Worried about Son's literacy

[TheSunnySide]

My son is almost 10. He reads well, his comprehension is good. His vocabulary is amazing and spelling is great. He has great conversations with me and is funny and witty.

Yet he struggles with writing - has never mastered joined up and hates the extra lessons they are giving him in school.

I found out yesterday that he doesn't know his alphabet. As in he cannot recite it so if I were to ask him 'what is the 21 st letter of the alphabet' he wouldn't be able to work it out! I am shocked that he is in year 5 and doesn't know this stuff. Would you be?

(NB not an AIBU and I am going through this stuff with him so hoping to rectify it)

How do you know he’s not dyslexic?
Unless he’s been tested ?

The Alphabet song will fix the order in his head, and lots of adults still use it to check the order on their blind spots (what, it's not just me, surely? J..K..L..)

My DS is similar, in that his reading is years ahead of his writing, and for a while we were worried about dyslexia (DH is dyslexic), but it seems to be more about physicality, he has sensory issues and doesn't seem to have much feedback in his haptic senses (he can't feel gentle, subtle things!). He has improved with age, though he's never going to be picked to write something up neatly on the board/wall. He's at secondary school now, and it really was about Christmas of Y6 before he could produce writing at length in school/homework.
As long as he can say what his ideas are, articulate them to others, that's the main thing. Being able to copy out six pages of A4 in an hour is of no use if one has nothing to say and no comprehension of what one has read!

Are school using "Write from the start" or similar with him?

And one trick that may help remembering position of letters is to learn what 'number' the initial of his name is (probably not if he's an Adam or Zach though!) as they can extrapolate from there (probably helps that my name starts with almost middle letter).

If he’s picking it up quickly it’s possible he did know it in R/Yr 1 it’s just been forgotten because he hasn’t needed to use it.

It’s one of those things that gets used less & less as more stuff goes digital.