Hi all, I have been sort of concerned for a long time about some issues with DS6's (ADHD, Tourette's) reading. He started reading early, learned letters and letter sounds before 2, learned to sound out and spell words at 2, was able to read simple readers at 3 and more difficult readers/early chapter books at 4. At 5 he was still on early chapter books and his reading seemed to actually get worse, especially speed. Now he is 6, almost 7, and he is still pretty much on early chapter books. He has read some harder things, like Winnie the Pooh, The World According to Humphrey, Beezus and Ramona, Roald Dahl books, etc., but with his slow reading and just listening to him read, I think that he's still more at the Magic Tree House level where he was 2 years ago. I feel like he mastered the basics and then reading just failed to take off like I expected. He does enjoy reading, but not a lot and rarely reads unless I suggest it or even reward it. He also is fine to read instructions in games he wants to play or on worksheets. He often reads signs when we are out and about just because he is interested in what they have to say, so I have to assume that reading isn't super difficult or anything.
Today he told me (after taking his mid year map testing) that the test was easy but that there were some questions that were hard. It turns out they were the ones where you read something and answer questions about it. Presumably reading comprehension. He told me that he often forgets the last sentence when he reads the next one. He says he understands what he is reading, he just can't remember it while he is reading the next sentence. He indicated that this is also a problem when we read aloud to him. I never suspected this as he loves for us to read to him and he gets really into the stories and seems to follow along well with everything we read. He even had me reread Wind in the Willows right after I finished it because he liked it so much and even I sometimes got lost in the run on sentences in that book.
He is currently attending a gifted school and I was told at the beginning of the year that his comprehension was around 2nd grade level, but inferential skills were at grade level (1). This contrasts with math where he is at 4th grade+ and learning algebra and calculus for enrichment. I know that he isn't necessarily going to be gifted in everything equally, but it feels like reading skills just stalled out and may end up going from years ahead to below average by next year. Something seems wrong about this.
We also have writing issues. DS often complains about the amount of writing required at school and does not complete written assignments. He writes the bare minimum if anything. He can give the answers orally to questions. Looking at writing samples online I think he is writing at or slightly below grade level. If asked to write about something he likes or about a book that he read he will write one simple sentence. He understands the rules of punctuation and capitalization, but he does not apply them when he writes. He spells much better orally than he does when writing (he is able to beat adults at Quiddler correctly spelling words like rye and aqua, but when writing his spelling is very phonetic and looks typical for his age). His writing is slow, but neat. Recently he has even begun to complain about having to write longer problems in math as well whereas before he seemed perfectly content to write numbers and math related things just for fun.
I had tried in the past to get him evaluated by the district for some of my concerns over the years, but we are always told that he is ahead in reading/writing and they wouldn't evaluate. I feel like he's no longer ahead and I'm worried he is starting to fall behind. We really can't afford a private evaluation right now. I just made another request for an evaluation hoping that he is finally dropping far enough below his potential for it to look like an evaluation is a good idea.
I guess I'm just wondering if anyone knows what might be going on as well as any strategies that can be used to convince a school district to evaluate for disabilities when the child is at or above grade but well below where they maybe should be performing. If there is some sort of disability causing these problems I want find out sooner rather than later. Or maybe everything is just part of his ADHD and there's not a lot we can do about it? He is already medicated at near the max for his age and at a level high enough to help tremendously with behavior and a higher dose is really not something we are considering right now. The counselor at his school also mentioned anxiety/OCD issues (which we've also seen some of at home) and we may need to look into that at some point and consider additional meds if things get worse (my threshold for trying meds is whether he can or can't attend school without them, right now he can, but barely).
So right now I'm just info gathering and bugging the district again. Google searches haven't been particularly useful and every LD I read about doesn't seem to fully apply, he will tick some of the boxes, but some items will be entirely untrue for him. Of course it doesn't help that all of these checklists are designed for children in the average range of intellectual functioning. I wish they would give different lists for different ability levels. I'm sure most of the LD's look pretty different in kids with well below average IQ as well. OTOH, there probably isn't any real research on exceptional kids at either end and how LD's present in those groups. Maybe one of our kids will grow up and go into psych research and fix this?
