to be upset that my child cant read and nobody cares?

[staydazzling]

had a heartbreaking conversation inthe bath earlier with youngest child 6 yrs old. Ive always known that he has significant reading difficulties and have spent 2 years trying to bring up with the teachers he could benefit from help but i get dismissive replies ranging from he'll get there eventually to hes not the most severe in the class. He was telling me he feels self conscious because he can hardly read at all and is embarrassed to tell anyone, children already whisper when he asks other kids to read a word for him , i empathised and said that must be so frustrating for you. and that people in our family have dyslexia hes not alone. he also gets sounds confuses, another symptom of dyslexia. another complaint he had was they just tell him to sound the word out, but he cant because he gets sounds wrong that broke my heart hes being so badly failed. hes on a low book band at least 5 behind where he should be. i know austerity has desimated our education but, it cannot be right to just abandon a child like that can it? its making me quite teary now, AIBU to be annoyed noone seems to care that my son can barely read?

It really is down to parents

No, it’s not! There is a whole SEN system, and as Tonnere said, if DC does not make progress with additional SEN support in school, then DC’s needs are beyond the resources of a mainstream school, and OP can ask for an assessment for an EHC plan. If OP has evidence of the lack of progress, then they can appeal to the SEND Tribunal. Parents win 89% of cases over refusal to assess!

DC may have not had the right method of learning to read at the right time for him; or he might have mild/moderate/severe dyslexia on its own; but he could have dyslexia and an array of difficulties with attention, low processing speed, poor auditory and working memory, language, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, etc....Ime, the children with severe dyslexia and co-morbid conditions, can get to specialist dyslexia schools. Those schools would not exist, if parents could do it all.

My DD was diagnosed by an LA educational psychologist at 6 years 8 months with specific learning difficulties.

Thank you mont st michel

I think kids are expected to learn to read too soon. In many countries they don’t go to school till they are 7 and there are loads of studies that say it makes no difference when you learn to read up to the age of 7. Just a thought. My nearly 6 year old is t interested in reading so I don’t push him. He like being read too so sticking with that for now .

What counts as progression can be very minimal though, depending on the district. Promoting students is seen as more desirable than making them repeat a grade as there can be repercussions in later grades when you run the risk of having a 6 foot tall 6th grader who may be socially and emotionally on a completely different page from most of the rest of the grade and who will give you an unfair advantage in basketball.

Generally, if a student is making so little progress that it is a concern for the teacher/s, a SEN evaluation will be recommended and if an IEP is the outcome then whatever that requires will be funded (in MC school districts anyway).

If everyone else in your K class is reading grade level texts and you aren’t the damage is done regardless of whether there’s a necessity to show an end result.
Agree. It's very sad when a child notices and starts to feel bad about it.

I mostly agree with you on retention, math. I don’t think kindergarten retention is seen as desirable anywhere. But promotion without having met end of grade standards tends to come with support (in MC school districts).

For some reason it doesn’t always in England. Although I’m wondering whether the love of having smaller close knit schools doesn’t help.

What counts as progression can be very minimal though, depending on the district. Promoting students is seen as more desirable than making them repeat a grade as there can be repercussions in later grades when you run the risk of having a 6 foot tall 6th grader who may be socially and emotionally on a completely different page from most of the rest of the grade..

That would not happen in England, afaik. Here it is standard for children to go up to the next year, regardless of progress or lack of. Occasionally, there might be a discussion about holding a child with SEN down for a year; but parents need to beware of that, because ime sooner or later the school will want the child to leapfrog a year and rejoin their chronological year group. If they have been held down due to SEN, these are the children least likely to be able to miss out a year's learning....

When I talked about progress, I meant looking at it quite specifically - say a child is in the top ten percent for IQ on WISC; but on a test like WORD, they are on the 5th percentile for basic reading, spelling and reading comprehension and their age equivalent is 8 months behind their chronological age...then when they are tested with WISC and WORD again a year later, they are a year behind their chronological age on reading, then they have fallen further behind, rather than closing the gap and are not achieving in line with their IQ either.

Alternatively, when my DD was in primary school, children were always assessed with national curriculum levels - and they were generally expected to go up a level in two years. If hypothetically, my DD had gone from level 2a to 2b at reading in two years, rather going up to level 3 as expected; then I would have been concerned with the lack of progress and that DD was falling further behind; not closing the gap. ICAN reckoned that children needed to be at level 4 in reading in year 6, if they were going to cope with secondary school. So, if my DD was in mainstream and was still level 2b at reading by Year 6, I would have been very concerned......If I had not done so already, I'd be seeking an assessment for an EHC plan.