Should I get my 6 year old a tutor

[alwaysworri]

I struggle helping my 6 year old because once he comes home from school he gets all moody and doesn't want to do anything I suggest. I usually just about manage to get him to do a reading book, but his writing is terrible, maths seems ok, not pushed forward on anything though.

I occasionally manage to trick him into writing a birthday card. Ideally he'd just write a couple of sentences a night homework, but he won't. He will literally mess around for hours not doing it. So even if I say no screen time, he still won't do it. School gave us an example of writing standard for going into year 2 in September and his is way way way below this, with still some letters backwards and lack of finger spacing, no attempt at cursive.

Should I get a tutor once a week or just leave him? I worry as my parents said I was the same ( stubborn) and I got really behind at school and never learned spellings or time tables, because they didn't do homework with me. Well maybe I acted like my Ds, but I suspect my parents didn't bother as they don't believe in homework. I do remember asking my parents to test me on spellings though and them refusing. I want to help Ds, he just doesn't want me to. I feel like I'm not being the parent I promised to be.

My DH says DS is fine and not to bother. He has literally no idea and despite really struggling at school himself he doesn't seem to give it a minutes thought.

I think if you push a 6 year old to hard then you risk putting him off learning all together. If you want to help with hand writing in a no pressure sort of way do craft projects, colouring and playdoh activities to improve his hand muscle control. I'd also focus more on reading to him then forcing him to read beyond the set reading books. Books should be fun cuddly time, not a nightly battle to try to avoid.

Does he see you and his dad reading for pleasure? Or writing notes or lists ?

This isn't meant to be a stealth boast but reassurance. My DD in Yr 2 is on the 'top table' in Maths and English, and got exceeded expectations in recent report, and still writes some letters backwards occasionally.

I think this is OK in the grand scheme of things.

The worst you can do (for my DD at least!) is make it a chore. I would try to make games where he has to write (we sometimes do that write a line of a story and fold it over, leave one word for the next person to write their line etc) or ask him to write your shopping lists, rub out chalkboards for pictionary/guessing games/hangman type things etc

It does slowly come, in time. I'd only consider a tutor if the teacher brings up low achievements in a report.

Both @Sprogonthetyne and @GrazingSheep have good points. Parental recreational reading is one of the best predictors of children’s reading.

Although I agree that you don’t want to push your DS and harden an anti-homework stance, a good tutor specialising in early childhood knows how to deal with that. I think you are right to take this opportunity to get him caught up. But it is important to do it in a positive and even fun spirit. The right person will make all the difference.

A tutor also removes any sense of a power struggle between you and your DS, a huge plus.

Won't or can't?
Stubborn, or exhausted after trying his best all day at school even though it isn't good enough, and no energy left for yet more disheartening work?

Perhaps try over the summer holidays to do something every day. for example a diary with some writing, but pictures, stickers etc as well.

Or try writing first thing over breakfast rather than at the end of the day.

I think Sprigonthetyne is on the right lines.

Make lovely things that encourage his hand and eye coordination. Real things like bird and bug boxes. Toss a big ball back and forth. Make pretend post box and do tiny little notes to his toys so as to make believe stories. Make a ‘shopping’ list of fun things then find them on a walk. Maybe try a Montessori sand writing box where he can use his finger.

Get him to tell a story and you write it down
and make a real little book of it. . Read a lot of books he likes to him. Go on fun library outings.

Isn’t it well known that boys can delayed hand -eye coordination?

If you can pave the way with love and fun so he doesn’t build up fear and resistance then maybe you could get a tutor when he is eight.

Do you have the money? If you have the money, why not?
My 6 years old has fantastic handwriting, years ahead of his peers. Same size, beautiful cursive, on the lines, proper punctuation etc.
All the parents meeting since reception was all about how out of control his writing was, I was so down about it so I saved up for a few months and got him a magic link tutor. Was so well worth it. Expensive though.

When you say his writing isn’t a good enough standard, do you mean the physical handwriting or his ability to construct a sentence? If the former, I wouldn’t worry too much. Lots of children struggle to remember finger spaces, full stops and get letters round the right way at this stage. Lots of schools don’t push cursive at this stage either, so that isn’t a worry in itself. If the problem is more that your ds is struggling to put a sentence together, then it might be time for a tutor to help, but even then, reading is the best things you can do with him. Get him to read the school books but let him choose harder chapter books that might have more inspiring stories that you can read to him.

I was really behind in Year 1.
Hated school, I couldn't concentrate because of the naughty kids, as soon as I was grasping something it moved on. I was missing some foundation blocks.
I had a tutor for about half of year 2 and it helped enormously. Once I had those building blocks in place, I found school so much easier. Never needed a tutor again and did very well in my A Levels.
It is really unpopular to get a tutor for young children, but I think it so much better to do it sooner than later. The longer they feel overwhelmed and hate school, the harder it will be. You don't really want him to get any further behind.

Same for my niece in Year 2, the school kept going on about various learning difficulties. She had a tutor and school did a complete U turn and not a word about learning disabilities since!

It is actually quite hard for most to learn in school I think, the class sizes are really large, kids mucking about, very little individual attention.

I would get a tutor for certain.

In spite of what I said before, what Biscuit describes about getting behind in school, and the difficult atmosphere at school, makes sense. And look at gfyito’s experience.

He needs to learn without realising he's learning, so I don't think a tutor would be a good idea, to be honest.

Play games like connect-4 and noughts & crosses, and things with dice like snakes and ladders. Do painting by numbers or dot-to-dot puzzles. Even doing things like helping you measure out the ingredients for a cake. Does he like dinosaurs? Get him a book about them and see if he can match his toy dinosaur figures up with the ones in the book to find out what they are called. But for heaven's sake make it fun and not about 'learning' or he will dig his heels in even more.

I would spend a lot of time reading to him and when you get him to read maybe take it in turns to make it more enjoyable. Have you considered that there may have been other reasons you struggled at school and that he does too? Dyslexia, dyspraxia or visual processing issues for example? He's still only 6 and these things don't tend to be taken seriously until they are at least 7 - but keep it in mind and talk to his teacher (although remember they probably won't be an expert on those possibilities).
Does he have a routine? Maybe he comes home from school, has a drink and a snack while you read a book together, then he chills out for half an hour and then does 15 minutes where he practices some letters/writing and then he can have screen time for a bit. I have issues with remembering left and right and as a child with b and d and I always found the word bed useful to think about because it you have to put the b and d round the right way to make the word look like a 'bed'.

I wouldn’t. He’s only 6. Lots of 6 year olds have quite poor writing. Especially boys, it just doesn’t hold much interest for them.

maybe try to encourage some writing over the summer holidays. You could maybe make a special scrap book of the things you’ve done. Stick different things in a get him to write a sentence about each of them. He might respond better when he’s not burnt out from being at school all day.

I think I'll try to do something in the holidays.

We do lots of fun stuff. Lots of games and I read 2 books each night, but good tip about reading a page each of a harder book. He does struggle a bit with longer stories.

Here's an example of the only time I managed to get him to write in half term. I wrote it out underneath and he marked it 😬 My intention was for him to copy out my version, but he wouldn't. I said let's write about about what we did today and he wrote this ...

When doing writing decide on which skill you are focussing on: handwriting, sentence construction & interesting words, or spelling.
My DD has turned out to have dyslexia and dyspraxia, but she has a lovely turn of phrase in her creative writing. If people correct too many spellings it encourages children to play too safe with vocabulary.

@TeenPlusCat · Yesterday 21:12
If people correct too many spellings it encourages children to play too safe with vocabulary

What an interesting point - that because of this spellings should be worked on completely separately.

We got our Dd a tutor and she's 6.

She was way behind in maths due to all the time missed in lock downs. We just thought best to do it now rather then wait for it to become a real issue.

DD will actually do stuff for the Tutor.... she wouldn't do it for us. Sometimes she's a bit tired from being at school. But the tutor is excellent and breaks things up with games in between tasks.

Her teacher mentioned within a few weeks she noticed her confidence had gone up!
(Teacher didn't know we had a tutor)

I think maths definitely needs early intervention. Also the thinking behind maths can be done with objects even if the child cannot physically write well.

If it's actual handwriting - there are lots of activties that can help - or programs like Write from the start.

If it's spelling - Nessy or other on-line programs might be easy to get him to at least try.

Teach your monster how to read - for reading practise.

I used mathsfactor with my childen but it was more than not pushing ahead - there are many other optiosn out there - doodlelearning - maths especially seems to get mentioned on here a fair bit and they have english and spelling programs now.

Other tips are routine and doing things ealier in the day as PP mentioned - little and often is best at this age.

I would step in earlier as it's easier on children and you if there's not a huge amount to catch up and inbuilt resistance to area needed support - if easiest way for you is a tutor then I would consider it otherwise I'd try and narrow down areas that need more support and see if some more fun activties or on-line stuff is enough support.

Just putting this out there.

My DS is the same. He's 9 now and has always been the same since he was 4. Still does letters backwards. Has meltdowns about doing anything 'school' at home. Is exhausted after being at school all day and he needs to have 30 mins to go and calm himself down alone when he gets in. He has autism.

Should have also said that trying to push/gently encourage him has the opposite effect and just leads to more meltdowns.

Lockdown and home learning was certainly 'interesting'

I've posted an example of his writing if you filter my posts.

@Neoandtrinity yes I've considered this. He has certainly taken a weird route in his development, some things being very fast and some very slow. He's very shy and obsessionalI've considered maybe not just be shyness. It's so hard to tell isn't it? He doesn't have any other traits really.

Ah yes, that would be great at the start of year 1. Finger spacing etc aside, what jumps out to me is that he is not copying the words correctly when right in front of him, to me that indicates dyslexia.
Can you write shorter sentences in cursive for him to copy? Such as 'I like red.' 'I am six!'. Shorter sentences and building up may help with letter spacing. Remind him to pay attention to finger spacing. Show him how in yours the words are about a finger apart so it doesn't look like one big word.
Some wipe clean cursive books might be fun too.

Have you googled 'Year 1 writing' and looked in google images? Will give you an idea of roughly what is expected.