Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Mike Smith:
When a child has dyslexia, he exhibits specific traits and characteristics. Dianne, is formal testing necessary to find out if your child has dyslexia?

Dianne Craft:
Formal testing is really not necessary to determine if your child is struggling with dyslexia. There are many informal tests done by local consultants and even ones that parents can perform at home. HSLDA does not recommend that parents have testing done in their public school because of the many possible entanglements. Instead, we often suggest that the parent look into private testing with a consultant. It’s helpful to have an outside evaluator formally test your child if you suspect he’s two years behind in reading. This consultant can help you in two ways. Number one, by documenting the progress your child’s making in case you need to show this to anyone. And number two, by giving you good ideas about how to teach your child. Members of HSLDA can call one of our learning specialists and we will provide the names of private consultants in their area. For parents who prefer home, informal tests, HSLDA has provided a helpful website. They can go to www.hslda.org, click on “Struggling Learners,” there they’ll find many helpful checklists to use in determining which of their child’s learning gates is blocked.

Mike:
Dianne, that’s very helpful, and thank you so much. Until next time, I’m Mike Smith.