Hi all,
Sorry I haven't been here in a while.
Things have been so much better for DS9 at the new school, however I've realised that while he is no longer refusing to do classwork/avoiding work etc as he was at the old school and before we discovered some visual issues, I feel like we are still missing something.
He reads really well - he has done so since kindergarten, but before we found the visual issues, would often skip or replace one small word for another (and for the, leave out an/a/he etc), and had problems with keeping his place. This has all improved drastically since getting glasses and doing some visual therapy.
However - we still have a reading level of (I could have interpreted this incorrectly, but it seems to be) about a 7th grade level (he is finishing 3rd grade now [we're in South Africa]); BUT his comprehension is really poor (I'm not even sure I can say I feel this is at grade level).
His school runs a "reading bingo" challenge offering various levels - i.e. level one has them read a book with at least 85 pages, a Dr Seuss book, a book of poems, a joke book, etc, and then increases to reading Dahl, Diary of a Wimpy kid type stuff and so on.
The most recent level has one of the items as a book with at least 350 pages. We got him one of the How to train your dragon series books with 400 odd pages and he claimed to have finished it in about 3 days - when pushed a little (he reads fast, but not quite that fast) he admitted that he had skipped all the pages with text only...
Surely this isn't normal?
We suspected dysgraphia last year, but he did the edublox programme (old name was audiblox), and his handwriting improved to match grade level. However, his writing ability is also not what I'd call a match for his reading. By this I mean when he's asked to write a paragraph, he seems to have no idea how to do this, even though he's read many of them, and has been taught how, if the instructions say the paragraph must be at least 5 sentences, he will simply write 5 unrelated sentences.
I do realise that all kids are going to have strengths and weaknesses, however, I don't feel that that is the case here - there is just too big a gap, and to me, if reading is really strong, shouldn't it follow that comprehension and tasks like paragraph writing should be similarly good?
Please, if you have any ideas or can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it!
(Just want to add that while he has done much better at the new school, he has not been skipped/accelerated etc, and the only extension he has really done is the reading bingo. I think the teacher is open to offering and helping with extension, but I think something is keeping him from tackling this. There is definitely a discrepancy between demonstrated potential and performance. We are going to be homeschooling next year and want to skip him in the areas where it will best serve his needs - at the same time we don't want to do this if it's just going to frustrate him due to perhaps 2e issues we don't know about.)
