Unreasonable to ask here instead of eduction, but if your child struggles with reading...

[BalloonSlayer]

Do the school actually let you know?

Or do you have to work it out for yourself?

My DCs primary school does not seem very forthcoming with how they are doing, although they produce reams of tedious toss about what they have been doing in the end of term reports, most of which I know already because the DCs have told me.

I know the SATs give an indication of ability, but the period between year 2 and year 6 is pretty crucial in terms of becoming a fluent reader. And if you live where we do, where there are no grammar schools and everyone goes to the same [good] comprehensive, there is no pressing need to find out your child's abilities in year 4 so you can gauge your options and get a tutor if required.

I am not talking about my own DCs, I am thankfully quite happy about their progress. Rather I've noticed quite a lot of ex-pupils of my DCs school needing help in secondary with reading, yet I have never been aware of anyone having extra reading tuition paid for by their parents at primary level, haven't seen anyone advertising such a thing. I just wonder, did the parents know their child had such a problem?

I wondered if anyone else had any knowledge or experience. Are there national guidelines for instance to alert parents that a child is falling behind? A friend I mentioned this to said she thought that if the school told a parent that their child was struggling with reading the parent would be likely to say "well what are you going to do about it then?" so she thought schools tend not to day anything. Could this be right ???? Please tell me it isn't.

Sorry I did not put this in education but there was a thread on here yesterday about education so I thought I might get faster replies.

I've just realised this sounds as if I think that all reading problems can be cured by a bit of paid tuition. That's not what I meant and not what I think.

As a matter of fact I am having trouble explaining what I do mean. I guess I should have stopped after the first two lines.

I have never been told officially any levels between KS1 and KS2 only that they are above average , peforming at average etc in their reports.
However at parents evening we did have discussions on DS struggling with mainly spelling and what they were doing to help him.

The same with DD and her handwriting.
They do what is called optional sats at the end of every year but we were never told the scores.
It works the other way as well as we didn't really realise how well DS was doing in things like science until he went to secondary school.

Message withdrawn

Our DCs get target setting, which happens with them present, so you can't ask any frank questions. DC in infants got complimented but DC in juniors didn't get any praise from the teacher, and I do know he is actually doing well.

Funny thing is, none of the other mums have asked me how it went, so I wonder if they also feel a bit demoralised about it all(trans: nothing to brag about ).

As I said before, reports don't say how well or not they are doing either.

I guess if you are concerned then you make an appointment. But what if you are not concerned and assume "no news is good news." ?

Oh and I have just noticed the rich irony of the typo in the thread title

Don't you get an end of year report? We do in our ordinary state school. Also, the children are in sets for literacy which should give an indication of how they are doing with their reading.

The thing is someone could be behind in reading in Yr 1 for purely developmental reading and have caught up by the time they get to Yr 6. I couldn't help noticing that ds was not reading very fluently in Yr 2 (even if teacher had not kept me up to date at parents' evening), but wouldn't have thought a tutor was the answer, as he was obviously developmentally behind most of his class. And yes, the teacher did tell me about his weaknesses, he was in bottom set and I have just been told he is now on the SEN register. That's the sort of information I think you should be able to ask from the school.