27/08/2026
Why don’t I have a calendar booking app on my website, to make it easier for people to book assessments?
This is why.
Recently, I’ve turned down two assessments — or, more accurately, I’ve suggested that the parents might want to wait before booking one.
One was for a 9-year-old girl whose 11+ tutor had suggested an assessment because she appeared to have “processing difficulties”. But school had no concerns. Her parents had no previous concerns. The school had carried out a screener and that hadn’t raised any concerns either.
So Mum and I had a chat.
It turned out that the difficulties the tutor was seeing were mainly during lessons after school, when this 9-year-old was tired and possibly not terribly engaged. Which, in itself, isn’t particularly surprising!
I didn’t say that I wouldn’t assess her. But I did suggest that, rather than putting her child through an unnecessary assessment and spending a considerable amount of money, Mum might want to watch and wait for a while.
We talked about what she could look out for and what might indicate that there really was an underlying difficulty. Because a diagnosis of dyslexia needs to be based on evidence of persistent difficulties and their impact — not simply the fact that a child sometimes finds things difficult.
Mum did exactly the right thing. She phoned me and had a conversation. I don’t charge for a chat!
And I did what I think was the right thing too: I pressed the pause button.
That’s why I don’t have a “book an assessment” button on my website. Before somebody commits to an assessment, I want to know a little bit about why they’re considering one and whether it seems like the right next step.
So please, never be scared to phone me and have a chat. I’m not going to hard sell you an assessment. I’ll help you think through whether an assessment is the right thing for you or your child — and sometimes my advice might be that, for now, it isn’t.
