Children with suspected dyslexia should be supported from nursery age to avoid a “miserable” school life, according to a specialist teacher who says she was forced to remove her son from one school.
There is concern that chronic shortages of ASL (additional support for learning) workers and inadequate training in the primary education curriculum is leaving children with the most common learning disability floundering and suffering poor mental health - avoidably.
Many assessors prefer to wait until children have several years of formalised teaching before assessing for dyslexia but experts say the signs should be recognised and support given at the earliest possible stage.
Parents say that even when there is a formal diagnosis, there is a “constant process” of having to remind teachers to put measures in place such as extra time and separate accommodation for tests.
Julie McNeill, whose husband Paul and two children all have dyslexia says, the support provided by additional support workers is “brilliant” but they are in short supply and “pulled in too many different directions”.
“They can build those relationships that teachers are not able to with big classes of 30,” said the 42-year-old who lives in Bishopbriggs.
“But there seems to be less and less of them and they are pulled in all sorts of different directions and covering classes and not doing the kind of work that would make a difference.”
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She says her son Shea, 12, was “pretty miserable” in primary because he wasn’t receiving any support for his dyslexia, which was not formally assessed until P6.
She said: “With him [his dyslexia] was to do with processing speeds. His reading and writing was fine for his age so it was potentially more difficult to pick up.
“But we had to flag it because his dad is dyslexic and it can have a genetic factor but I think because he wasn’t bottom of the class they were thinking there is nothing wrong with him. But he could have been doing a lot better than he was doing.”
She says she firmly believes some schools are simply better than others at recognising dyslexia and providing support.
She said: “I think some schools just have the right people in the right places.”
Her daughter, Bella, had her dyslexia assessment much earlier in primary three and is doing well.
“She’s had a better experience even though she struggles more with her dyslexia because she’s had an earlier identification and they’ve put the right things in place for her,” said the mum-of-two.
“I think you can definitely make a good assessment of it in nursery, when they start forming their letters and following instructions.
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“It’s not done generally until primary five or six, which means a kid has been struggling and feeling stupid for seven or eight years by that point.
“Their confidence is shot. My son was getting pulled out of class and not understanding why.
“He’s now at the stage where they are offering him interventions in high school but he doesn’t want to do it because of the stigma, whereas if you can get the differentiation right, early, like they did with my daughter...she’s actually quite proud of the fact she is dyslexic and her brain is a bit different and that she can do things that other people can’t do.
She added: “If you are not getting the recognition until high school, you are going through a big part of your life feeling like you are stupid.”
Dyslexia is defined as a “continuum of difficulties” in learning to read, write and/or spell and is a registered disability under equality legislation. There are often associated difficulties with oral language skills and reading fluency, short-term and working memory, number skills and organisational ability.
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However, according to Dyslexia Scotland there are many - if not more - associated strengths including 3D thinking, imagination, visualising, curiosity, self-understanding,problem solving, and divergent thinking
Mrs McNeill says teacher training for dyslexia makes up a very small part of the curriculum.
“I think it’s about half a day. And the CPD (continuing professional development) they do in schools is not and that is because they have other pressures.
“They don’t have the knowledge so they don’t know how to support dyslexic children. That’s my believe from working in schools and being a parent.
“I also think having more support for learning or classroom assistants able to work in smaller groups would just be hugely helpful.”
Scotland's dyslexic community is estimated to be around 545,400.
New figures, published earlier this week, show 241,639 pupils were registered as requiring learning support for conditions such as autism and dyslexia in 2022 in Scotland - more than a third (34%) of the pupil population and a record high.
Other parents say the problems do not end when children have received a diagnosis.
One mother said: “There is a constant process of reminding teachers, by phone - on the day of a test at times - to put in place any measures which give my son a level playing field to sit assessments.
“I believe that extra time and separate accommodation are standard for dyslexics but he did all his second year assessments without any of this taking place.”
The Scottish Government says education authorities are under a statutory duty to identify, provide for, and review the support that they provide for pupils with additional support needs.
Figures obtained by The Herald show the majority of secondary schools (13 out of a total of 27) in Glasgow have one ASL teacher.
Dr Inez Alvez, a senior lecturer in Inclusive Education at the University of Glasgow, who trained as a teacher in Portugal, agrees that support shouldn’t be reliant on a formal diagnosis.
She said: “One of my children is dyslexic, she’s ten and she’s finally last week got a formal diagnosis but what I should say is that the school has been working with her since P1.
“What we were told immediately as parents is she is on the list to be diagnosed but we don’t need the diagnosis to be doing something and I think this is how it should work.
“The idea that you don’t need a diagnosis to change your practice is the way it should be. If you are teaching a class of 24 children to read you will see the patterns and you shouldn’t wait for a diagnosis. The key thing is, will they have the tools?
“We were lucky enough that the school had the interventions and my child really enjoys it.”
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