7 yo struggling at school what shld private tutor be focusing on.

[Winterisnigh]

Any ideas or experience?
The Reading? Spelling?

What's most critical. And how would they do it? Take our spelling from school or have their own. She's not secure on spelling basic words, like what, have etc so shld we focus on those? Leave maths for now?
How best to target the help.

If the tutor can't tell you that, you need to look for another one!

Have you talked to their class teacher first?

Phonics if she can't spell basic words.

I'm sure the tutor will tell me but I've not had one before and my own learning at this age was v ropey so I'm not sure what she shld be doing.

If anyone helpful can arm me with some pointers... Then I can also make sure tutor is good.

Wigeon without running school down they don't seem to have much knowledge of my dd and what she can or can't do.

My best hope is to lift her up via a tutor and hope this will enable her to swim in year 3 because she's struggling at the moment.

Roly one big confusion is she spells phonetically. Which is wrong.

If she is using phonetically plausible words in her writing then that is actually not that awful for year 2. How is her reading? What was her year 1 phonics test score?
Can she write sentences independently?
Does she know any of the spelling rules?
Which of the first 100 high frequency words does she know and which ones does she need to learn?
Does she hold a pencil correctly, what are her fine motor skills like?
A tutor should be asking questions along these lines, they also should provide their own work/resources to ideally work alongside what she is doing at school. Most likely they would focus on phonic sounds and high frequency words to get her reading and writing more fluently. Number bonds to 10 for maths and maybe 1more or less/10 more or less number work.

Roly one big confusion is she spells phonetically. Which is wrong.

No, phonics actually helps with spelling, but she needs to know more of the graphemes. If she's trying to spell phonetically using only the first couple of sets of sounds then that'll be difficult. In Year 3 you teach rules, many of which are grounded in phonics. If you Google 'National Curriculum Spelling Appendix' you'll find a list of the rules she needs to know with example words.

For maths ive been using squeebles multiplication.
She has mathletics through school
And i have some cgp year 3 books.

Spelling my dc is doing ok on the tests but couldnt spell 'colour' just now so probably a long way to go.

Agree with pp where is she with reading? You could use reading chest is she is still on the book bands.

Do you not get to view her books at parents evenings?

Awkward I can view her books but without looking at the class books what do they tell me out of any peer related context..
Her phonics test was 24 I think, a fail.
Reading is definitely gaining momentum, but she's on stage 5. I think she could comfortably move to stage 6. I know dc in class are stage 9. However I also know that could not be a reflection because the school holds them on the reading bands even when they are beyond it.

Her spellings are very hit and miss.

Some very good pointers up thread thank you.

Is she already y3?
I think with reading of stage 5 that would likely affect spelling as she probably wouldnt have read enough to have absorbed spelling naturally.

Maybe try alternate lines/words/pages of some short chapter books like Isadora Moon/Squishy Mcfluff etc.
The range of the classmates if y2 might be from free reader downwards. I think some schools aim for band 7 or 8 for the end of year 1.

I do agree that although useful to see your kid's work it really doesnt tell you the whole picture as you need the context of how classmates are doing. All you ever get for that is knowing whether they meet/exceed on their reports. But that can be a big range.

Google 'Year 2 writing exemplars' and you'll see example year 2 work at a good standard. You can do the same with year 3, but bear in mind that the exemplars show end of Year 3 work, so you shouldn't expect her to be at that standard yet.

If reading and spelling are her weakness I don't think a once a week tutor is going to have the same impact as reading and practising spellings daily with you will have.

Daily phonics practice (phonics play) will remind her of sounds learnt and build on her current knowledge.

Spotting graphemes in words in real life contexts (newspapers, magazines, signs) will get her used to spotting them in her reading before she reads the word.

Just make sure the tutor is a teacher experienced with that year group. They’ll be able to bring her on, give you pointers or identify any issues that might point to SEN.