tutored some children with SEN at my old school forever until they could read well. We also tutored children with behaviour problems, long term absentees, new arrivals just to mention a few. These children were always given more of the same and not something different. No amount of group teaching helps a child once they fall behind their peers - though you can sometimes teach in pairs if they are at the same level.

If we want to be truly inclusive schools must plan for these children as a matter of course and not just hope for the best. Synthetic phonics is not a simple panacea - it takes determination to get every child reading. As soon as a child fails to learn the first letter on the first day - quick tutoring should take place.

It was not the intention of 'Letters and Sounds' (the new DCSF programme) to suggest careful grouping, provide day-by-day lesson plans or to provide specific training for assistants and teachers. Although more children will hopefully learn, it will be more vulnerable to poor implementation than the commercial programmes that provide this.'

If parents want their child tested for 'dyslexia' (BUT-see below) they can write to their Local Education Authority (LEA) themselves and request a free, statutory assessment. To avoid delay, parents can arrange for their child to see an independent, educational psychologist. They charge a hefty, professional fee for their services.and the results will not necessarily be recognised by the LEA. In addition, it appears that many educational psychologists, including some employed by LEAs, still subscribe to the belief that many children are simply incapable of learning to read with phonics due to their 'language processing' difficulties. They will recommend that these children carry on learning words by sight to fit in with their 'visual learning style', are given coping strategies and, when older, various accommodations in exams. Dr. Galen Alessi, Professor of Psychology at Western Michigan University, conducted a fascinating study on school psychologists. Dr. Alessi’s study illustrates why so many parents have problems dealing with schools: www.societyforqualityeducation.org/newsletter/archives/blame.pdf

The problem with assessment for dyslexia is that research has cast serious doubt on the validity of the procedures now in use. The Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) is a popular, professional assessment tool. Typically, a child with 'dyslexia' will achieve very uneven scores on the subtests of the WISC. This is known as an 'ACID profile' as the low scores are usually in the areas of Arithmetic, Coding, Information and Digit Span. The 'ACID' profile has little predictive value; many good readers have an ACID profile (Mortimore p54) A professional assessment will include an intelligence test despite the fact that using IQ tests as an integral part of diagnosing dyslexia has no real research base. 'The diagnosis for many years was based on these assumptions: if a child has a serious reading problem, but normal or above normal intelligence, the child must have a special type of reading disability- 'dyslexia'. Children with low reading scores and low intelligence are supposed to read badly because they have low intelligence.' (D. McGuinness WCCR p134)

After criticism of her comments on 'The Dyslexia Myth' programme, Professor Snowling declared that '(D)yslexia can be readily identified by educated professionals'. Presumably, being aware that there is no way this can be done legitimately when there is no operational definition, she added, 'It is no longer relevant to ask ‘who is dyslexic and who is not' (www.myomancy.com/2005/09/response_to_the) Professors Stanovich and Elliott were more honest; 'The underlying difficulty appears to be the same, the way these children respond to treatment appears to be the same, there appears to be no justification whatsoever for going in and trying to carve out a special group of poor readers. This is what 15 years of research, all over the world has shown  can’t be justified on a scientific or empirical basis (Prof. Stanovich. The Dyslexia Myth) 'After three decades as an educationalist, first as a teacher of children with learning difficulties, then as an educational psychologist and, latterly, as an academic who has reviewed the educational literature, I have little confidence in myself (or others') ability to offer a diagnosis of dyslexia.' (Prof. Elliott TES)

Parents need to ask themselves if it really is sensible to spend a great deal of time, energy and probably, money, to get their child professionally labeled as 'dyslexic' when there is no genuine science behind the diagnosis. Futhermore, obtaining the label certainly does not guarantee that the child will, as a consequence, receive expert 'in school' tuition with an evidence-based intervention programme to remediate his/her reading difficulties. If the school says it can provide remedial tuition, parents should check the CONTENT (see What Not to do) and the TIME FRAME (15-25 hours max. one-to-one) of the remedial programme themselves, extremely carefully.

Children do some, or all, of the following as a result of flawed, insufficient or absent instruction NOT because they are 'dyslexic':
- Use alphabet letter names.
- Add or miss out sounds in words.
- Change unknown words to familiar words.
- Say the first sound/s and guess the rest
- Mix sounds around in words eg. 'girl' as 'grill'.
- Use the pictures or context to help with guessing words.
- Continue to be confused by the shapes and sounds of letters eg. b/d e/i
- Reverse words eg. saw/was pit/tip.

You may be able to remediate your child's literacy problems yourself if your child is in the first years of primary education and their reading difficulties aren't too serious.To fix-it-yourself: first, use the free tests in Resources 2 to assess your child's reading, spelling and alphabet code knowledge, then select an age-appropriate programme and resources from Resources10 and, if it can be afforded, a set of decodable books: Resources11. If the task seems overwhelming then a sympathetic, remedial-reading tutor may be the answer Choosing a remedial tutor

See 'Teenage Dyslexics' if your child is at the secondary stage.

www.ednews.org/articles/2480/1/Miscue-Analysis-A-Critque/Page1.html Miscue Analysis -a critique.

www.donpotter.net/PDF/Solomon%20or%20Salami.pdf Solomon or Salami?

www.cps.org.uk/cpsfile.asp?id=155 What are Special Educational Needs? In this paper Dr. John Marks puts forward the hypothesis that the main problem with the 20% of children with unstatemented SEN may be that they have not been properly taught, (and in particular not been properly taught how to read) in their early years at school.

Link to The Options/Choosing a tutor

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