Who is being unreasonable - taking away music because of lack of reading.

[Teachmuggles1419]

Hey ! My daughter is 6 she is very musical, a passionate drum player, teaching her self to play piano and guitar.
She tends to be pretty tutus/ dresses with band T-shirts and dr martens and bright coloured socks with leather jackets etc her music taste sort of random. She dives between things like Dolly Parton / Elton John / jovi / goo goo dolls / artic monkeys / guns and roses.
She tends to sway more to listening to music / watching music videos than to watch tv and movies.
She is not academic and hates to read. Here is my issue she does struggle with her school work and she really struggles with reading.
My dsis thinks that I should be restricting her music and using it as a form of punishment when she is “ whining “ about not doing her reading / homework.
She will sit and draw / paint and design dresses etc but will not without drama, read and write or engage with homework and they struggle with her at school to participate ( she does participate in maths and art )
She practices her music every day ( we can no afford music lessons here ) so she uses you tube for lessons.
Is it fair to remove the practising her music as punishment ?
I just can’t bring my self to do it.

Sorry, messed up quoting, was supposed to say that the Little People Big Dreams series have a dolly Parton one.

I think the music and the reading are separate entities, though could you merge the two?

Music does help academically as well, but if you take the music away to force her to read she may just resent the reading more and see it as a punishment!

There are some lovely, music based books. Sweet Child of Mine is a new book or the little people big dreams books.

My daughter was like this - she could read but hated doing it. Revised for GCSEs etc using videos and did pretty well. In her early 20s, has been diagnosed as dyslexic. I'd ask about this and keep on asking if she doesn't get more comfortable with reading.
Your sister is a dick. Encourage your daughter in her talents and interests.

Do not take her music away, she should not be punished for not being academic.

Yr 2 is nothing, she has plenty of time to catch up. And even if she isn’t a literary wiz so what, she has a passion and a talent. Let her pursue it.

I wouldn’t be forcing homework on her at this age. I refuse to make my yr2 & yr4 DCs do homework. Spellings is the only think I make them do, everything else is optional. There is plenty of time later in school life to push homework. Maybe as someone else suggested use the music as a reward if you want her to do more writing. Or use it as an incentive, dose she have a favourite musician/band/style or music, get her to write a story about them to practice her writing. I did this with my daughter, not for school reasons but to help her understand sentences because they were bothering her that she couldn’t do them. She loves Harry Potter so I got her to write some things about HP down, the different books, characters etc...

You could try the online lessons from the Oak National Academy. You could start with reception classes to help her catch up. It means she watches a video rather than you "making" her do writing. I found it took the pressure off as it was the teacher telling my child to do something, rather than me.

Your daughter sounds amazing x

Reading stamina & fluency come with repetition and regular practise. If she can hear and blend phonics at a basic level, that bit has "clicked" and it's the fluency and stamina she will be lacking as she has missed so much school relative to her peers. You will need to put the time in (find fun ways to practise, lots upthread), but use music as a reward or a tool, not a punishment. However, she is 6, and you are the parent. She can't spend all her time doing only what she loves, she does need to work on the range of what's needed for a broad education. Much as a child who loves to read and is very able at it, can't be allowed to spend their life absorbed in stories if their maths skills are falling behind.

Your daughter sounds awesome

even if she isn’t a literary wiz so what, she has a passion and a talent. Let her pursue it.
This is kindly meant but a) we dont actually know if this child is exceptionally talented. Lots of children love & are good at music. The world is swamped with musicians trying to earn a crust - many need to fall back on their broader education to earn enough to live. It matters if a child learns to read, it can't be neglected just because she loves music. My kid loves playing with lego, it doesnt mean I'm going to let him do that constantly and not bother learning to read.

Word hornet book - life changing in getting my dyslexic kids to be able to read. Plus it's cheap as just need to buy the book and do it at home.

www.wordwasp.com
This is website but u can buy book anywhere

not RTFT so apologise if these have been suggested...

As a former tutor, I'd be looking for ways to combine the music with reading so that she enjoys it. eg I had a little boy once who hated reading and writing, but was obsessed with dinosaurs. I got him reading books about dinosaurs, and persuaded him to write me a story about dinosaurs, and he got really into it - wrote an 18 page epic about his adventure with his pet velociraptor!! The spelling etc was atrocious, but it got him enjoying it and as he got better at it he found it easier.

So maybe read books about music together? Or news articles about her favourite artists? Then get her to write out information pages about them?

Do it instead of toe by toe

Could you encourage reading centred around her favourite bands etc? She sounds a great little individual personality. Definitely DON'T remove her music as a punishment. My ds is older but a talented guitarist and he would be bereft if we removed that from him.

You are right, your sister is wrong. Your dd sounds really creative. Don't wreck that. Also, it's your job to decide how to bring up your dd, your sister should mind her own.

Haven't RTFT but my DC hated reading age 6. We kept reading to him, didn't force him to read regularly or anything like that.

He's now 8 and it clicked, he likes it now.

At year 2 she is what 6? If she genuinely cannot grasp sentences at all by this age but can recognise simple words, I would be wanting her assessed with a view to her being dyslexic. The earlier any learning difficulties are picked up, the easier time she will have of it as it takes time to get support in place.

As you say, it clearly isn't an issue of intelligence or even interest and she can decode some words phonetically, its just when it comes to writing them or reading/using them in a sentence. Sounds textbook dyslexia to me. (Pun not intended)

I don't entirely agree with the tone of this thread- yes, she's a little girl that loves music, but that's not terribly relevant to whether she's properly learning to read, needs educational input (which you are legally obliged to be offered, unless you have withdrawn her from education which I don't think you have, so some worksheets are not adequate at all) and keeping her up to speed with not just reading and writing but also maths,

It's a bit irrelevant that in some Scandinavian countries they don't start the formal part of their education til 6/7, because this child is 6 and would be starting that fairly soon, and by waiting til 7, they are then expected to progress pretty quickly to learning to read, or maths ability, they don't go as slow as in the UK!

I would repost this in the Special Needs section and see how you can get your local authority to step up and provide more educational support- you've done a great job but you shouldn't be on your own in this, you need specialist imput/tutors/far more support than you have been getting, I feel like your dd is falling through the cracks as she's not out of school for a day or two, but months on end. She'll also need support for maths as she goes forward if she's missed a lot.

Some great suggestions on here in terms of supporting literacy, reading a lot, getting her to read things she likes the look of, audio books, but ultimately she does need to learn to read. My dd was six and also couldn't read (unlike my other one who read aged 4) and we did an intensive six months of 10 minutes of her reading a day, with set schemes, and she cracked it. She is dyslexic and it was a massive struggle, but the answer isn't just hope it all happens later on and delight in her musical talent (!) I know you didn't say that but some of the posts on this are a bit over-romanticized about what it's like to get children who are outside the school system a lot to be on a par with her peers.

She isn't going to get why literacy or maths is so important right now and may not want to do it. No need to panic, every opportunity for her to get this in the coming couple of years, but I really think there's a statutory duty to educational provision which is being failed here.

Agree that you should find music-related things for her to read - DS1 really struggled with reading, he has ADHD and finds it hard to focus, but he loves Pokemon. So I dug out my old Gameboy and got him playing the first Pokemon game, it's all text and no voice acting, so he had no choice but to read if he wanted to play the game. It worked, he loves reading now.

Also remember that with the amount of school she's missed, it will take time for her to catch up. Nobody's at fault for that, she was ill, but she will be "behind" for a while, and the school should understand and accommodate that. Don't put pressure on her or yourself to get up to the same standard as her classmates in a short amount of time, it might even take years for her to fully catch up, but as long as she is improving it doesn't matter how long it takes. She'll get there in her own time.

Thanks for all the ideas
I got some of those young mind books and dc hero books as she likes dc hero’s.
I also bought worse witch to read to her and she likes the tv show.

The school are a bit stuck at the moment because obviously online education is not what it was in the first lockdown as only a few children are off school so they are in classes. She has a learning pack ( work sheets )

Watching a tv show won't do anything for her reading! But the worst witch books are great fun.

I wouldn't stop music, no! I would tell your daughter that she has to do reading first then music. Please please tackle her reading, it is very very important. Toe by toe is good but it's very very dry. Dancing Bears from the sound foundation is good or you can get the book "How to teach your child to read in 100 lessons" which helped DS learn how to blend his sounds to hear the word.

@Poppyismyfavourite I meant I bought the books because she likes the tv show in hope it would engage her.

@Teachmuggles1419 ah fair enough! Good idea, hope it works!

Don't take her music away. It will just make reading and writing feel like a punishment and she needs to be motivated to really learn, try 5 minute mum on Instagram (she has a book too) her games are aimed at learning phonics then blending the sounds so they learn how to read and loads of writing and maths games too. Try to make it fun, that's how they learn at this age anyway!
Stop beating yourself up too, you sound like a fantastic mum and it's not your fault she's missed a lot of school

@Teachmuggles1419.

Your sister is an idiot. Definitely ignore any of her parenting advice.

If it was me, I wouldn't worry about any of it. Let her be. She'll catch up academically when she finds something that drives her to. She's been though & is going through a LOT, allowing her to love her life would be my only focus. I'd just read to her, okay games wuth her & allow her to persue anything that interests her. I would also look at finding the money for music lessons (online is working well for us right now) before she develops 'bad habits' that will make progressing very difficult.

She sounds fabulous 💕

Just a word of advice...I've been on mumsnet for years and I remember posting something similar about dd1 - she wasn't as musical as your dd but really hated reading, struggled etc. I got lots of well meaning advice about leaving her to do it when she was ready etc.etc. i actually really wish I'd pushed it a bit more as she was behind academically for years and this ended up really denting her confidence. I thought it would all fall into place when she was ready to do it, it never really did and she ended up having to have a tutor for a few years. Which was fine but as I say it really dented her confidence