Your DD sounds a lot like my HG DD9 who struggles with dyslexia and dysgraphia. After watching our DD struggle in her 1st grade gt class, we paid for private IQ and achievement testing. These tests highlighted the disparity between her cognitive ability and her performance. It also persuaded us, as parents, to fight to keep her in the gt classroom and persuaded the school that she needed to be there.
Since then, we paid for vision therapy and found that it did help with the headaches and words moving on the page. It did not help with her writing challenges or change the fact that her brain works differently. I forget the proper term but she does not seem to have automatic word forms. She has to figure things out from scratch every time --particularly with spelling. We too have the problem that she can learn words for a spelling test but they don't transfer to her writing -- it's like they are stored in a different part of the brain that can't be accessed while she is thinking and writing.
Last year, with the support of her second grade teacher, we got her a 504 plan so she gets extra time on tests. She also is allowed to use a keyboard (though they haven't provided any training so DD doesn't really use one yet -- a typing class is on my list for this summer). Unfortunately, I think that DD will have to bomb the writing portion of her state standardized tests before the school will consider an IEP.
I agree that you need an evaluation. If you can afford one, a private evaluation may prove to be more objective.
