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
