Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Should I worry about this? LONG...

Hi,

LONG...

I am really not sure of I should be posting here or not. I am conscious that I might just be worrying too much, however I thought I would ask your opinions'.

Dd (just 5) was tested on the SB5 at 4y 3m. Her scores were FSIQ 144, with a non-verbal score of 150. Her verbal score was 134 (I think, I don't have the figures in front of me), however she didn't complete two of the verbal subtests (test fatigue - she refused). Despite her being so young, the tester (who only serves gifted kids, so very experienced) felt her score was an underestimate. This is borne out by what she does at home (she's yet to start school). She reads at a 4-5th grade level, including comprehension (assessed using the DORA online assessment mentioned elsewhere on this site a few weeks ago, but also reflected in what she does read when she chooses to, which is not often). She is currently doing a maths work book for 9 yos with no trouble (and this despite the fact that mostly she spends her day playing.) She's not terribly interested in academic stuff as a rule, other than science, so she hasn't had much practice at either compared to what I read about. I'll be curious to see how things progress when she starts school next year.

What worries me is that she seems to display some symptoms that I (in a very uneducated fashion) associate with dyslexia. She writes her numbers backwards - not just writing an individual number back to front, but she will write 51 for 15 for example, on a regular basis. When I have gently pointed out that they are around the wrong way, she will say 'but it doesn't matter while we're home mum' (I mentioned it will be important to write numbers the right way at school if she can). In fact I would say she rarely gets them the right way round. Her letters have gotten better with practice and she does do a lot more writing than maths, so perhaps it's just a practice thing.

The other symptoms that I have noticed are that she will often substitute words while reading, using words that use a different combination of the letters contained in the text or substituting a word that 'looks' similar. She knows her phonics, but is reluctant to sound words out and often skips letters and sounds when she does. She will often read a word perfectly on one page and then be stumped by it on the next. Familiar words on their own can confound her. She can seem to read some very complex words without issue, but struggles with easier ones. She often writes b and d around the wrong way and puts the stroke on her y's and p's on the wrong side.

Her spelling is not great, assessed at barely a grade 1 level on the DORA test (great for someone who has not yet started school and who doesn't practice much, but well below her reading level). She tends to spell phonetically, but often leaves out vowels. I was a bad speller - so maybe it's just genetic!

She hates maths facts and struggles with them (again, me too), but gets more abstract concepts seemingly immediately (though as I understand it, that is not uncommon for gifted kids anyway).

Having said all that, her hand writing is very good. She picked up phonics easily, but struggles to apply it. She misses most punctuation, but picks up some without fail (I.e. quotation and exclamation marks).

She has great motor skills, gross and fine. She is great with rhyming and her reading is for the most part pretty fluent. I don't pick her up on a lot of her mistakes (she is super perfectionistic, so I tend to praise what is correct rather that draw attention to errors). She's (surprisingly, given how much any other error upsets her) unfazed by these errors. So I am not sure if perhaps it's just that she isn't interested in this level of detail at the moment and/or perhaps I haven't taught her enough to enable her to complete these things correctly. Or if it is somethings that is more of an issue.

Any thoughts?

Hi Giftodd
I like that you just look at what is right. I also think it is ok to teach some guidance about what matters to school.
I will want you to be prepared that most schools don't expect abstract thinking To develop until age12 and don't celebrate it When it shows up early.

I would try to encourage activities where the hands are both used and the hands cross the midline....swimming martial arts. I would also train detail recognition with games like concentration and close your eyes and tell me what color is my shirt.

I would guess that her eye muscles are only age appropriate so reading isn't fun yet. Keep playing catch with her!

Love and more love
Grinity

Hi Giftodd

I think we have the same kid!! I cold have written very similar about DS 5. And I have missed the DORA site, I am going to check that out. For DS it's been writing and the same issues with numbers. And I too have dyslexia.what many have told me here and elsewhere is that the reversal of numbers and letters is very common prior to first grade and even then. Also it's been point out to not expect universal development. DS writing skills are of a non advanced 5 year old. That being said we took him to the OT because of frustration and unwillingness to do it, so we only did 6 weeks because it wasn't the right place but it was enough for now because it got him willing to do it, just yesterday we sat down and made a list of rules for dog inventors, in the past he would have said you do it and this time we did it together will him writing most of 2 sentences. But he writes too big and he still sort of freezes as if he says, how do I write this letter before starting. But the OT gave us tricks, like makes spaced vertical lines to have him out the letters in so he knows what size to make them. The numbers stuff freaked me out, he will say 31 for 13 can count to 100 but forgets the teens etc. Yet he knows how to calculate area. I did a post on this a few days ago and so eons recommended a book and said that it's typical for gifted kids to be advanced in concepts but not necessarily numbers. And the reading, last week, reading the magic tree house series, DS on e way home from school said one of the characters was a "scornerer" a what, I was stumped. So when we got home I had him spell it, I had asked him to put it in a sentence but he couldn't because the word had been in one of those sentences, so and so is a. .. And the context didn't help him. So he remembered how he thought it was spelled and I wrote it down and realized it was sorcerer. I was actually pretty impressed how close he was, he was thrown by the fact of the soft and hard c. It happens a lot that he reads it and assigns it a pronunciation in his head tha is usually wrong, and he won't stop to ask. But I am not worried about that, and for him it's exposure not problems with the letters. Basically he is trying to make it like things he has heard, it has seemed to us that he learns vocabulary verbally from ours and then can recognize it written, so when that hasn't happened he tries to apply the rules he knows,a nd in my view its a good try. And he hates phonics, won't sound a thing out, learns a whole word once. He tries to figure by context. And he skips words because he reads so fast, so do I!!

So basically, you could be right about dyslexia but you could also be way way too early. Me I have tried to ease off on it but it creeps up every so often, the only thing to say is to keep watching and showing the correct way to do it.. You are SOOOOOO not alone here!! And sorry for all the typos, darn iPad won't let me correct a long one!!

DeHe

Hi Giftodd,
It sounds like your daughter has some amazing strengths. The reading mistakes that your describe are very common in people with dyslexia - substituting words that have the same initial letter, letter reversals, ability to recognize a word one minute and then not the next, difficulty with rote tasks such as math facts and poor spelling.

That said, the fact that your child is reading at least 5 years ahead (regardless of her IQ) is pretty amazing. My very dyslexic son is in the 8th grade and despite very intensive reading remediation, reads at about the 5th grade level. He is not has bright as your daughter, but very bright none the less.

I think it would be wise to keep an eye on things, but remember that she most likely has had little instruction in phonics/phonemic awareness. This tells me that she was able to break the code on her own. This will impact her spelling. True dyslexics usually cannot do this without explicit instruction. In fact it is their inability to understand and apply the code consistently and independently that is the hallmark of the disability. As you noted, letter directionality does not fully develop until about 2 or 3 grade. She has great rhyming skills - rhyming is something that most dyslexics cannot do. (part of the phonemic awareness deficit). Her fluency is great - most dyslexics struggle with rate and accuracy.

Here is a link to the international dyslexia association - you may want to bookmark it to keep an eye on things http://www.interdys.org/.

Here is a link to a table for reading fluency. Again, you can use it for ongoing monitoring - but she has most likely already achieved top level rates for older age groups. http://www.readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/Hasbrouck-Tindal_chart.pdf

It sounds like your daughter is doing very well. The fact that she is reading FOR MEANING at higher grade levels is very impressive. The fact that she can go beyond the concrete at such a young age shows great promise. I really wouldn't worry about her "relatively" lower performance on certain aspects of decoding and encoding. These are very low level skills (necessary, yes) and she has demonstrated mastery well beyond what is expected at her age.

Thanks for your responses. I sometimes find it hard to know what is 'normal' development, what is asynchronous and what needs worrying about! I will keep an eye on it. Thanks for the links too.