Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Stealth Dyslexia - any info?

We (ie myself and the co ordinator of the HG+ homeschool program Aiden (6) attends once a week) think that Aiden may have stealth dyslexia. and while his reading and writing speed and ability is flying along in leaps and bounds he is still expressing frustration and showing a roller coaster-type love/hate relationship to reading and writing.

Do you know anything about this sort of dyslexia? what exercises can we do to help him with this?

Hi Madoosa. As I wrote in the "gifted six year old boys" thread, I suspect stealth dyslexia here. I am having him thoroughly evaluated in a couple of months. I did a lot of reading last summer about dyslexia, and the info seems confusing and contradictory. If my son has it, it is mild. The one piece of advice that I read on a list that really made sense and stuck with me was this: it is more difficult for dyslexics to develop the neural pathways for reading. To do so, they need to read a lot. So the goal is to find material that is motivating enough for them to read. Makes sense to me. In addition to trying hard to find books that my son loves, I did get him a kindle fire. You can increase the text size, change the color of the background, and have the book read to you by professional narration while text highlights. Plus it is a cool gadget. My son has read a lot of books on his kindle, and he also uses it to listen to audio books. He still is a bit of a reluctant reader, but it is better, and he is certainly reading above grade level.

Thanks Gabalyn

I think a kindle could be useful - if I had one too. lol!

Aiden taught himself to read before the age of 3. he was reading words, sentences etc. It was only after starting pre school and having to do the phonics thing that I started seeing issues. And then I saw that his reading ability at home was different to his apparent ability at school.

Like you say it's confusing and made even more so because our kid read above grade and age level so competently. I just want him to be happy with his reading ability. Right now he is not, even though he knows its improving all the time.

What specifically is he doing that appears as a love/hate relationship with reading and writing? I've had two children who struggled with reading (one is 2e and her ability masked her struggle for quite awhile) - but in both cases what I learned along the way is that there isn't just "one dyslexia" or one type of reading challenge etc - there are *so* many different abilities and skills that go into reading and writing. It could be he's simply experiencing typical 6 year old development - not all kids jump into love of reading right away - for our ds who has always been a *way* ahead of grade level capable reader (once he got around to learning to read lol)... he didn't really fall into "loving" reading until somewhere halfway through 4th grade.

OTOH, it could be that there is a real challenge your ds is dealing with. If you could post some more specifics, some of us here who have children who've been through reading evals might have some advice based on our experiences. Without knowing more specifics, my advice is that - if your gut feeling is telling you that something is up and out of the realm of ordinary reading development, have your ds evaluated by a reading specialist. There are so many different skills that might be impacted, and knowing where the challenge is is very important in determining a plan for how to help the child overcome the challenge.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - I'll also second the advice re audiobooks, no matter what the challenge is. It's important (or at least a good thing!) to have reading-challenged children listen to books that are at their intellectual level of comprehension even if they aren't reading at that level yet.

thanks Polar Bear. Let me try add more detail:

Aiden started recognising words and then stringing them together before he turned 3. He BEGGED me, with tears and all ensuing drama to help him learn to read. So I made up some games, we played around with words and drawing pictures of words etc. He was a whole word reader from the beginning.

When he started at the gifted pre school (Aged 3) they started with phonics (letterland, which he knew from some magnets and a book he had been given). They only assessed and allowed him to start on reading readers more than halfway through the year. They told me he tested at a specific level but at home he was quite able to read more than that.

The next academic year it got worse and he actually refused to read their readers. But this is also where we started having other issues with teacher and school. AND this is where I started worrying about the reading development. It started as a small niggling feeling at the back of my brain, encouraged by the teachers telling me that in his assessments this was his true level.

The following year (K year) was when everything blew up and we took him out of school in the second quarter.

And then I really saw reason for concern. dry eyes, blinking being the physical symptoms. So off to the opthalmologist for full vision screening - "he is within age acceptable norms".

I would find him staring at a page in a book, desperately staring and then eventually in tears he would tell me that it doesn't make sense - that he can't figure it out. Then refusal to read for a while, then being okay with easier books and me reading the ones he wants to him. We also gave him a yellow film to put over the page and that seemed to make it easier for reading with lots of text on a page. (my mom got the idea off a radio talk show about dyslexia)

Then his younger brother (who also started with self-taught reading before age 3) started taking off in leaps and bounds. And Aiden got panicky when he realised that Nathan was just about on the same ability of reading.

And then I saw how the development of reading should have gone with Aiden - because in Nathan it was textbook for HG+ : sentences to chapter books in a few short weeks, at the age of 3.5 (only once we removed him from the same pre school)

Now Aiden goes to a homeschool group for HG+ kids and the woman there does reading exercises and activities every week. His reading speed has increased drastically since January already (from 42 WPM mid Jan up to 79WPM by Mid March) And he is finally after 18 months of desperate trying able to read that book that had him in tears.

Although there again he read 3 chapters diligently, then now wont even look at the book (and at the moment says he doesnt want to read at all) - hence the love / hate thing. Right now he doesn't want to read, even though last week I took him alone to a book sale to choose books - I let him get a whole box full of new ones (was a bulk warehouse sale).

Any reading specialist I have called (6 to date) keeps telling me that if he can read like that already at age 6 then there is absolutely no problem at all and I am being paranoid and over bearing and pushy.

A few thoughts..

First you might just give him a few more years, he is still quite young. I know it doesn't seem like that to you now. There are many aspects to reading. My DS14 taught himself to read at 3. But at 5-7 didn't really like to read fiction/chapter books. Emotionally & socially he wasn't interested in those books. He mostly read non-fiction science books. IMO it's not uncommon for kids to pick stuff up in a non-linear fashion. READ to him books 2-3 yrs about his reading level, find well written books. Experiment with what he likes to read, as I said at this age my son mostly read non-fiction. Most early reading books are boring & uninspiring and not even that challenging to read.

As for specific exercises that would depend on the type of dyslexia. Dyslexia & language processing problems aren't all the same. It is best to have the kid evaluated/tested and many schools won't do that till kids are a bit older for a good reason. A daughter of a friend, who is an exceptionally gifted young woman didn't really read till the start of 3rd grade, worried her mother because you could tell in other ways she was gifted & bright. But once she started reading she quickly made up for lost time. I believe one of the most important things is to have them LOVE reading & learning.

My DD18 has language processing problems and until she was properly tested in 2nd grade all the efforts to help her were a big guessing game & didn't really work. While it's quite possible your child has a form of dyslexia it's hard to help without you knowing a lot more details. What will help one child might not help yours. I don't know much about stealth dyslexia, but do about language based LD's (learning disabilities) and it's often just one small detail that just eludes our children. My daughter could read the individual words, but had a hard time comprehending what she was reading.

Didn't read this below before my post above.

I know it hard but try not to compare your boys. The older is possibly having a hard time trying to keep up with his brother. Still hard to tell if he does or doesn't have dyslexia without an evaluation from a specialist because there is a HUGE variation on when a kid is developmentally ready to read. And it sounds like he is still ahead of the curve.

That said, if dyslexia is the problem early intervention is key. Try finding someone specifically used to working with dyslexic kids. The local private school for dyslexic kids in my area takes kids as early as pre-K. If private schools will take kids that young, it must be possible to find someone to test him.