Hold him back a grade?

TheRose, I admire all you have accomplished. You are undoubtedly an excellent advocate for your child because of your own experiences as an individual with dyslexia. It's one thing for your child to read and be told that dyslexia is unrelated to intelligence, and that there are many brilliant, talented, high-achieving dyslexics. It's another for her to actually be able to look across the dinner table and see there, in you, an intelligent, capable person with dyslexia. You are the living proof that your child needs to believe that he or she can accomplish anything.

Hi Allreading: Kewpie was referring to me and my child. You also correctly assume that I am dyslexic. I started school in 1960, with a major speech delay. I did get the help that I needed, but still have problems with pronouncing words, like President Bush. I was always in the regular classroom, and even at that time no one ever told me that I had a learning disability or dyslexia. I felt I was always seen as a normal child with a few quirks. From time to time, in my adulthood someone would say, "You have a learning disability". Of course, I would denied it up and down. Actually, I got quite mad at them, because I never saw myself as LD, and no educator or parents had ever told me.
It wasn't until my youngest was born, I thought it was a mother's instinct kicking in, but I have realized in the past year it was my inner self kicking in letting me know something was wrong.
It has been a journey for me, but since I had admitted to myself that I am dyslexic, it has help me to advocate better for my child. It really helps to have intimate knowledge of a learning problem. Another effect, of admitting to myself is that the memories of school, speech therapy, O - G reading lessons, hand writing lessons, specific remediation in the form of homework that no other children receive and the memory list can go right until I was 17. Often wonder why my Mom, could just pick up the phone or walk into the school without an appointment looking to have her concerns address. The only think, she would say to me when I was giving her woes, I hope you will have a child just like you. Than, you will know what I am doing for you.
The only trouble I had was with some high school teachers who thought I was lazy, I wasn't trying hard enough especially in English, or refuse to follow the directives that were in my school file which is known today as multi-sensory teaching. My best teachers, I always had high grades who took a great interest in all their students. The bad teachers the most common complaint is that I am cheating somehow when a score a perfect test or she is quite capable of getting higher grades, she is not trying hard enough. It all depends on the format of the test, what was being studied and if I had an interest in knowing more.
Keep in mind, I am one of the many cases that can overcome dyslexia, with the right help and even that was occurring back in the 1960s.
This summer has been quite enlightening. I now know that my dyslexia is my greatest strength in advocating for my child and also in supporting my child.
The only thing I cannot do, is to confirm it with the people in my past. My parents died a long time ago, and the educators, doctors have all died too.

Kewpie:

You are SO right. Other parents, even today, do not understand that a speech impediment is important not only because it can be a social hurdle for the child, but also because it can be a sign of other conditions, including dyslexia (the IDA identifies preschool speech difficulties as a warning sign) and autism (where the child may be able to pronounce sounds, but has prosody problems).

I'm so sorry you didn't receive the support to which you were entitled for your correct conclusions about what your child needed.

And you're right: with the Internet available, there are fewer excuses not to get educated about your child's problems. One caveat: since dyslexia runs in families, many parents of dyslexic children are themselves dyslexic, even if they've never been diagnosed, and they may have trouble reading materials on the Internet or elsewhere.

That's one reason I love Ben Foss' dyslexia advocacy website called Headstrong Nation, at www.headstrongnation.org: If you don't want to, or can't, read the site, you can LISTEN to it. You just click on the speaker icon on the page.

Ben is severely dyslexic and highly successful (combined law degree/master's of business adminstration degree from Stanford, employed by Intel) and appreciates the difficulties encountered by parents who are dyslexic. If you haven't seen it, take a look. Or, better yet, have your child take a look. It's fabulous!

Yeah, I was lucky that the professionals were up-to-date and even back in 1996 research was starting to show the connections. The general public was just starting to find out about speech delays in and around 2002. Once I read that, than I understand why my child and myself were supported 130 %. Not only did my child receive speech therapy, but was enrolled in 2 different nursery schools that had different things. It was felt that it was promote talking and social interaction with normal children as oppose to children who had much more serious disabilities. The cost was very low for me, because the local agencies declared her as a special needs child.