Any primary teachers (Year 2) - can you help with reading query pls?

[Cocodreams]

Re-posting from Education. Sorry this is long,

DS(7) flatly refused to try and read until halfway through Year 1, and we are now getting towards the end of Year 2. He tries hard and has made slow but steady progress since. The school moved to phonics system Essential Letters & Sounds in January and I was told there are no book bands now until Turquoise level as a minimum and DS still hasn’t reached that. Under the previous phonics system he was on Oxford level Green in January.

Since February he has had 1-to-1 supported reading x3 per week, plus small group reading 1-2 times.

I knew a few weeks ago that he had been sent to the Senco for assessment for reading but I’ve just been told by his teacher that she asked the Senco to assess him for any dyslexia traits. She is still waiting for her findings but is chasing this up.

He passed the phonics screening with 33/40 however his teacher said he is still missing quite a few diagraphs and gave me a list to focus on at home.

We’ve just been given the Common Exception Word List test results and it’s terrible - out of 64 words he can read 34 and write 4.

Honestly, does this sound like dyslexia or maybe he’s just a bit slow to learn? DH thinks it’s a combo of refusing to learn to read through Reception and half of Year 1, combined with lockdowns, and combined he’s become very behind. He has really tried hard to read for the past year both at school and home, loves trying to write and says it’s his favourite thing to do at school (spelling can be interesting!). However he has only gone from Red to Green level in a year. He’s achieving average in maths and everything else.

We already knew that he won’t meet the KS1 standards for reading and phonics. No dyslexia in either side of the family.

Spelling comes 'after' reading so if he refused to read until a year ago its not surprising he's not spelling common exception words yet. Of course in many countries he would only be starting formal schooling at this age.
Essential letters and sounds is good and schools now seem to be realising that it needs to continue well into ks2 for many children, particularly having missed nearly a third of his school life so far. If they are doing that, I'd wouldn't worry and just carry on encouraging him writing for fun.... that's huge if he refused to read!

@napody thanks for your reply. I’ll try not to worry but it’s hard not to! I don’t think it’s dyslexia but I’m starting to feel that the school think he should have caught up by now.

I feel sad for DS too as he has realised that he is very behind in his reading and therefore his writing (even though he loves it), and a few kids at school have made disparaging comments to him about both. I do worry that he will get bullied for being so behind as the comments have already started 😞

When you say there are no book bands until turquoise, do you mean he isn't getting reading books sent home?

My son struggled with reading - it didn’t start making sense to him until near the end of year 2. Apparently this is quite common, my friend teaches at his school and says they see it in a lot of boys. His spelling wasn’t great either.
He is in year 6 now, his spelling is great and his reading is so much better. Keep encouraging him, plenty of practice but keep it fun. He will get there

@napody no, he has two different books per week - one is a ‘Sharing book’ which parents read to the child and then child is to try and decode the words that they can also.

The second book is normal reading books so for him they are either Green level, or sometimes other levels if they have specific diagraphs for those ones that he hasn’t grasped yet. He needs to reach Turquoise band level to be regarded as having reached the minimum band for Year 2 (as I understand it).

@Angelmonkey thanks for this, hopefully my DS will be the same!