To be worried my daughter is never going to progress

[Noplans2020]

Had the first parents evening tonight of year one. DD is five and only did half of reception due to covid! She has also isolated for two weeks so only did five weeks of this term. So missed a quarter of this term.

In reception both parents evenings were about her struggling to understand instructions such as go to your peg etc. She needed alot of guidance. But the second parents evening was a little improved. They also said she just wasn't quite ready for the work side of it. I got her hearing and eyes tested ten months ago as requested by the school. All was fine.

So over lockdown I've taught her to write different size words and read up to four letter words. She's writing beautifully at home. Great at lists. Always drawing. Able to write some words now with no guidance. Also her behaviour and stuff is so much better. She takes herself to bed now when it's time. She listens and behaves. She's helpful. She is really independent. Caring. Really interested in learning. She loves one on one for learning.

Teacher calls tonight. Says she finds someone to play with everyday and is happy. She said that's all they can ask for at this point. She then asked if we had any concerns. I asked how she was doing as she had support last year and was struggling abit with certain parts. Then the teacher spent the final 7 minutes of the chat focused on the same things as her last teacher. Is it her hearing? Do we have concerns at home? Apparently if she asks her to go to her tray she doesn't do it straight away. It's like she doesn't grasp it apparently still. Also when she's asked to copy of the board she will do her own thing. She sent me a piece of work and apparently wanted to show me because it was very creative. It was a whole page of letters and no obvious words. She then said she was supposed to copy three little sentances of the board but did that instead. She said she wasn't sure how to help her understand but said she would keep an eye and write anything in the book if she's concerned and wants to discuss it.

Anyway. Third parents evening. Same problems. No better a year on.

I've done everything I can. As far as I knew she was able to do these things. I'm always writing words for her to copy. Always doing work with her at home. I read with her. She has a tablet with learning games. She writes, colours, cuts and paints at home.

I just don't know why she can't follow what she needs to be doing?

I'm worried she's just not ready for the environment. Yet she loves going.

Any advice?

Dear OP. My DD now 20 is at university doing a Fine Art degree. She is a very talented artist. She was a slow developer and struggled compared with other students, with concentration, reading and maths. She was emotionally intelligent so knew she couldn't do things other kids could do at her age. She thought she was stupid - I worked so hard to try to dispel that notion. She was the sweetest and kindest child and she still has this easy going glow. And boy she could always paint and draw.

My thought now is that she might have been dyslexic but not extremely so. I just think she was wired differently. Her creative vision was always there, and her intuitive wisdom, but her analytical skills and retention took much longer. Honestly, apart from art, she would have done better starting school starting at age 7 or 8.

I got her a bit of extra help at certain points. For Maths GCSE and Politics A Level. She worked hard and got 3 good A Levels - A, B, C.

Ashe is an amazing, funny, clever, emotionally mature, creative, wise and relaxed young woman. So easy going and never a difficult teenager. She is a blessing. Not everyone develops at the same rate. Give your child space to grow and develop at their pace. The super bright already reading ones don't all sustain their advantage - its just different rates of development.

Dear OP. My DD now 20 is at university doing a Fine Art degree. She is a very talented artist. She was a slow developer and struggled compared with other students, with concentration, reading and maths. She was emotionally intelligent so knew she couldn't do things other kids could do at her age. She thought she was stupid - I worked so hard to try to dispel that notion. She was the sweetest and kindest child and she still has this easy going glow. And boy she could always paint and draw.

My thought now is that she might have been dyslexic but not extremely so. I just think she was wired differently. Her creative vision was always there, and her intuitive wisdom, but her analytical skills and retention took much longer. Honestly, apart from art, she would have done better starting school starting at age 7 or 8.

I got her a bit of extra help at certain points. For Maths GCSE and Politics A Level. She worked hard and got 3 good A Levels - A, B, C.

Ashe is an amazing, funny, clever, emotionally mature, creative, wise and relaxed young woman. So easy going and never a difficult teenager. She is a blessing. Not everyone develops at the same rate. Give your child space to grow and develop at their pace. The super bright already reading ones don't all sustain their advantage - its just different rates of devolpment.

I'd agree that the teacher has noticed something different about your child, so bear it in mind.

In year R, DD2's teacher commented that "DD2 is so easy to assess - I show the children something, then DD2 recreates it and brings it to me!"

What she was actually seeing was that DD2 didn't know how to do anything different - she could only do what she was shown.

That same teacher commented on how quickly DD2 had picked up repeating patterns. Yep, it was all DD2 talked about for months. She saw them everywhere.

She has ASD. Finally diagnosed at 11, after attending 3 schools and being home educated because she fell apart at 2 schools, to the point of school refusal and physical illness, because her needs weren't met. The third school understood her needs and bent over backwards to give her the help she needed.

Wow so much pressure on 5 year olds. You have nothing to worry about. Let children be children and learn at there own pace !

In year 1 my daughters teacher said she wondered whether she may have a processing disorder and asked if we had noticed anything at home. We were really surprised as she followed every instruction at home easily. We decided on seeing how things went. By Year 3 she was diagnosed with absence seizures. This us a mild form of epilepsy which she has subsequently grown out of. We will never know how long she was having the seizures. They are subtle and quite easy to miss in a quiet compliant child.

My advice would be to start investigations.

Keep on with the writing at home, practice phonic sounds, read every night and practice number bonds.

Obviously Year 1 covers a lot more but if doing some extra at home I this is what I would focus on.

In year 1 my daughters teacher said she wondered whether she may have a processing disorder and asked if we had noticed anything at home. We were really surprised as she followed every instruction at home easily. We decided on seeing how things went. By Year 3 she was diagnosed with absence seizures. This us a mild form of epilepsy which she has subsequently grown out of. We will never know how long she was having the seizures. They are subtle and quite easy to miss in a quiet compliant child.

My advice would be to start investigations.

Keep on with the writing at home, practice phonic sounds, read every night and practice number bonds.

Obviously Year 1 covers a lot more but if doing some extra at home I this is what I would focus on.

Could you ask the school to buddy her up with a child that does those tasks well to help/show her what they want her to do?
Sometimes the message is easier to understand from a peer.

Wow so much pressure on 5 year olds. You have nothing to worry about. Let children be children and learn at there own pace !

I’m pretty sure I have a sensory processing thing going on - I’m very good with visual stimuli (and indeed have a near perfect photographic memory), but auditory information is very hard for me to focus on. So I would struggle to listen to a podcast but would absorb the transcript very quickly and remember it. In group settings eg down the pub, I find it hard to follow just one conversation, as there are often multiples. Actually I find I’m listening to one conversation while trying to participate in another. This is something I’ve only recently picked up about myself, but my son has Aspergers, and I’m starting to suspect I might be somewhere along the spectrum also!

She’s young OP but equally I was aware of similar issues for my ds at the same age. Have you looked into auditory processing disorder?

I think you should take note of the fact that the teacher has noticed something 'different'. They deal with 5 year olds all the time.

Interesting that she says 'what' when you ask her something. This definitely points to a processing issue. My dd was like this right through primary school (she's now a med student and no longer says 'what' each time she's asked something!)

I would ask for a referral to an ed psych.

I’m pretty sure I have a sensory processing thing going on - I’m very good with visual stimuli (and indeed have a near perfect photographic memory), but auditory information is very hard for me to focus on. So I would struggle to listen to a podcast but would absorb the transcript very quickly and remember it. In group settings eg down the pub, I find it hard to follow just one conversation, as there are often multiples. Actually I find I’m listening to one conversation while trying to participate in another. This is something I’ve only recently picked up about myself, but my son has Aspergers, and I’m starting to suspect I might be somewhere along the spectrum also!

I’m pretty sure I have a sensory processing thing going on - I’m very good with visual stimuli (and indeed have a near perfect photographic memory), but auditory information is very hard for me to focus on. So I would struggle to listen to a podcast but would absorb the transcript very quickly and remember it. In group settings eg down the pub, I find it hard to follow just one conversation, as there are often multiples. Actually I find I’m listening to one conversation while trying to participate in another. This is something I’ve only recently picked up about myself, but my son has Aspergers, and I’m starting to suspect I might be somewhere along the spectrum also!

Find out how far away her seat is from the board and set up something similar at home, see if she can read it there where there is no noise. Then you know if it's noise or eyesight problems.

It’s interesting you say she sometimes doesn’t see what’s right in front of her - does that tend to happen when there’s a lot of different things in her visual field?

My son has two types of visual impairment, one of which is cortical visual impairment which means his brain struggles to process what he’s seeing. If there are few visual distractions he’s fine, but if there’s loads of stuff around then he can struggle to differentiate.

So it could be she’s not understanding the instruction to go to her peg, it could be that it’s taking her brain a bit longer to process that instruction in a noisy environment, it could be that she’s struggling to pick out her peg from a sea of pegs, etc. Could be so many things and some aren’t easy to detect from a standard hearing or vision test. I would definitely ask to speak to the school SENCO and see what support they can offer initially.

My daughter was like this. Every after-school class, ballet, swimming, art, they would all eventually ask if there was anything wrong with her.
She was independent and delightful at home but she 'did her own thing'.
Everyone would skip one way, she would hop the other.
Turns out she had ADD - in girls they often don't get the hyperactivity, they get inattentive instead.
School said she was lovely but 'in her own bubble' and very disorganised. She needed support and strategies but not loads of help, more just reminding to stay on task.
Anyway, eventually she just sort of 'grew out' of it at about 15.
She's still a bit dreamy but is thriving and is now 20 and studying English Lit at Exeter, lots of friends, lovely boyfriend (also a bit away with the faeries but very bright).
Look up ADD in girls and see if it sounds like your girl.
It's all very well that she's only 5 but schools don't 'phone home casually and keep asking for tests - there is a reason, but it doesn't mean she won't be totally fine.

She may have auditory processing disorder.

What happens when she’s asked why she didn’t do what was asked. Do the teachers ask her if she has heard?

Could definitely be slow processing.

DS needed to go to small private school to have quiet call environment to learn. He was too distracted with 30 around him and constant noise. Now he’s thriving and doing much better but was falling behind badly where he was.

I think teachers are under pressure to identify any potential problems while kids are as young as possible. It can be awful for a child with problems to slip through the net and not get the help they need until later in life, sometimes when it’s too late. My DD age 6 has some minor issues that she’s getting help with now (does physio and S&L) but is catching up all the time and hopefully in the next few years won’t have any noticeable problems. We were lucky these were identified early enough for her to get the help she needed.

Sometimes schools don’t bring out the best in children. Schooling is not a natural concept to a child anyway. Maybe she would suit a Montessori school better?

My advice is based on what I should have probably done with hindsight. If the school have concerns and are offering help in the form of assessments...just go with it. If there is nothing to be concerned about the assessment will show that...it is actually fairly hard to get a diagnosis or SEN help so they will not ‘diagnose’ your daughter if there is nothing to be found. If, and it is a big IF, there is anything that your daughter needs help with, the earlier they find out, the better. I found out the hard way and had to do all this in secondary school, which is sooooo much harder and a bit too late.

She might be bright with concentration issues. Could be something, could just be that she is 5 and finding stuff a bit dull at school or easily distracted.

I would ask for more detailed chat with the school. Is she very inattentive? Is she completing any set work? Does she manage to do what's ask without being repeated. Theres easy things that can be put in place like wobble cushion is she is fidgety, now and then visual cards, only giving one instruction- not 2 part instructions.

If the teacher said ' hang your coats up then choose a reading book ' could she follow those instructions?

Not all children are hard wired to be people pleasers. Some are more creative and independent thinkers.

Is the teacher explaining exactly what she means? Has she said 'get your sheet from your tray' without explaining 'when I ask you to get your sheet from your tray I expect you to go straight to your tray - which is over here - to get your sheet, then go back with it and sit down in your place'

I spent the whole of the first couple of months assuming 'Now get on and write your news' meant 'copy what the girl to your right has done' purely because the girl on my right copied what the girl on her right did, which was draw a picture and write a sentence beneath.
(we didn't have a TV or radio so I did not know what 'news' was - this was 1960s so I could read chapter books for perhaps an 8 year old now - still have the one I got for my 5th birthday - and write too, before I went to school).

I was SO crippled with embarrassment to discover what 'writing your news' meant, that I was supposed to draw my OWN picture of what I had been doing and write my own sentence. Not copy Jacqueline who was copying Susan.
(it wasn't any surprise to find Jacqueline really did not like me ever because of this, we went through school together till 6th form)

Sounds like about half the class where I worked. Is it a very academic school?

Don’t worry too much at this stage. Encourage her at home to carry out simple requests that you ask of her. Explore what they are saying at home. It might be that she is distracted in the classroom.

My DD started reading at 3 her partner (whose mother was a teacher)didn’t start learning to read until he was six. He gained a first in Law at Uni.