Parents Concerned: Dyslexic children struggling to absorb information at school.
I REMEMBER THE FRUSTRATION AND CONCERN I HAD WHEN I USED TO HELP MY DAUGHTER WITH HER HOMEWORK WHEN SHE COULD NOT REMEMBER ANYTHING FROM HER TIME IN CLASS. EVENTUALLY I REALISED THAT IT WAS A PROBLEM WITH DYSLEXIA AND NOT HER LACK OF ENTHUSIASM TO PARTAKE IN CLASS.
I had already noticed that my daughter was having difficulties following text when we used to read stories together before she went to bed. She would skip words and lines and as a result would completely misunderstand what she was reading.
When we spoke to the school about her problems with reading, the school said that she was doing fine and was on target to get C level passes at GCSE. But this did not seem right given the effort that she was putting in to deliver her work.
When we pushed the school further stating that we thought that our daughter was dyslexic, the said that they could not support her specifically with dyslexia unless she had a professional diagnosis done.
This of course meant that we needed to find an organisation that could provide that assessment.
In the end we got in touch with Dyslexia Action here in the UK.
After a three hour test, the dyslexia assessor confirmed that our daughter was dyslexic and provided us with a report to give to the school along with recommendations for how to support her study skills.
We were lucky, our school was supportive and our daughter had extra time in exams, the use of a laptop and she was able to thrive to the point of coming away with excellent results at GCSE.
I can't stress enough how important intervention is when a child is struggling at school.
My tip for you is that when a child is not engaged at school, nine times out of ten there is a good reason for it beyond that of 'they are lazy' or 'they are day dreamers'.
Let's give our children the benefit of the doubt and help them to learn with their own learning style.