Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Reading struggles

The education system is good at teaching - not educating.

Think back - of all the teachers you have known, how many were educators also?

Thanks

R

Dd does like magazines and graphic novels better, but she reads magazines really only if she needs or wants the info, not for pleasure. She did used to have issues with losing her place on pages with a lot of words, but does not anymore. She can read busy small print novels without needing a finger to follow along, for instance.

Her bigger issue is it sounding somewhat choppy when she reads out loud. It isn't fluid like speech much of the time especially with books that are at or above grade level.

In re to vision therapy, I have to admit that I am a bit of a skeptic. We looked into it a few years back for dd11 b/c the center that tested her at 7 suggested that her slower PSI indicated a potential tracking issue. Given that she could read books like the unabridged Call of the Wild by 7 with no tracking issues, we were not sure that she really had tracking issues and didn't spend a bunch of time investigating that one for her.

What left me unsure was that none of the opthomologists with whom I spoke who did vision therapy could tell me that there was a totally objective means of saying, "yes, there is a problem." It seemed too subjective for my tastes and I've spoken with some parents who have had great success as well as others who felt like they spent thousands of dollars over the course of months and months of therapy and saw no improvement at all. Since our insurance does not cover vision therapy, I just don't know if I want to take that expensive of a gamble.

We did have her eyes checked for just basic glasses type of stuff about a year and a half ago. She was mildly more far sighted than typical for her age. We got her a mild prescription that didn't seem to do much of anything and she stopped wearing the glasses for reading when the novelty & fashion statement wore off.

My cousin's DS had a tracking problem. His was pretty extreme and it hindered his reading ability all together. His mom felt so guilty that she hadn't caught it, but they finally diagnosed him at the end of 1st grade. With therapy he was able to catch up with his age mates and is doing fine now.

Cricket, Does DD have any issues with her writing or spelling? does she have better comprehension on longer passages than short ones? read fine silently but struggle to read aloud fluently?

Since I read your post, I've been trying to remember where I heard some of this information. I re-listened to part of a webinar that the Eides did on gifted dyslexics. They mentioned that tests typically used to detect dyslexia in the general population don't track well for gifted dyslexics, including phonological awareness and reading comprehension. They said that a typical GORT result for a gifted dyslexic shows high comprehension but low rate and fluency. They went on to say that only four of the tests that they typically give to detect dyslexia work consistently for gifted kids. These are writing sample, spelling, reading aloud and pseudo decoding (not sure what the last one is). They also mentioned that some of these kids have issues with eye function that exacerbate their dyslexic processing style. I didn't go through the whole DVD again.

I just wanted to pass along that info before you completely rule it out. Good luck figuring it out.

On the GORT, her scores were as follows:

Rate: scaled score 11/percentile 63rd
Accuracy: 16/98th
Fluency: 14/91st
Comprehension: 17/99th
Oral Reading Quotient: 133/99th

I would say that she reads more fluently silently than aloud based upon what she is telling me but she still reads fairly slowly silently. For instance, she hasn't managed to finish Sea of Trolls, a book she started before school got out in May, yet. I think at this point she's planning to just give up and never finish the book. That's not uncommon for her. She rarely finishes books unless they are short or she has to for school.

As far as spelling and writing -- on the WIAT, her scores on the reading and spelling parts they were:

Reading subtests:
Word reading std score: 114/82nd
Reading comprehension: 128/97th
Pseudoword decoding: 114/82nd
Composite: 125/95th

Written language subtests:
Spelling: 113/81st
Written expression: 140/99.6th
Composite: 133/99th

None of this looks bad based upon those scores, but the full print out she gave us put her reading rate on the WIAT in the bottom 25% and reading comprehension in the top 25%. That looked like an odd pattern and certainly what I see at home as well.

If dyslexia is a possibility, I am wondering what one does to treat it? Can it be treated? I'd be totally open to just implementing the techniques for a gifted dyslexic and seeing if it did anything for her.

Personally, I would be disinclined to see dyslexia in those scores. I highly recommend trying either large print books, a line guide short enough to sweep across the page, or a small colored overlay before looking at more complex interventions. I really have seen a pattern with kids who take in the "whole word" or "whole sentence" at once being less fluent and more "tired out" by reading. I see it less as a disability question than as an environmental comfort question--sort of like how some people can't relax in a cluttered environment or an environment with background noise. Page clutter can be unpleasant too.

Someone once posed a great question to me about senses: which sense did I recieve the most pleasure/comfort through and which sense did I recieve the most discomfort/irritation through. One night when I was a camp counselor I posed the question to a group of other counselors while we were staffing an overnight. It was fascinating. I don't think I really appreciated until that night how differently people could be impacted by the same stimuli. It's definitely broadened my thinking about what may and may not constitute an overwhelming distraction or irritant to someone else.

From what I'm reading about dyslexia--for my verbal child for whom reading has seemed to be almost physically painful at times--it's not usually diagnosed as "dyslexia." Dyslexia just means "trouble with reading," and it says nothing about the causes of the trouble, which are pretty important if you want to help a kid overcome the problems.

Cricket2: I don't have an answer for you about whether kids with strong verbal skills can either excel at nor like reading and yet not have any substantial problem. I'm trying to figure that very same thing out about my DS6. My mom-gut (and his tester) say that something is not right for him.

I think I'd be tempted to wonder the same thing about your DD, though I'd trust your mom-gut about your kid long before I'd trust any idle speculation on my part or anyone else's. Do you think there's a problem?

We are taking DS6 in to be evaluated by a program that specializes in LDs. There's a 6 month wait, but hopfully we'll figure it out. My biggest worry is that his GTness will mask the LDs, and they won't have enough experience with 2E kids to spot the problem.

Honestly, something just feels off to me especially since dd herself tells me that she thinks that she'd like reading more if wasn't so hard.

That's kind of where I'm at with dd9, too. The psychologist who tested her last year wrote into her report that there was no way that she had a LD or anything else like ADHD. However, part of her ruling out things like ADHD were due to dd's teacher who filled out the BASQ indicating that she exhibited no issues at school. The teacher didn't get dd at all, though, and also indicated on her paperwork, according to the psych, that dd was "nothing special." That wasn't written into the report, just conveyed to us verbally.

The psychologist really had a lot more experience with LDs than giftedness and I felt that the report was written in such a way as to make us out to be parents who were stressing our kid out wanting her to be bright. I've really tried to avoid stressing dd, but her performance is so erratic and I strongly get the impression from dd that she is frustrated herself and putting on an air of not caring in order to not let on that she can't do some things. Dd seems to question her own abilities and feel like she isn't gifted.

We did the second testing to find out if the first IQ test was way off and if we should be trying to find a way to help her cope with being much less able than her sister, if that was the case, or to figure out if something was standing in her way otherwise. I can't say that it really answered any questions for us, though.

I trust you more than the psychologist, whom it doesn't sound like has much experience with 2E kids.

Erratic, glitchy performance is the same thing that has set off my mom-gut. I think that's a valid reason to suspect something 2E-ish is up. Your DD's lackadasical attitude would also make me ask questions.

Have you asked her about how she feels about reading? If it's hard for her and why? I wonder if maybe she is old enough to point you in the right directions.

You might consider consulting with the Eides. I have heard that they can do phone consultations (though I don't know this for a fact), and maybe they can make some suggestions? I've considered trying to speak with them about our DS6, but first I'm going to try the local place--with the tester's ID that he's HG+, to try to make it clear that his "low performance" will be relative to his capabilities, which are higher than average.

My big worry is that they'll see that he's above average and think nothing is wrong. But he's not much above average, and certainly he resists reading. Given his high WISC scores and his weird glitches about both reading and math (and writing, for that matter), I feel like something is up.

I wish I had more help to offer. I definitely think that if you feel like something isn't right, you are doing the right thing to pursue it. You certainly don't sound like a crazy, pushy mom to me. No way!