Aaaaargh teacher says DD is thick and will never catch up ........

[tengreenbottles]

i posted on here a few weeks ago ,because my dd was struggling at school ,after being ignored for the whole of reception. When the new teacher started she flagged up that DD was behind and may be dyslexic ,she got her assessed by senco and when i went to speak to her last week ,she showed me the results and then basically said that DD will never catch up and that she will always struggle .I feel as though she has written off DD at just 6yrs old .When i asked if dd was getting any one on one support she said no ,she gets one half hour session in a group once a week and she is listened to read maybe once or twice a week . I just feel so sad for dd that her teacher thinks she is dim and cant even be bothered to get any of the multitude of teaching assistants to spend even 5 minutes a day with her . I have bought a hooked on phonics learn to read program and am going to do 15 to 20 minutes a day with her ,because she will catch up if it kills me

[needmorecoffee]

Has she got a statement? I'd request one. It needs to be found out if she does have dyslexia or some other problem that can be helped with the right input rather than writing her off at 6 ffs!
Demand a statement.

[AbbeyA]

How sad tengreenbottles, I am shocked. I should arrange a formal appointment with the senco. She should have an IEP. Google dyslexia, there is lots of help out there. Ring the dyslexia helpline and get advice.
this page
You can get a private assessment but you will have to pay.
If you don't get any satisfaction I would change the school, if at all possible. You can't write off a 6 yr old as dim-I am appalled!

[imnotmamagbutshelovesme]

I would go to the Head. This is outrageous.

Being listened to at reading twice a week is good though ime.

[juuule]

Look on this thread and read the post By Julienoshoes on Sat 12-Jan-08 15:46:44.

It might not be quite what you are looking for but I think it may be encouraging.

[Majeika]

Do some extra at home with her too.

My boys of 6 and 3 are LOVING Education City.com atm and we are using the 10 day free trial.

[tengreenbottles]

Apparently the lea dont do dyslexia assessment until they are 7 ,which means she will be in yr 3 . I think the thing that makes me cross is that this teacher has been teaching DD for a year now and picked up that she was behind this time last year and i feel as though she hasnt done anything constructive to help her ,she keeps telling me she is behind in loads of stuff but i am not a qualified teacher and struggle to know what to do at home ,on top of the reading and homework DD already gets. I believe the school cant get funding for extra help until she has a statement ,but its taken a year just to get her assessed by senco .

[memoo]

I don't understand why it has taken a SENco a whole year to assess her. Every school has to have a SENco, usually the head/assistant head. Why haven't thye done something earlier?

[tengreenbottles]

sorry perhaps i have been using the wrong word, it was someone from the education department who came and assessed DD at the start of this term .

[LynetteScavo]

What exactly is she behind in?

How far behind the other children is she?

Is she managing OK socially?

My DS is behind with his reading, and only reads individually with his teacher twice a week, and also gets a couple of group sessions with a classroom assistnant, so pretty much the same as your DD. I think the main difference is the teachers attitude; the teachers have always been extremly positive about him, and we have always been told he will catch up with the others with his reading eventually.

[childrenofthecornsilk]

what did the assessments show then? Who assessed her from the LEA? Was it an ed Psych? Did they do a cognitive ability test?

[Podrick]

The LEA typically will not give any support to dyslexic kids until Y3.

My dd is dyslexic - she is 9. The more support they get and the earlier the better. Sadly state schools are not great in providing this support and if you can afford to I would get her support by paying for it asap. Dyslexic kids do need long term support, there are no quick fixes

[wonderstuff]

Maybe ed psych, would explain delay in getting an assessment, but strange to go straight to EP without the school doing there own assessment. I work in secondary SEN and EP appts are really difficult to get, but we do our own assessments too. Would have a detailed report with recommendations, ask to see it and find out specifically what her difficulties are. Sounds like they are saying it is global learning difficulties, lots of problems making it difficult to access the curriculum, but she still should be getting support and making progress.

[swedishmum]

I have a dyslexic ds - was told by headteacher to mourn the fact he'd never go to university and building was a good job. He was 7. Building is a good job, but what was wrong was her dismissal of my ds's academic possibilities at such a young age. A change of schools and attitude did wonders for him and he's just started at grammar school. You need to fight her corner!
I'm lucky I was a teacher and because of ds did a postgrad dyslexia course with Dyslexia Action. The school should be more helpful.
If you were in Kent by any chance I could offer you help - giving parents pointers with supporting their children in literacy is something I seem to be doing quite a bit of these days!
Good luck.

[frankbestfriend]

Majieka

We use EducationCity a lot too. I discovered they use it at dds school, and by going on to our LEAs website, dd can log on as she does at school and link to the site for free.Don't know if you have this facility in your area, but it may be worth checking out if you are thinking of subscribing.

[childrenofthecornsilk]

swedishmum that is disgraceful.(the headteacher's comment)

[frankbestfriend]

Oh and to the OP, there is another thread atm about how the success of childrens primary education is 90% parents and 10% school, so if the theory is true she will have no problems catching up when you are clearly doing your best to support her.

The teachers attitude stinks, btw.

[Guadalupe]

It sounds like they have worded it very badly and not been at all sensitive to you.

My ds has a moderate dyslexia and all through first school they said he had this trouble and that difficulty but didn't seem to help that much. One of his teachers said he would never be very academic but that he was a cheerful child.

The dyslexia centre said he probably would always struggle with things but as long as we got the right support it would be managable and to always push for the extra classes, one to one and catch up programmes. So, this is what we do. Endlessly!

[childrenofthecornsilk]

Interesting quote from John Lennon about how teachers can get it wrong.

In school, didn't they see that I'm cleverer than anybody in this school? That the teachers are stupid, too? That all they had was information that I didn't need? I got?lost in being at high school. I used to say to me auntie, ?You throw my?poetry out, and you'll regret it when I'm famous, '' and she threw the bastard stuff out. I never forgave her for not treating me like a?genius or whatever I was, when I was a child. It was obvious to me. Why didn't they put me in art school? Why didn't they train me? Why would they keep forcing me to be a?cowboy like the rest of them? I was different, I was always different. Why didn't anybody notice me? A couple of teachers would notice me, encourage me to be something or other, to draw or to paint - express myself. But most of the time they were trying to beat me into being a?dentist or a teacher.

[childrenofthecornsilk]

And Einstein didn't read till he was 9.

[toadstool]

Swedishmum and others who have been told something on the lines of: 'I was told by headteacher to mourn the fact he'd never go to university'.
Simply not true - I teach in HE and I've lost count of the dyslexic students. Dyslexic students are given extra time with exams and written tests, but they achieve pretty much the same as everyone else. Spelling accuracy and reading speeds are not the be-all and end-all.

[sunnydelight]

How horrible for you, and your poor DD who obviously doesn't have the most sensitive of teachers! Dyslexia is basically assessed when there is a significant mismatch between some skills (e.g. reading) and others (e.g. verbal reasoning). It does not mean that kids are dim, though unfortunately a lot of teachers seem to take the "middle class parents just can't accept their kids are thick" approach. Believe me, I've been there with 2 dyslexic boys.

The good thing is that she has been identified as dyslexic young, so there is plenty of time to help her. In an ideal world support should be provided at school, but alongside fighting for in-school support you need to do as much as you can for her at home (the difficulty with this of course is that dyslexic kids find school exhausting in general as they have to concentrate so hard so the last thing they want at home is more "work").

My son was 8 when we left England and he got half an hour's help a week at school, it wasn't enough. He started the school year here (Oz) in January stumbling through "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", he can now have a pretty good go at a couple of pages of Harry Potter at a time. The key thing from what I can see is that he works specifically on literacy every day at school. He has been lucky in that his school runs a programme called MULTILIT (making up for lost time in literacy) which is a combination of phonics, sight words and reading supported by a tutor who uses "pause, prompt and praise". It's only 15 minutes a day, but it has made all the difference. It's an Australian programme, but it can be done at home so it might be worth a look. I've been working as a volunteer tutor all year at school and it's lovely to see how the kids progress with it.

[isgrassgreener]

Tengreenbottles, try not to be disheartened, you can help at home in lots of ways. Reading, helping with organising, mind mapping, writing frameworks, lots and lots of things like that.
The main thing is to also make sure that DD keeps her self esteem and feels good about herself. Try and encourage her not to compare herself with others all the time. It is important that you recognise that she is trying really hard even though she may not be able to do as much as her classmates.
6 is still very young, so with your help she will not fail.
I don't want to be negative but I fear that those advising you to "get a statement" can't of had experience of trying to get one. It is not a straightforward procedure especially if you have a child with dyslexia/dyspraxia. I have a statemented child and a child with dyslexia and I have never considered trying to get a statement for my dyslexic DC as I know how difficult it is.
Personally I would concentrate on helping her as much as you can yourself. Could you consider a dyslexic tutor?

[LadyPenelope]

at swedishmum's HT ... that's so appauling and totally off the mark. My brother, SIL, and niece are all dyslexic and all went to university. My Brother and SIL even did it in the days before it was well supported and understood and didn't get extra time/support like kids do today. My niece has had extra time at exams and at uni there's been support for things like getting organised too.
The key to all of this has been that parents have had to fight their corner to get the right support/recognition at the right time.
For OP - 6 is very young. Lots and lots of time for her to catch up.

[Madsometimes]

Big hugs to you tengreenbottles. You dd is only 6 and if she was in school in Europe she would only just be starting now. You are right to refuse to write her off.

It is very possible that she is not dyslexic, she may be just young. You are doing the right thing by getting a phonics program and working through it at home. When my dd1 was in year 1 she had a hard time at school, there is a big jump from reception. We decided to enrol her on Kumon which worked for us. Many people on Mumsnet do not like Kumon because it does not solely use synthetic phonics. I can only speak from my own experience which is that it worked for us because it took my dd right back to the basics.

I hope everything improves soon for you and your dd. It sounds like the school should provide her with an IEP, although it is unlikely that she would get a statement.

[KateF]

Unless your dd is in the most severe 2% of dyslexics you don't have a hope of a statement . My dd is 7 and falls just outside this category. She gets half an hour a week in a small group for her writing and I go in and help with class reading so that she gets to read at school most days. She does the Toe by Toe scheme which is good and the school paid for the book so you could ask the SENCO about that. Don't give up - our dyslexic kids are bright and able just in different ways!