All About Dyslexia

[cnimed]

Hi Veiled,


This website covers quite a bit of information on Dyslexia succinctly – what it is, symptoms and signs to look out for, and most importantly, teaching methods that work. It explains what phenomic awareness and phonological processing is and why it is important. Without these, phonics will not be useful to the child. http://www.dys-add.com/define.html

Basically start with phenomic awareness, then move on the phonics rules. When teaching, it must be multi-sensory. Just talking and showing flashcards is too passive, they will not process it well. Get the child involved either through cut-outs and rematching, sky-writing (writing the letters/sounds with big arm movements) is good for some children.

We did exercises on phenomic awareness and once that clicked, my son could apply phonics rules easily.

Other issues he had was directionality and sequencing. I noticed that as he established greater sense of left-right in gross motor areas, his reversed-reading also decreased.

I didn't send him for any speech/drama or reading class. Personally I don't think these places would be able to pick out his difficulties. I only picked them up myself when I took him out of school and started teaching him myself. After close observations, I realised that something didn't fit, but at four/five, dyslexia cannot be reliably screened for and I know reading has a developmental aspect to it. I put it aside and I taught him orally for many things while reading extensively to him so not being able to read never held him back in other areas. All these while he already knew the phonics sounds but he doesn't seem to be able to apply them. However he has a store of sight words.

It's only after ruling out other factors and vision screening and therapy that we narrowed it down to dyslexia. Once I did the research and worked on his phenomic awareness, everything just started falling into place. Another mother told me about the Ron Davis method. It capitalises on the child's visual-spatial strengths, and one of their key methods is using clay to make models of words that the child has difficulties with. These are words that the child's brain can't process and caused confusion. So the child may be reading quite well, until he comes to that word, and thereafter begins to lose his place on the page, or the words appear to start jumping on the page. If these are high frequency words, you can imagine the child's difficulties in reading. What I did was to take note of my son's trigger words and we spent one month working on the connection between the word, its sound, meaning and usage. Just three words.

My son's case may be quite mild. But I just want to share that with the appropriate method, a dyslexic child can also learn to read. Our good fortune is that our children are young, time is on our side! In the meantime, never let the reading difficulty hold the child back unnecessarily. She can still learn a lot through your sharing, hands-on experiments, good tv programmes, and good picture books.

[Veiled]

Thank you so much Deminc. I really appreciate your sharing.

[kriz]

Hi, I’m a newbie here.

Would like to know at what age does DAS or private therapist recommend testing kids for dyslexia?
Thanks

[ME mummy]

Hi all,


After reading all the information regards to Dyslexia, one thing come to my mind that you all are a good parents and they are very fortunate to have you around.

My son who is studying P1 this year and adjusting himself. But suspected down with Mild Dyslexia (without any assessment done). The information was given by a private tuitor who is very experience in teaching.

I wanted to know does the charges for the assessment is expensive? And where could I get it arrange? I heard about DAS, are they good?

Thank you for sharing !
ME Mummy

[Veiled]

Hi ME Mummy,


For my daughter, I went to the polyclinic to get a referral to KKH.
The P1 readiness test is around $200 while I’m not sure for the Dyslexia test. My daughter is scheduled to take both test somewhere before June.

[ME mummy]

Thanks Veiled for your reply ! Do you just walk into polyclinic directly? I send an email to KKH and till now i didn’t get any reply from them.

[cnimed]

Hi Veiled


you're most welcomed. I used to be anxious about DS1's inability to read and complaints of jumping words. I hoped it was a vision problem which therapy could solve, instead of dyslexia which I knew nothing about except that it means it's hard for the child to read and write. He did have some focusing issues, but nothing that fit his complaints, and the opthamologist and orthopist advised us to screen for dyslexia. I had that sinking feeling then, so I can really understand how you feel. But once we moved in the right direction, DS1's progress was very rapid. So take heart! All we need is the right information, persistence and consistency.


Kriz, Me Mummy,
we sent a form into DAS. Testing can only be done after the 6th birthday, and even then, it's better to test a little later, nearer to 6.5. So we are waiting for that. I'm not sure the exact cost, but you have to put a deposit in with the form.

DS1 was offered a place for DAS' remediation classes based on the feedback from the various specialists and therapists he has seen. (We sent in a lot of assessment results with our form.) Without these, I think the waiting time is quite long. However we did not take up the place because commute would be very hard for me with ds2. At the same time, I had started working with him myself using dyslexic resources and was seeing results.

[cnimed]

ME mummy:

Thanks Veiled for your reply ! Do you just walk into polyclinic directly? I send an email to KKH and till now i didn't get any reply from them.

You can just walk into polyclinic directly. I did that for DS1 for the Eye Center, and for DS2 for the Skin Center. The polyclinic will then make an appointment for you with the respective hospitals. The waiting time can be quite long though we have been lucky with both kids with regards to their appointments. If you go direct to KKH you will be charged the private rates.

[ME mummy]

Deminc, thank you ! My son is 7 years old. Many people giving different idea. You are right DAS needed to submit the form with S$107.00 as a deposit. For the accessment fees is $500 plus for Singaporean. So I am not too sure, should I go for the long process, like go to polyclinic and then refer to KKH. I know I would have to get myself prepare for the long waiting appointment.

[Veiled]

Me Mummy,


You are right, the waiting period is very long if you going thru polyclinic & KKH.

Most primary sch has special needs teacher. Maybe u can check with your son’s school?

Recently i wrote to my eldest son’s sch asking about the exact specialities of the school’s special needs teacher i.e slow-learner, autism, dyslexic. Yet to receive any reply from them.