A SLIGO mother recalls how her young daughter, upon starting school, began to show difficulty in some aspects of learning.

As she started to drift behind her peers in terms of classwork, she also had trouble completing homework and was not progressing like she should have been. This was a worry for her parents, who found some relief in knowing that their daughter had a form of dyslexia and they soon learned about support structures, which helped their daughter in her studies.

'My daughter started school at four and a half years and like all parents I hoped she would be happy at school. The first year, junior infants, went well. However, at the parent-teacher meeting in Senior Infants, the teacher told me that she had to repeat things a second time to her and she would always have to work hard.

I was confused at this as it did not match the little girl I knew. In first class she started learning support and I felt guilty that we were not doing enough at home with her, even though I knew everything was being done that could reasonably be done with a child of her age on top of school.

By the end of the school year she was six months behind her peers. She had a low tolerance for reading and tired very quickly from writing. She moved about a lot in her chair when doing homework and it was a struggle to complete it.

In second class, things did not improve and by the end of the year she was over a year behind her class. We did a lot of work over the summer holidays, and her teacher noticed an improvement in the beginning of third class. However, by the time the parent-teacher meeting came in November, her teacher commented that she was up and down, that her comprehension was weak and she often day dreamed in class.

Tests were carried out at school and showed that she had mild traits of dyslexia and that nothing further had to be done at that stage. By the end of the school year she had stopped participating in class and her self esteem had suffered. Her teacher said that she wasn't progressing the way she should be. The school could not get her assessed as they had used their quota for the year so we got her assessed in June privately.

She was then aged nine. The results were that she did have dyslexia and a high IQ. It was a relief to know what we were dealing with and what I knew all along that she was an intelligent, bright child, even though the impression I got was that she had a low IQ.

I then researched dyslexia to find out more about it. Unfortunately, there were no workshops, specialist teachers listed for national schools with the DAI nearby or a support group in Sligo at the time. My daughter attended a teacher privately during the summer holidays and this helped her. She also repeated third class and she was happy to do this. The second time around she completed her homework herself.

Over time she has started to read for pleasure, school is not such a struggle anymore. She will always have dyslexia but now that she has the support of the workshop, I feel she will be better equipped to deal with secondary school."