5 yr old ds is behind with reading & writing

[Cherrycupcake24]

We had parents evening last year and my ds has been put on a monitoring & concern programme because he's way behind where he should be with reading & writing in year 1.

He's a reluctant reader altho he's getting better now I've introduced a sticker reward chart. He's still unable to recognise words, even 3 letter word that he's perhaps read on the page before.

Anyone else experienced this? Is it a case of just waiting until something clicks or should I be worried?

It sounds like you’ve got a great teacher to have picked this up so early and to be giving him extra support. I can’t tell you its nothing, it could be something, but in the case of my DD who was very very similar in Y1, now in Y3 and she has mostly caught up. Reading is exactly where it should be for her age. She has nice handwriting. Spelling isn’t her strong point so she does receive a bit of extra help there but she can write well enough to keep up in other lessons and can make sensible enough guesses when she doesn’t know a word that you can tell what she’s trying to write. Her maths is excellent. She’s good at sport. She’s happy and has lots of friends. So I count my blessings!

There’s a really good chance it will click. In a lot of countries a 5YO wouldn’t even be in school yet. He’s had the whole summer off. An easy tip- stick the subtitles on TV because that’s been proven to help and they don’t even realise they’re learning!! Read together lots and enjoy books. If I could go back I would say don’t stress yourself and most importantly don’t stress him. If it is something like dyslexia then you can’t formally diagnose that until 7+ anyway so there’s no point worrying about it now.

Is he learning phonics so he can work out words?

Nothing to worry about at this stage - the intervention and monitoring could get him to the expected level surprisingly quickly or it could identify that he needs additional support and help him access it sooner rather than later.

DD2 had it towards the end of Y1. In her case, she was a summer born with ten million other more interesting things to think about than sitting down and reading books she wasn't interested in for them. They didn't manage to identify her AuDHD, but she was an intelligent girl, so she was rather let down by the attitudes of 'not labelling' and 'if they aren't boys tearing lumps out of other children or the classroom, there isn't a problem' at the time - but six weeks of support made a huge difference.

The usual advice is get an eye test and get a hearing test.

Often children have problems but don't realise they have problems because it has always been like that.

Do you read to him lots OP? I'd definitely recommend that. Along with visits to the library, and listening to him read everyday, just for a short time. If he's reluctant then take it in turns to read a page, or you read the book first and then get him to read it.

Can he recognise the letters and sound the word out or is that what he's struggling with? He needs to have a good grasp of phonics to begin with. Or is it that he can't yet blend the sounds together? If he's struggling with blending then get him to sound the letters out and then repeat them back to him a little more quickly and see if he can hear the word, if he can't hear it then split it into two parts and see if he can put them together ie C-AT.

Hearing test and eye test are a really good idea if he hasn't had them recently, and have you got anyone dyslexic in the family? If so I'd definitely be wondering about that (or even if you haven't). But I'd give it a bit more time before going down that route.