Help with reading - year 3 pupil very behind peers

[caz05]

I have a 7 year old son, July baby do is young in his year. He is due to start year. 3 next week but I am very concerned about his reading levels which of course effects aspects of writing too.

He has always been far behind and has received help with a TA where available and has seen the SENCO teacher too and although he is behind they have never expressed great concerns and have said he should catch up eventually.

He is my oldest son so I have never had any experience with schools etc before so just went along with it but I am now becoming increasingly concerned and worried that he will now fall even further behind when he starts his new middle school next week.

A member of our extended family is a primary teacher (in the private sector) and offered to asses him for us and she has no said that she feels he is at least 2 years behind where he should be at and has given us extra books and work that I can help him with at home. She has given me some pointers of what to ask the school when he starts and to see what they advise. She has also mentioned about gettig him assessed to be statemented as if this goes through will guarantee him TA at school.

Does anyone have any experience with their children being behind their expected levels and what they did to help at home? Any online programmes they found useful? Any experience with being statemented etc?

I would be grateful for any guidance or advise.

I am not sure this will help, but my oldest son was also very slow to learn reading....he didn't properly learn until he was 9 years old and yes it did effect his schoolwork until than.... I am happy to report he is now 16 and will be enrolling for his A-Levels tomorrow.
It did take a lot of patience and honestly I thought he might be dyslexic or something, but in his own time and of course with our help (and he had an amazing teacher at the time, a teacher he really connected too) he got there in the end....
hope it will be the same for your son.

First step would be to talk to his new teacher and outline your concerns. Then arrange for another meeting a few weeks down the line when the teacher has got to grips with the class and has figured out where he's up to.
The school may wish to refer your ds to an educational psychologist for assessment but first they have to try a variety of interventions and support (otherwise the EP referral just gets bounced back if school haven't tried "enough" iyswim)
As far as statements go, it depends very much on where you live. Statements are on their way out in many areas. Are you aware of your ds's IEP? If he has had one you would have to sign it. Again a child needs to have had IEPs to be referred further into action and investigation systems, whether state or private. Hth :)