I'm not as normal as you

Over the past 5 weeks or so, I've been working my way through the beginnings of psycho-educational testing for Sophie. She's 7, she's easily distracted (like me), she's bright (no really, the numbers bear it out), she's clever. She sometimes has a hard time getting her thoughts out in a timely and logical manner. She has a hard time making to the end of a multi-step project (like me, see my craft table for proof) forget cleaning up, piles are the order of the day (I know no one like that).

My biggest issue is that she seems to be having a hard time learning to read. At the end of her kindergarten year, after seeing the reading specialist for several months didn't improve things much, I started looking more closely at her behavior when reading. Fidgety, too hot, too cold, my neck itches, moving the book around, touching her eyes, one eye closed...and then her actual reading, skipping over things, going backwards, sounding a word out and then forgetting it 3 seconds later. So I took her to a pediatric opthomologist who specializes in eye tracking (movement) problems. She doesn't have any problems with tracking, BUT she's far-sighted. She was straining to see the letters and exhausting herself. Now she wears glasses for reading and school work.

Here we are, about 9 months later, and her reading has improved, markedly, but still she's not reading on a first grade level and it is a lot of work for her. So we've had the first round of evaluations done and the results (according to psychologist A) show that she has Dyslexia and ADD. Now, dyslexia just refers to general reading learning difficulties and ADD is technically no longer a diagnosis, it's been removed from the DSM IV. She has "non-active ADHD". Again, according to the first psychologist. Her advice for helping Sophie was essentially to stay the course. Not really all that helpful.

Psychologist A has been at this for 30 years, she a great tester. But, as psychologist B pointed out: the tests are the tests and the numbers are the numbers, it's all about how you read them. So I am seeing psychologist B (NEWER! YOUNGER! FRESHER!) tomorrow for a second opinion reading. I think the first reading was really pretty spot on, but I am hoping the she'll be able to point us toward more testing to really get at exactly what Sophie's reading problem is. And follow that with a more specific plan for helping her.