Learning difficulty?

[LittleMoosh]

I have been to see DS8 teacher today after receiving a phone call asking me to go and see her.

She wants someone to assess him and perhaps bring in help from outside of school. She thinks his literacy and spelling is below expected and other concerns are missing pages in his exercise book, pressing on too hard with his pencil and trying too hard to form letters/words as well as being a slow worker.

I am confused. At the end of last school year and at the beginning of this year his work was above average? He still is good at maths and science and knows lot of general knowledge stuff. He seems to read okay with me and knows his spellings that he gets weekly when I test him.

He has always been fidgety, talkative, doesn't listen, silly, etc, but I put this down to being a typical boy.

Anyone any ideas? I asked the teacher what she thinks the problem is but she wouldn't say, just said he needs to be assessed

[overmydeadbody]

Have the assesment and see what they say. If only to rule out anything specific that he could get extra help with.

Don't view an assesment as a negative thing. The teacher probably knows what she is doing and has your ds's interests at heart.

[mummytime]

An assessment is a good thing. If the person doing it is qualified, they can pick up al kinds of little things, and regardless will leave you with a whole array of suggestions to help your DS.
Its much better to pick it up now, rather than like my niece at 14 (and that was at her very high achieving grammar school).

[PotMarigold]

In my experience, teacher views and communication can be a bit variable, so you can easily move from assuming all is OK to being told there are special needs. Also seems standard to be vague about what exactly teacher thinks 'the problem' might be. All this can feel really unsettling for the parent but don't lose heart, or perspective (you know your DS better than anyone). Anyway, Ed Psych time is like gold-dust so get on waiting list sooner rather than later just to be on safe side.

[LittleMoosh]

Thanks for your advice. Will just have to wait and see what the assessment shows up

[oldbabe]

Educational Psychologist - what's the process? I'm a new member

dd2 has struggled with reading and writing since starting school, the infant teacher decided to ignore me, then I got the KS1 report and it was awful.
The new teacher was better and called me in to discuss dd2's 'issues' - what a relief!

School have arranged for the LEA Ed psyc to assess her

I'd really welcome anybody elses experiences