Year 1 DD is behind in her report

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She was alright in reception - the jump to year 1 has been quite big for her.

whereas in reception she was even a bit ahead in reading, she’s now emerging. She’s on orange books in RWI.

her writing was at expected level in reception but has slipped to emerging as well. Her writing is improving, but she’s definitely behind a lot of her peers. As became apparent to me in the Christmas cards we’ve received. She can do it, she just needs a lot of support.

any positive stories of how kids like this can catch up ? I think her verbal reasoning and that kind of thing is fine and not behind her peers. I’ve run her report through chat gpt and it said that it the ideas and understanding are there, but there’s a slight execution bottle neck that she’ll get through with practice and a bit of time.

the teachers praise her effort and say she’s improving, which I can also see.

if there were ‘ serious concerns ‘ the teachers may have mentioned it, right ?

any experiences welcome. I’m not extremely concerned at this point yet, but just wondering how I can help her along. I really do see her trying and she’s improving.

Ah yes, I've only ever come across one of those Early Reader ones. Sorry, I was thinking of the short novel Rainbow Fairies which are more Y2/Y3 level.

I think firstly I wouldn't assume that this means she is always going to struggle. They're so young at this age I think their success is as much down to maturity as it is academic ability. Secondly I'd find out exactly what her strengths and weaknesses are. Is it her decoding and fluency or her comprehension? Because this would massively change how you support her. My dd's fluency has always been her strong point but she sometimes isn't especially strong at articulating her thoughts and demonstrating understanding (even though she really does understand) so I don't read tonnes of pages with her we read a couple of pages and really take the time to unpick things. I still do a lot of reading to her as well for the same reason. A child who struggles more with fluency though might need a completely different approach. Your teacher should be more than happy to discuss this with you and if they really think she's behind should be explaining what interventions they're putting in place for support.

Your child's teacher is the best person to discuss this with. If you are approaching it with 'How can I help my child?' then they will probably be more than happy to help.

It's also worth bearing in mind that child development / academic progress does not follow a perfectly linear pattern - although the curriculum expectations probably follow this pattern. Think of a long distance race, with different competitors taking the lead at different times - this is what it is like when the 'labels' are based on averages.

The best support is reading - lots of it. Let DD read to you, read to her, take it in turns, discuss the books. Don't get hung up on levels, as long as it is something DD enjoys and can understand.