Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Is my bright kindergartener learning-disabled?

I am a little worried that DS (5) might have dyslexia or dysgraphia or both (not that I know much about either one). He is having the hardest time learning to read and write. He does not recognize the shapes of words at all, and has to sound out even the simplest sight-words that he's seen hundreds of times. His spelling is completely phonetic. He mixes up the orientation of letters, and sometimes writes whole words backwards and upside-down.

He has been able to write his own name for a couple of years, and had memorized a few (Mommy, Daddy, you, etc.) But he has now ditched the memorized spelling for a phonetic one -- “you” is now “yoow,” for example.

He started kindergarten this fall, and so far it has been very stressful for him (and the whole family) -- he comes home exhausted, grumpy and oversensitive and has been acting quite aggressively, which is unusual for him. He is not at all excited to go to school and has a hard time completing his school work and homework. And because he has not been able to finish his writing assignments at school, the teacher sends them home for him to complete each evening, so we are spending all our free time doing homework and the poor kid gets very little down-time.

DS's teachers tell me not to be concerned, as he is still very young and within the normal range in terms of mastering reading and writing, but still my "mom alarm" is going off. He appears to be extremely bright -- he was a very early talker and his vocabulary is huge; he grasps mathematical concepts easily and does mental calculations quickly; he is very logical and is a good problem-solver. I just feel that, being so bright, reading and writing should not be this hard for him to master.

DS has a gifted older brother (10), who began to read before he was 3. So I don’t really have any experience with a “normal” reader, and I could be expecting too much from my younger one… but I really just feel that something is wrong.

Is there any way to test a child this young? And if he is dyslexic, what can be done to help him cope? I hate to see him falling behind his peers and losing his confidence.

Thank you for any advice you can give.

What method are they using at school? If he is having to sound the words put at school he will do it at home (my son never counted on his fingers until he went to school). In my opinion also there is no justification to se..nd unfinished work home or for him to do it other times at school. Whatever he manages should be praised and encouraged. If he is deliberately avoiding they should find out why not pass the problem to you.

I have a very similar situation going on with my kindergartener. He is getting a private assessment in a few weeks for giftedness, LD's, etc.

There is a lot of information about dyslexia at www.dyslexicadvantage.com and you might be able to get a recommendation for a competent specialist in your area. There is also a forum there similar to this one. You might want to post your question there too.

I would talk to the teacher about the homework. If you think your child is having to spend too much time on school work at home you need to let the teacher know. She might be sending something home that she thinks will take fifteen minutes that is taking your child forty five minutes.

They are using a combination of phonics and sight-word memorization... possibly a factor.

I agree about the unfinished work. I do feel as though they're not doing their job and passing the problem on to me. Thanks, puffin -- I think I need to confront his teacher about that.

Has he had a thorough vision exam? Particularly one where each eye is screened separately. DS has perfectly fine vision in one eye, but the other has huge astigmatism that led to amblyopia and threw off hand eye stuff and close up work. And we didn't notice except for a sharp pediatrician who didn't accept his assistant's assessment that DS just wasn't cooperative. I think you have to eliminate vision before anythng else.

Next it could be they are teaching inventive spelling at K and that is throwing a monkey wrench into everything he thought he understood. Which could make for a pretty stressful mental self concept.

Or he could also be trying to dumb down to fit in with kids.

DS5 has the exact same issues! And we too are concerned with dyslexia / dysgraphia. He just turned 5 last months so I am trying to not rush things but I just don't understand how a child as bright as him who understands everything else pretty much instantly can be so lost in the concept of reading / writing. The school is not concerned because he's still doing well compared to his classmates but knowing him, we just see things are not right. If things don't pick up on their own by mid year, we will be pushing for an evaluation.

It's even harder for us to watch when his younger brother (DS3.6) learned to read on his own before he was 2.5 years old (and he's the one with disabilities)

If your child went to K and it has been around 1 month, I would say wait and watch one more month. The new schedule is hard to adjust to for 1-2 months and it accounts for a lot of the moodiness and grumpiness. I had the same suspicions as you for the same reasons. My child was writing horribly in K and it improved a lot over the K year. He still has letter reversals in 1st grade, but he is catching them and fixing them himself. My DS is ambidextrous - that was one of the reasons that he was writing his name backwards. And my DS could read a book if I put it upside down - so it probably made sense to him to write upside down too. I was alarmed and I was told by my pediatrician, K teacher, preschool teacher that things will sort themselves out later on and I was sceptical. But, I am seeing that with the rigor of writing in K and 1st, the problems are resolving themselves. So, please get his vision examined and if there are no problems, just observe him for a few months and see if things improve. And let the K teacher know that you have these concerns and ask her to keep an eye on your DS's work and let you know what she thinks.
And let your DS get more rest. That helps during the first few months of K.
Good luck.

You described my son when he was in K, and he does have dyslexia and dysgraphia.

The teachers convinced me to wait to evaluate and I did, until the beginning of 2nd grade! At that point, the 2nd grade teacher told me a new story-- that some boys just "click" a little later and I would see him take off in March of his 2nd grade year.

I wish I had followed my mom gut instead of the teachers' advice. Problem is he has an extremely advanced PG brother and the teachers all said I had no idea what typical was. (True.) But I think they just thought he was slow and I knew he wasn't. The school wouldn't evaluate him because he was still within the range of normal.

I had him evaluated at our Children's Hospital and the tester told me she could tell from his writing sample before she even met him that he was dyslexic. (Why couldn't the teachers?!!) Yes, they can diagnose it in K.

My advice is to not wait for an evaluation. It took 4 years for my son to recover from his feelings of inadequacy and frustration in school. If we had had him tutored in K, instead of starting in 2nd grade when he felt stupid, it would have been a blessing.

He's doing really well now in 6th grade-- dyslexia's not a huge issue anymore, but dysgraphia always will be-- and it's been a long road to recovery. He decided in 2nd grade that he hates to read, and I'm not sure he'll ever change his mind, even though he just took a reading test and he's in the 80th percentile for his age. I think earlier intervention could have prevented that.

One question to ask the teachers telling you to hold off on requesting an evaluation-- what experience do they have with children who have dyslexia in K? If they say they don't have much experience, ignore them.

I think Yale has the most informative website about dyslexia. http://www.dyslexia.yale.edu/ (I just went to the web site and I remember that one reason I was willing to wait on a diagnosis is that my son didn't have the language problems described on the site. He had an amazing vocabulary, talked early and knew he letters by age 2. But he just couldn't make the connection from letters to words without direct intervention.)

I'm another one who had these concerns in K and turned out to be right. I fought and fought to try to get an evaluation but the school kept saying "She'd never qualify for services - she's too smart." When I specifically asked about the possibility of dyslexia the literacy specialist refused to make eye contact and insisted on changing the subject. We knew DD had a fine motor deficit and had her in private OT but I was not aware enough to force the issue of dysgraphia.

The instant the school psych from our home district saw a sample of DD's writing she agreed to do a spec ed assessment. The inter-district magnet she was attending was still refusing so it really depends on the policies in your specific school as to whether or not they will follow your "mom gut" and evaluate. Personally I would start asking about it now since it could take some time to get the school on board. The issue will either resolve itself or you will be that much further along in the process of getting them to test.

And yes have his vision checked. Like syoblrig my DD also was an early talker with a huge vocabulary. She has now been identified with just about every possible LD there is so you just never know...

Oh - and just say "No" to the extra writing for homework. Personally I'm opposed to the idea of homework in K but if they send it he really shouldn't have to spend more than 10-15 minutes at most total. If he cannot do it in class they need to address why, not make him do it at home.

The book Overcoming Dyslexia has lots of good information in it about what dyslexia looks like in young children. What you're describing sounds like it could be dyslexia to me. I'd also get him a developmental vision exam just to be sure that eye problems aren't contributing to the problem.