Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Reading struggles

I need some input on behalf of my dd9 if anyone has any. She has been tested twice on the WISC - once at 7.5 and once at 8.5. She will be 10 at the end of Sept. and a 5th grader. After much work with her district, she has a GT language arts id although I don't really believe that to be her stronger area innately.

The first time on the WISC her VCI score was 142 (99.7th percentile) and the second time 136 (99th percentile). I double checked the scaled scores and they were 18, 18, 15 on the first testing and the second time they were 19, 17 and 12. She also took the WIAT and GORT (Gray's oral reading test) at the same time as the second WISC administration. Her reading comprehension composite was at the 95th and writing at the 99th on the WIAT and, she was at the 98th or 99th for reading on the GORT (I think 98th). Math was also 98th on the WIAT, but I am leaving out high PRI and other things that are not as applicable to reading here.

She apparently reads somewhat above grade level but really doesn't enjoy reading. She has always had some degree of lacking fluency in her reading and it frustrates her. When she was younger, she frequently missed easy words like "for" substituting "from," for instance while reading words like "peculiar" correctly. That seems to have gone away as she's gotten older. The halting lack of fluency remains to some extent, though.

On the GORT, her comprehension was in the top quartile (4th) while her speed was in the bottom quartile (1st). She is telling me that she thinks that she would enjoy reading more if it wasn't so hard and if she could read better.

We've been repeatedly assured by psychs who have tested her that there is no way that she is dyslexic. Dh also reads rather slowly so I don't know if there is some genetic component. Other than assuring her that she needs to read more and giving her tips on letting her eyes move fluidly over the page aiming to grasp the main ideas rather than see the exact meaning of every word as she goes along, I don't know what else to tell her.

Is it possible for a child with rather high verbal IQ scores to be fairly average in terms of her reading achievement and to not like reading?

My ds now 7 scored 99 VCI and has been behind grade level in reading until the last few months and is Currently just a little ahead. He canfinally decode reliably (except small words he hurries over) so now we are working on punctuation like periods and commas. In my layperson's view I say he has "dyslexic tendencies". I really wonder how dyslexia may be mediated by high verbal abilities.

I've noticed that while many readers automatically read left to right, there are others who see the whole word or sentence at once, which slows them down (especially reading out loud). You might try getting single line reading window (if you have a local education supply store they'll probably have one) and cut it to the size of 1 to 2 words. Teach your dd to slide it across the page as she reads. If this is the issue, she'll be able to fade it out after awhile because her eyes will pick up that pattern of tracking. Or...try different colored overlays. Some people have a strong preference for seeing the text against a background that is a color other than white. A final idea: check out a large print version of a book she would like to read. See if she finds it more enjoyable to read when the page is less visually cluttered. This sounds similar to students who are able to spin lengthy and detailed oral stories but who balk at writing them down because the physical act of writing feels slow and cumbersome. If you can take the cumbersomeness out of the physical act of reading, maybe her enjoyment will come to match her ability.

My older kiddo loves to read. When she was younger the teachers always gave her to easy readers... They tested by having her read out loud... Well she would skip the little words and would often replace a word with another word with close enough meaning. She would read the big words fine. This has also improved with time. There is question of dyslexia due to family members having it etc. We took her to a vision therapist and they prescribed prism glasses that help the eyes to work more efficiently together. I am still skeptical but she tells me time and time again that it makes it much easier to read. I believe her because she has not misplaced the glasses and when ever she is reading she has them on... I do not have to remind her. She is an avid reader anyways but she does tend to avoid books with smaller print.... The insurance covered the glasses.

You may want to check out the Eide's section on Stealth Dyslexia in their Mislabeled Child book. They used to have a good summary on their website but the link is no longer valid. You could also look at Sally Shaywitz's Overcoming Dyslexia. They both discuss how dyslexia manifests very differently in gifted kids. I have no idea whether any of this will apply but it might help you gain clarity.

Thanks for the suggestions thus far. It seems to me that something is off and I have tossed around the idea of a LD in my mind for years, but am just not sure. The thing that doesn't seem to fit re stealth dyslexia is that she has always tested advanced on phonics (tests like DIBELS in early elementary where they have to decode nonsense words using phonics always came back very advanced).

I did find an interview online with Sally Shaywitz here and she also mentions speech delays -- minor or major. I've heard this before in re to a sign of dyslexia. Granted, I'm dealing with a gifted child but even for a gifted child her speech was not at all delayed. She was putting two words together at 5.5 months. I recall carrying her into the bathroom at that age and her pointing at the tub and saying, "mama, a bat!"

Other signs of dyslexia (motion sickness, others I can't recall right now) do fit, though.

Visual processing problems seem more likely to me than dyslexia. Is that something you've considered?

DS7 scored 155 for his VCI. He reads a lot, but it's all science magazines and age-level and slightly beyond sci-fi stories. He actually says he dislike reading, but he spends most of his free time doing it. I gather he dislikes the books I recommend to him (fiction for 10yo) which he has no problems reading but no love either (with one or two exceptions).

Would introducing your daughter to magazine-type reading help? Someone pointed out that it's because the articles are shorter and there are lots of pictorials which may appeal. In my son's case, he does have an attention issue, which is why he loves the short, punchy articles (well, shorter than a book). DS also had a visual tracking and convergence issue - he underwent therapy for close to a year and is pronounced to be normal now. This could have led to his shorter attention span for reading lengthy books - old habits are hard to break, possibly.

Cricket2, does you daughter fit the bill here?

BTW, I saw a huge step up in reading after vision therapy, from when he turned 6.

Eide is very interesting, with a cautious note about how unresolved issues surrounding dyslexia will impact on the kids later on.

I have a friend who always insisted he was dyslexic - yet he would relate in detail the plot of a story he had read (boring you to tears in the process by-the-way. I am thinking of a particularly long journey on the London Tube where I foolishly asked a simple question about the film 'Dune'. Well, I got whole chapter and verse for nearly an hour. Dyslexic?)

I am always surprised to see how so many giftedness tests have 'reading' or 'reading at a certain age' being signs of gifted people. Can't have been many gifted people around before the advent of the written word about 5000 years ago then :-)

Perhaps some people just hate reading, some love it.

This is not to say I don't have issues with my little'un. I LOVE reading and always have. Little'un wouldn't think of picking up a book. Perhaps he finds it tedious/boring. He is way ahead in intelligence and understanding than I was at 10 y.o., and I was classed as very bright.

How do kids get their info. these days. How well do they negotiate reference books, the internet.

As Homer might have said, wondering where all the people who used to sit around the fire listening to him telling stories had gone might have said - "since books came along, story-telling ain't what it used to be". Well, we have videos and DVDs, CDs, audiobooks and TV and BluRay. Story telling has evolved and the idea of getting info from reading may one day seem as arcane as chiselling the shopping list on a clay tablet in cuneiform does today :-)

Show your kid Cosmos by Sagan, or Jim Khalil on Chemistry, or Eureka (physics - Youtube) and you kid might be like little'un and know more about science in 5 hours than you managed to glean in 5 years at High School poring over books. He might actually grasp quite complex scientific concepts - like Kepler's discovery of elliptical orbits which my son's teacher is quite proud to know nothing about! Same is true for history - you in the US are lucky to have Ken Burns. Same is true for literature) If they fire his interest he might just want to get stuck into the paper himself.

We live in a visual, instant info. age. I'm not saying I like it, because I don't, but it is just the way it is. Maybe we have to adjust the way we see or evaluate non-readers? Dunno

Just rambling I'm afraid.

maybe you kid just needs to find the right book "get the fire going"?

By the way, are there any online dyslexia tests available? Might help?

Raddy, we are only now discovering the world of educational TV. DS7 has kept away because of the violent advertisements that accompany prime time TV - it freaks him out. He's better able to cope now, and we are discovering the joys of Bang Goes the The Theory on BBC Knowledge.

I just checked out Youtube and I see Jim Khalil and Eureka. In fact, Youtube is perfect because there are no adverts. And your recommendations are phenomenal! I'll start a thread in the "Recommended Resources" section as soon as I've written this.

I so agree with you on re-evaluating non-readers. The key for me is the comprehension of information and not the accumulation of information itself. As you've pointed out, there are so many methods of delivery these days. So long as the interest is stimulated, the child will look for a way to satisfy his curiosity. This precisely is the love of learning.