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Post by runmum on Jul 20, 2015 20:57:30 GMT
Both our boys had an EP assessment and she said they had a profile of strengths and weaknesses with specific and significant difficulties around working memory, organisational skills and phonics all of which pointed to a diagnosis of dyslexia. Of course they also have poor self esteem and the little one has ADHD.
We are really concerned about the youngest. He had a speech therapy assessment but no problems there. We reached a point of despair when we saw his report. He has an EHCP with lots of lovely targets but not much in the way of intervention and he isn't meeting the targets. Once again this year he has only achieved baby steps. The suggested answer to not meeting the targets was to downgrade them! But we really don't think he is meeting his potential and the EP said she thought he would start to fly with 5 hours per week from a specialist teacher and TA support the rest of the time.
Verbally he is certainly very bright and he did well in all the tests along those lines. The support he gets at school is from a TA who just does what she's been told to do as you would expect - we have no issue with her she is lovely but why give your most complex case to the assistant. In my line of work the most complex cases get the most experienced and up to date practitioner! The LA do not offer specialist teaching for dyslexia so moving him elsewhere would just be emotionally upsetting and we would just get more of the same. Private schools will not take him as he is so far behind now - he is just entering year one national curriculum standards going into year 5 - he was not that far behind when he started - the gap has just got wider and wider. There are no specialist dyslexia schools nearby and those over an hour away are 9k/term. He has sleep problems and is very ADHD in the evenings once his medication has worn off and very into sports at the weekend so we can't invest in tuition at those times. He apparently concentrates really well at school and works really hard with the TA.
We are considering paying for 5 hours/week with a specialist teacher who would go into school to work with him on top of his 12 hours/week TA support.
We know some of you have seen your children with dyslexia blossom at special schools but what exactly happened that was different? We would be very interested to hear from you. Obviously everyone is different but just keen to hear about successful strategies.
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Post by pluto on Jul 20, 2015 22:07:14 GMT
Do not get a teacher in school, get a teacher after school to work with him. Than you know for sure the work what gets done is productive, and if not you will know this very soon.
As you think of paying yourself, I would not pay school as I do not fully trust schools. It is easy for them to have low expectations as than they never fail. I like to have high but realistic expectations and than adjust if needed.
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Post by mooster on Jul 21, 2015 7:09:55 GMT
Our AS was diagnosed with dyslexia in year 4 - the state primary he was at were giving him some extra group support but had not mentioned dyslexia as a potential problem. To my mind he was falling further behind his peers so I started looking elsewhere and found a school that said they helped children who hid in the classroom which was him to a tee. We investigated further and after we paid for the EP report made the decision to move him to a little independent which specialised in dyslexia and went from primary through to 16 - original primary school then agreed with diagnosis of dyslexia but said they were't allowed to use that terminology grrrrr........LA wouldn't even consider us applying for a statement at this time as he wasn't far enough behind yet!
Anyway we moved him at the end of year 4 and he redid year 4 at the new school - emotionally and socially he was now in the right year group! The whole curriculum is taught in a dyslexic way so there is no leaving the classroom for your "dyslexic" lesson. Class sizes are small (max 12 that splits for key subjects) so there is no hiding, homework is limited as they work so hard at school (the dyslexic brain has to work so much harder to decode things, all we did at home for the first few years was read read read), children build dens and climb trees at break times and they are given a good hearty lunch. From the top of the school downwards there is experience of adopted children and an understanding of behaviours that can be difficult. The school also provides speech and language, OT and counselling support. It does however all come at a price but there are bursaries for those on lower incomes.
I make it sound all rather perfect - it isn't but it has got our son through to year 11 without a massively thick file on misunderstood behaviour issues, us being called in lots of times to see the head (only once in eight years, not bad!) or walks of shame in the playground with alpha parents looking on! He also has the potential of a handful of GCSE's which given where he started is a real bonus ( I have to keep reminding myself, after all the money we have paid out, that schools are about more than exam results!).
For our AS, who would have found any school difficult, he has left with an improved sense of worth and a sense of direction in his life. All the children have difficulties so they are fairly tolerant of each other's quirks. One of my biggest fears of the state secondaries which are huge was who he would graduate towards and at a little school although the friendship groups are limited, which can have its own problems, we were not fighting unsuitable choices of friends the whole time. I found I knew all the children in his year group which offers comfort when older and socialising becomes a driving force in their development.
Academically the school offers a range of subjects for GCSE, no language (enough trouble writing English!) and they do 8 or 9 GCSE's/BTec's. Exam courses are carefully chosen to suit dyslexic minds. Some children travel up to two hours each way to attend this school, we are lucky it is nearer.
AS was given a year book on leaving this summer and a number of teachers commented on how this moody, sad child that they first knew had blossomed and turned into a mature, polite, lovely young man - and he is. Not without his dark times but we really feel he would have been darker if we had left him in the state system. It has been a joint effort with some key adults apart from us who have worked really hard with him, another key advantage of a small school environment is that the teachers know all the children and they seem to have the time to care which is absolutely vital in self esteem development.
I have probably waffled enough..
Good luck in finding something to suit your two, it is not easy at all so I do understand.
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Post by runmum on Jul 21, 2015 11:09:23 GMT
Wow mooster - it may not have been perfect but it sounds amazing. Thanks Pluto agree about not trusting school but due to the ADHD and sports commitments and exhaustion after school doing stuff outside school is pretty pointless - we have tried. The teacher we intend to use has worked for us with our older son at home for the past 3 years and has really helped him - although in retrospect he needed way more than the 1 hour per week he had. We would want to pay her direct and I would trust her not to get sucked into working with other children or not actually doing what we pay her for.
I agree with mooster that the dyslexic brain is just too exhausted for homework - neither of our 2 do any at all they just can't. We have tried to get school to understand monkey boy's sensory needs but they pay cursory attention to it - maybe our teacher can make sure the TA does chair press ups and chair aerobics with monkey boy before he starts his session with her. Also hope she can maybe handover after each session to the TA - and the TA can continue highlighting what they have been working on but in the context of science or geography or whatever. So if they are doing recognising and using 5 phonemes the TA can get him to point them out and read the words that contain them even though she is supporting geography or whatever it is. Just trying to work out how to get the best bang for our buck!!!!
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Post by leo on Jul 21, 2015 20:37:24 GMT
Blimey Mooster. Where do you live? I'm moving next door!
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Post by leo on Jul 21, 2015 20:40:59 GMT
And on a more helpful note - what about computer based programmes that may only need fifteen minutes a day and are generally fairly motivating for children?
The only one I can remember off hand is Wordshark - but I have a list of others somewhere if this would be useful.
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Post by runmum on Jul 22, 2015 11:48:20 GMT
Thanks Leo. We did try a couple of computer programmes that seemed well-designed but these were for touch typing - a skill we would really like our older son to learn. However touch typing seems to evade him as much as writing so we might try again in a while. Really interested for the names of any programmes as monkey boy loves computers.
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Post by leo on Jul 26, 2015 9:14:56 GMT
Sorry it's taken me a while to respond.
'Toe by Toe - Keda Cowling' is a structured 15 minute a day programme which has been shown to have very good results for children with Dyslexia in getting them more fluent with better word recognition.
'Sound linkage - Peter Hatcher'. I have not actually used this one but again, the reports of improvement are good.
Wordshark - on the computer. I have used this with many children over the years; some love it, some hate it!
Reading books should be at a level that has only one or two words per page that are unknown/need working out - which helps fluency, aids comprehension and allows the brain to over learn the visual representation of common words. Places like Waterstones and local libraries often now have dyslexia friendly sections or have an advisor to help. Barrington Stokes and Fellhounds are two companies that supposedly produce lower reading level but higher interest level books for boys with Dyslexia.
There may now be other computer based games for spelling and vocabulary - I think there was one called 'Nessy'.
Activites that aoften help children with Dyslexia are those focussed around working memory and planning/organising skills as it appears that if they can improve their ability in these areas it can help them overcome the difficulties Dyslexia presents. So, simple games such as Pairs, Kim's game, 'I went shopping and bought...', making up nonsense rhyming phrases (and reading nonsense words) can often help too. You can play snap or pairs with high frequency words or word families and this can make the level of repetition needed a bit more manageable.
An old fashioned - but very simple and structured 'lesson a day' approach (could be just ten minutes) is a book called 'Attack' (reading and spelling) or the Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar resources are actually a very good multi sensory approach that can help older children who are struggling (meant for Reception up to Year 2 but am using it here with Year 4 children). Games involving grouping/categorising are helpful - how many animals can you think of in thirty seconds, how many things with wheels... Also games in the car where you choose a category - boys names, animals, words with more than four letters - and try to find a word for each letter of the alphabet. Games that help make semantic links - like the word association thread on here - are very good as they again help train the brain to find links and other pathways to overcome the areas of difficulty.
Any computer based games for working memory or logic problems are also good for the skills that will help; lots of people think of Dyslexia as just about letters and sounds but there is lots of evidence that children who can plan/apply logic/problem solve are more able to overcome the difficulties of Dyslexia itself.
I'm not sure if it's available anymore as a stand alone programme but '2 type' is a children's touch typing programme and actually has lots of nonsense words and simple games on it so would be helpful (the company is called '2 simple' if it's still around - made lots of programmes that were very easy to use for Primary age or children with special needs).
Hope some of that helps!
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Post by runmum on Jul 26, 2015 14:40:59 GMT
Thanks Leo very helpful. Monkey Boy did Jolly Phonics with me before starting school and at this point he was ahead of everyone else!! He would see returning to that as a kick in the teeth so I think we will try one of the other programmes you suggest. We do all the memory games but making up high frequency word memory pairs or snap would be a good option for school too. Finger crossed we might actually see some catch up next term.
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Post by leo on Jul 27, 2015 9:10:59 GMT
If you want to print off your own resources for high frequency words or phonics, the website 'Sparklebox' is a good one to use as has pre-prepared bingo, pairs games etc ready to print for each set of words.
The website 'TES iboard' has many phonics, spelling and simple Maths games that repeat the same words but in many different formats so they don't get bored. Many can be accessed for free but some are only available if you subscribe (however, I think it's only £11 per year or similar so not too expensive!)
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Post by runmum on Aug 11, 2015 16:25:03 GMT
Thanks for all your advice everyone. Just gott back from holiday to a letter from school saying they will not allow this after all. We now don't know where to turn. His ADHD meds have worn off after school so tutoring then is pointless and he is really needs sensory input at that time anyway because school don't provide that either and because he does not get enough sensory input during the day we can't get him to sleep at night until 10.45 at earliest do he's too tired anyway. EP was clear he needed 7.5 hrs 1:1 specialist teaching plus 20 hours 1:1 TA. His EHCP offers 12 hours TA support 1:2/3. And this is not helping. Just don't know what to do. Of course we could call emergency EHCP review maybe tribunal but he's 9 and has the attainment of a 5 year old and poor self esteem etc etc. all this takes months meanwhile he falls further behind. Private schools will not have him specialist private schools are miles away and 30k a year. Do they simply want to destroy poor monkey boy. Livid. Will try to get some specialist advice.
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Post by kstar on Aug 11, 2015 22:03:14 GMT
Sorry I've only just read this. I'm not surprised school will not allow this, we wouldn't either - unfortunately it's made very difficult for schools to allow anyone external to come in and teach, as a school we are responsible for the content and quality of anything delivered during the school day. School would have to arrange DBS checks etc as well and I'm not sure where the school would stand if you were paying not the school.
I totally agree with Toe by Toe - we use this even with our younger students at secondary and it's fantastic. For us it's delivered before school every day by sixth formers on a one to one basis. There is also Miskin reading - on average, with Miskin (delivered in small groups by a TA for one hour a day over six weeks) our students catch up 18months to 3 yrs on their standardised reading age tests. I'd be tempted to ask if his PPP money could be spent on something like this?
Unfortunately with cuts left right and centre you'd be extremely lucky to get 7.5 hrs specialist teaching in a small primary - not all of the costs are met by SEN funding and primaries struggle to find the money, however fair or unfair that might seem. We are slightly more fortunate in secondaries because we have a bigger pot of money to play with so we can scrimp and save elsewhere, but even then our highest level of need students get up to 15 hours TA support (theoretically one to one although the TAs are at the disposal of the classroom teacher so can be asked to support others). Calling an emergency EHCP review might help and I would recommend getting someone to support you at that meeting - someone like parenting partnership or your local virtual head. Ask who in school is responsibe for pupil premium progress - Ofsted are making a massive deal at the moment about PP students so it might shock someone into action if you sound like you know your stuff!
Good luck xx
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Post by runmum on Aug 12, 2015 8:06:36 GMT
Thanks kstar much of this resonates but I have to say it's odd that any old parent can go into school and hear my child read without any checks DBS wise or assessment of skills/attitude etc. They sit on their own with the children in the same spots used for kids having intervention, which is where our tutor would be. Our tutor has DBS and works in private schools and we would be happy to fund a DBS every 6 months if they insist. You are quite right they are responsible for his progress but it seems they just suggest lowering the bar.
We have always said we want him to leave primary school able to read a paragraph fluently with adequate understanding to answer questions and to write the answers to those questions in extended sentences with full stops and capital letters in the right place and correct spelling of most words - despite this we get strange comments about not expecting him to run a marathon. The government expects much more (at least equivalent to 10k in just over an hour using the same metaphor) which is quite right but if they had given monkey boy support from nursery he would not be so far behind. He now needs exceptional intervention for catch up and in our view that's their fault.
Virtual Head is certainly on our list plus some other people with insight locally. Parent partnership seem less well informed than we are for MBs complex needs 9not knocking them generally but they are not specialists wrt adoption) and we are very assertive so not sure what they would add but always worth putting together a big team - although it should not have to be so adversarial. We thought the EHCP is all about the child and not policy and politics etc LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by kstar on Aug 12, 2015 11:43:10 GMT
Unfortunately in the current financial climate nothing is about the child... Everything is about value for money, combined with massive accountability. I totally get where you're coming from and it is bizarre (although tbf I'm shocked that parent helpers are not DBS checked, they should be!) but Ofsted considers parent helpers, visiting students, work experience kids etc as just extra bodies formally under the control and therefore the accountability of the classroom teacher, therefore as long as the teacher is dictating what happens, it's ok. A visiting, specialist teacher is a bit different because they wouldn't be under the control of the teacher, being paid for by you means they're not even accountable to the head and it all gets a bit tricky. That said, the school SHOULD be able to buy in specialist provision themselves - we have access to a fantastic literacy service, our dyslexia teacher (who works for the LA and as an Academy, we buy in her time) is amazing and has great results.
I know what you mean about Oarent Oartnership, however don't underestimate them. In my experience, they are a big support to parents in meetings. They don't have to be experts, you don't necessarily need them to advise you - what a good parent adviser does is makes sure you are listened to, respected and that anything agreed in a meeting is actually delivered. As a head of house I always know I have to be on my toes if a parent brings one to a meeting!
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Post by monkey on Aug 12, 2015 19:12:26 GMT
Could you make a donation to the school and then let the school employ the specialist teacher?
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Post by runmum on Aug 17, 2015 13:15:24 GMT
Thanks Monkey. I am sure we could. We could just use what ever arrangement they would use when parents get a personal budget so contractually there should not be any blockages as personal budgets are now a reality. Even if they have no previous experience of parents with a personal budget they just need to ask a school locally that does (and there are plenty as we have asked) and set up the same system. One wonders if they are trying to push us out despite having agreed that monkey boy needs stability alongside support. We are battling on as usual and will let you all know.
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