Hi, I'm a newly qualified teacher and I think a child in my class maybe dyslexic. His spelling is really far behind (he's 7) and he struggles to remember sequences of letters beyond 3, for example I spelt a word out for him which was 5 letters long and he struggled to remember the second letter. HIs maths skills are also poor but not to the extent of his literacy skills. Are there any ways to test for dyslexia that I can do in the classroom? Thanks in advance for any help!

i Carlie,

I can't really tell you whether this child has Dyslexia without seeing and assessing him. Your best bet is to get a speech and language therapist/pathologist or literacy specialist to assess him. From the sound of it he may have a general all-round delay with his learning, and he may have difficulties with his auditory memory/processing. If he has an all round delay it is more likely that you may be able to get some extra help for him. Many children with dyslexia, are otherwise quite bright and do not fall under certain funding criteria, but this varies from country to country.

To address the literacy issue first, does the boy have (or has he had) delayed speech? This may be a sign that he has a phonological difficulty (hearing and distinguishing sounds and matching them with letters etc). Again, a speech therapist/pathologist is a good option to get this assessed and provide a program. And any phonological work that is done with him should also help if he has dyslexia. A popular program for Dyslexia is the Davis method (see www.dyslexia.com).

There are a number of signs that Dyslexia may be present such as:
- recognizes a word on page, but does not recognize on
following pages
- reading can be very tiring
- may misread words that look similar e.g cold / could
- will mis-read or omit words in a sentence
- there is often letter confusion e.g. b/d m/w etc
- extreme difficulties with spelling
- continual mis-spelling of some common non-phonetic words
- may even mispell a word when it is copied from a book

If the child also has difficulty with auditory processing he may not be following a lot of what is happening in the classroom. There are programs to work on auditory memory, but it is best to remember to keep classroom instructions short and simple and ask for clarification to make sure the child had understood. A company called Phonak provide a device called an Edulink which amplifies the teacher's voice and helps with background noise. Studies show that devices like this have benefitted children auditory processing disorders.

I hope that is of some help. Thanks for using the Forum. Feel free to ask more questions.

Regards Johan