I would love your professional opinion.  My first grader is struggling some with reading.  I haven’t been too concerned thinking that she just has a short attention span and wants to be able to read fast when she actually needs to slow down and look carefully at the word so she sounds it out correctly. She makes good guesses, but I don’t want her guessing when I know she can read the words. The bigger challenge is asking her to spell something. Just like in reading, she gets the first couple letters correct, then randomly writes or says the last ones. For example, spelling a word like “stop” might be “styrl.”

My mother in law thinks she needs vision therapy because my husband had to do that when he was a child to help his eyes track the words he was reading and apparently it is genetic because somehow both my husband parents had a test done and had the same issue.

She would like us to have her evaluated.  She goes to school at a video Academy and I am a facilitating teacher one day a week. The team is working with her to help her focus, not try to compete with her peers, and slow down. I spoke with one other teacher and she feels like my daughter’s ability is fine, she just needs to focus.

Do you know anyone who would be able to evaluate her?  We live in Santa Rosa, but could also go to Petaluma, etc.

Thank you very much,
Tawnya Smith