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Dyslexic Child


Missy
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Hello, I'm new to the forum so apologies if this has been covered before.    

We are looking to move to France this year, however our daughter (13) is dyslexic, her French is non existant as she had a French teacher at her school who was French and he refused to teach her as she struggled and he couldn't/wouldn't spend the extra time helping her. The school pandered to his tantrum and took her out of French lessons altogether.   Her other subjects are fine provided she uses a laptop, her reading and writing are ok but possibly not what you'd expect for her age.  This does not however mean she is stupid, she's far from it. 

It seems to me from what I can tell on forums etc that the system in France is possibly not going to be that helpful to her, she will pick up speaking very quickly (she's good at that) if she hears them, so I've no concern about her actually learning to communicate.  

I understand you can get English Speaking schools, and as our area is not set yet, we could aim to be close to one.  Would that be better or am I looking at homeschool?  If we homeschool, which is no problem, we'll get get a distance learning course to keep me/her on the right path.  What happens when they assess her?  Can she use a laptop etc and provide her work to show what she has done, or is it all by test (which she'll fail miserably)?  Sorry for all the questions but any advice would be helpful.  Thanks in advance.

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As far as I know the only english - speaking schools in France are the International schools, which aren't free, not sure of the costs. You can find their websites online. There's one near Toulouse, and I think there's one at Pau.

There are others too.

As for assessment and support for dyslexics, I think that's unpredictable - some areas are very helpful, others, there's no help at all.

Other people will hopefully add more to this.

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In recent years there have not been that many posts about young families moving to France, probably in part due to the poor economic situation and week £ to the Euro.

However, I do recall some years ago several posts on experiences about educating dyslexic children in France which were not favourable and confirmed your impression that the French educational system was not geared up to cope.

As for private schools, the ones I know of in the South of France are extremely expensive.

One thing I would add is that in the past when there have been discussions about children moving to France from the UK who are not fluent in the language, the consensus seems to be that 13 is probably too late, as they will have started the most critical stage of their secondary education.

I am sure you are aware that the current economic situation in France is bad with the country being seen as the new sick man of Europe having near record levels of unemployment and therefore if you do not have a job to go to, now may not be the best time to move.

Most members on this Forum and Brits in France tend to be early retirees or retirees so fortunately not in a position of having to make a living in France.
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Welcome to the forum Missy. If you type 'dyslexic child' in the search box on this forum

you'll come up with threads from posters and their experience - probably

not very up to date though. A few posters have had experience with education of dyslexic children in French education. Good luck.
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Sorry to say this Missy; and by the way welcome to the forum, but Sprogster is absolutely correct in his assessment. Forgive me for guessing but going by the age of your daughter I would think that you're probably of working age, and the bureaucratic hoops people from abroad who need to work here have to jump through in France would be huge, let alone the problems of your daughters needs in education. Maybe your experience of the French teacher in England might give you a clue, although I must say I can't believe you took that lying down. Why not take a year over here to rent a house and try it out?
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Thank you all for replying.    I did go back through the posts but most were early to mid  2000 time and I did wonder if things had changed, they certainly were not very positive.  Saying that I cannot say I have found England to be particually good at catering for dyslexia unless you spend half your life shouting for help.   Sounds to me as though home education may still be the way, and i've got the general impression that as long as you follow a course recognised in France you are unlikley to go far wrong.  Its quite difficult to get any kind of grip on the education system from the UK without speaking to somone already in it, to discover the pitfalls etc.  I am not convinced that she would leave school with much in the way of qualifications as her dyslexia was picked up too late (we'd been saying since she was 3 but it wasn't diagnosed until she was 11, by which time she couldn't read or write, she can now but thats sheer determination on our/her part) and very little was/is being done, so I am not sure a move to France has any major disadvantage for her in that respect.    Thank you all for helping I do appreciate it.

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NickP,  Hell I didn't take it lying down, its a long ongoing argument which now sits with our solicitor and the head of education, but either way currently its not got much done, although they talk a lot! :-(  I did rather assume that his attitude to her may well be general, he doesn't seem to understand why she cannot do it, and no amount of explaining to him, that she can do it, she just can't write it or, but go over it again seems to help.  But yes, that is pretty much the attitiude I expect to come up against, but as he's of an older generation I did wonder if maybe attitudes were changing.  You still find the older UK teachers less tollerant than younger ones, in my experience.

We have family over there but they do not have children of school age, so we are proably aware of more pitfalls than some about coming over, but not about the education system.  My husband lived out there for several years with work previously but again without us.  We will pretty much have to rent for a while anyway, we have 2 properties to sell over here and a business, and until all sell, we cannot do what we would like, so we will be coming, still owning property in UK.  Which to honest, I am rather pleased about just incase my daughter and I don't like it, we have a option to come back.  Thats not being negative, just trying to be a bit practical.  :-)

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Missy, welcome.

I am going to stick my oar in here based on a child who was absolutely slaughtered in the Belgian system, then saved by Cambridge exams and a minor British university and who now runs her own business very successfully..

My gut feeling is that your daughter will do far better in the British system as it is more responsive to the needs of dyslexics, whereas in France she will simply be dumped in the back row. Recognition of dyslexia is by no means universal here her treatment would vary according to the teachers she has.

Home schooling is an option but why put her through the extra burden of having to try to function in a foreign language when she already has problems in her first one?

Remember that the French system is very unforgiving and designed to put people in boxes for life.

Your daughter is almost into her exams cycles here, so maybe it is too late for a French education.
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Well I had a dyslexic son who went through the full french education system, he was born in France and we the parents are both english.

Firstly, I would say never move a teen to France. Yes, I know that there are some kids that do OK when they move to France in their teens, but as a general rule I would say do not do it. What with all their main exams coming up it is so important for their future and you are thinking about moving them to a different country/language/culture where even the basics are done differently, ie division is done differently.

The Riff Raff Elemement wrote to me some time ago and said that much had changed where he lived with regards to dyslexic children and I was glad to hear it. He lives in western France and I used to live in the SE and from what I hear from friends, not much has changed where I used to live.

Look on the APEDYS and CORIDYS web sites. All in french, but believe me, you need very good french to sort a 'troubled' child out when living in France, so your french will have to be up to it. All the paper work and people to contact and see who may or may not help. Apedys have a forum where you can ask questions, but be warned, problems are discussed.

Us, well, my almost thirty year old intelligent son has a morbid fear of teachers and any learning at all. I understand his 'fear', he would rather do nothing than risk at best, failing, and at worst, being the object of ridicule and humiliation. Basically he is damaged goods and cannot get over it......... that is what we live with everyday, even now.

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WB is talking a lot of sense.

There is a lot of emphasis on the 'programme' and little focus on the needs of the individual.

There is also a slavish attention to 'notes' (marks) and 'le moyen' (the average)

Remember that these are at the mercy of the individual teacher who may or may not be sympathetic.

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Hello Missy,

I would echo what idun has already said. Certainly things are better for dyslexic and special needs children than perhaps they used to be (I have school aged children, and I have been involved in the education system as a parent representative for some years), but the system, nonetheless, is geared to children who speak French in the first place.

With the best will in the world, a 13 year old is not going to pick up the language nearly as quickly as a younger child. I've heard numerous times of 16 year old children arriving, becoming seamlessly bilingual in six weeks and then qualifying as doctors, vets or engineers in record time, however I myself have never met one of these titans. My experience, conversely, (and I think this is rather more general) is that most children brought here after the age of about 7 never truly catch up and often don't fulfil their potential.

If your move is not an optional one, I would imagine homeschool would be your best choice, though this does mean that your daughter wouldn't get the exposure to the language in the same way. I know very little about homeschooling in France - it doesn't seem to be that widely practised - but I'm sure there's plenty of information out there. I seem to recall there was a group of Brits somewhere in the South West who set up some kind of homeschooling network, though I think they spent a fair amount of time beating off the authorities who wanted to check whether the children were getting an adequate education. It might be worth trying to find them.

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[quote user="idun"]
Us, well, my almost thirty year old intelligent son has a morbid fear of teachers and any learning at all. I understand his 'fear', he would rather do nothing than risk at best, failing, and at worst, being the object of ridicule and humiliation. Basically he is damaged goods and cannot get over it......... that is what we live with everyday, even now.

[/quote]

And from what I have seen working part time at the lycée even with the kindest of teachers the system is exactly that, I have sat in during tests and some of them will only right their name on the page and then put their head in their hands and go into a sort of depressed sleep.

These same kids during group sessions (maximum half a class) are quite bright and involve themselves, when I look over their shoulder whilst helping them with written exercises often their scribble is incomprehensible, in fact when they read out their answers you can see them struggling to read their own words, there is I believe a significant degree of illitericism and/or dyslexism although I cannot judge, they are almost 100% from very poor deprived backgrounds, although certainly not poor in alcohol, cigarettes, mobile phones etc.

The first thing we have to teach them is how to socialise and interact with each other without aggression as many of them will be boarders at the internat, we take them away on a cycling/camping trip with other activities in their first few weeks, many of them have never eaten at a table and dont know how to use or even hold cutlery.

To the OP, unless your French is superb and also your knowledge of all the other subjects and teaching skills, and by your home schooling you can take this child to an amazing level of fluency as well as competence in the other core subjects all in French then I think that by moving at this time in the childs education is a very bad idea for their future employment prospects and life in general.

Editted, I am getting dyslexic myself whilst typing in English, when I read the posting I see that I have written "right" instead of "write", this is happening more and more, I hope its just something to do with being in 100% immersion.

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