Underachieving 5 year old

[Ljhbaby]

Advice and reassurance please. My 5 year old (August baby) has been identified via school to be under achieving in all areas of the curriculum :(. no formal diagnosis has been confirmed.

slightly delayed walker and talker as a toddler but no real milestone concerns … until now

He is a very happy boy who loves to play with his Lego’s and marvel figures. Has limited screen time through choice, he can give or take the iPad with ease and in a week I’d say has a total of 2 hours combined time on there (normally playing number blocks or Alphablocks). With being in year 1 expectations to focus at school have increased, yet no concerns regarding behaviour or emotional regulation are there.

he follows commands, loves routine and is such a beautiful kind soul who loves spending time with us as a family and enjoys independent play in our company.

school are keen to implement 1:1 support which is great , but looking for reassurance that he will thrive into his teenage years. Currently he can identify short 3 letter words but consistently spells them first out loud and then identifies the word. He struggles to understand the concept of reading a sentence.

maths, he can count to 20 and do simple addition, but anything beyond that he shows no awareness and has confusion how 5+5 =10 but gets confused how 6+4 can also = 10.

he also has limited comprehension e.g understanding or having rationale as to why things need to be done like ‘I need a shower because I had PE today’ although he will happily do it.

he also struggles with memory- he won’t remember what day it is for example although we had told him multiple times. Or sometimes say ‘what’s that girls name’ when it’s his cousin who we see regularly.

any first hand experience or teachers I’d value your input insight

TIA

Huge sympathy, @Ljhbaby . I’m going through similar with my just turned six year old. I posted a thread about it the other day it’s here I kind of wish I hadn’t! I don’t feel ds is thriving at all in his current environment but it’s very much better the devil you know.

Ds will endlessly ask me the same question over and over ‘what’s seven and two’ and I’ll show him ‘look, here are seven conkers and someone gives you two more, let’s count them.’ And then he’ll just shout that five and five is ten. With reading, it’s an infuriating process for us both as he just won’t look at the words properly and guesses, often memorising the book but badly so will interject random words or miss words out. His speech isn’t very clear - says ‘lellow’ for yellow and ‘f’ for ‘th’ (which is fairly normal I know) and also can’t say ‘j’ or the soft ‘g’ sound. Fs are unclear too. He gets very frustrated when he can’t make himself understood. To be fair he isn’t unintelligible or anything - worried I’ve made him sound next step from ape there! But every so often he will say something and I just can’t make out a word and he ends up getting so frustrated when I’m saying ‘what, sorry?’

I’ve done a lot of work with ds but it is difficult as he gets frustrated very easily. We were reading his school book earlier and one of the words was rain and he just kept shouting SPRINT SPRINT SPRINT. I ended up getting annoyed with him and we had a row. He CAN read the word rain but it’s as if he needs guidance, like there’s the ‘r’ and then you need to show him the ‘ai’ sound then ‘n’. And it is also a worry he seems to have no idea about context, so the sentence was ‘the rain falls’ or something and how would sprint make sense in that context!?

School are no help. It’s a very small school; the SENCO works at several different schools in the trust and only makes fleeting visits, and to be honest there seem to be an ever increasing number of children with needs so I doubt ds, who isn’t exactly flying but is more lagging behind than notably miles behind the others, is even on the radar. Parents evenings are so negative though and it does upset me. Even the positive things are a bit ‘damned with faint praise’.

It’s hard not to blame yourself (I don’t mean you should, just that I do.) I haven’t been perfect as a parent but equally I know ds has far less screen time and more input from me than most other children I know and yet they are flying ahead while ds is just really struggling in nearly every area. When you ask for help you get so many responses that in all honesty are kindly meant but a bit patronising ‘read to him regularly, take him for walks’ and I feel like screaming I KNOW!

It does stress me out so much because I feel whenever I ask for help I am blamed - if not directly then indirectly by suggestions to read with him (if people could see the number of books in this house …!) or to spend time showing him things about the world and I do. But none of it seems to translate into the things he does at school. He can tell you about the planets and that mercury is the fastest and Jupiter the biggest; he knows what exclamation marks, ellipses and commas are, he can tell you that pheasants and ducks are dimorphic and that geese migrate but he doesn’t know the days of the week or the months of the year,

As you can see from my thread I have wondered whether a private school environment might help him come on a bit. I would hope he’d have some more one to one input and more support, but it’s a lot of money.

Sorry I haven’t been more helpful but solidarity if nothing else!

Yes we had similar with our youngest who was later diagnosed as AuDHD.

When you say that he hasn’t received any formal diagnosis, has he been referred for assessment?

Has he had an OT assessment and have you applied for an EHC Needs Assessment yet? If the answer is no to all of these I would try to implement them as soon as possible.

You can ask the School SENCO for a referral for Assessment and I think they may be able to refer for an OT assessment. It’s probably worth ringing the School Nurse service and asking for their advice.

You can apply for the EHC needs assessment yourself in the link below. It’s based on needs rather than diagnosis you don’t have to wait to do this.

Id also ask for dyslexia screening from the SENCO. It might be worth emailing her with these request so that you have a record of when you asked.

How does he do on this simple progress checker? If it says that he needs some support, you’ll need to also request a hearing test and a referral to SaLT.

Our experience was that things were pretty stable in the nurturing environment of Primary but as they got older the differences with their peers began to stand out more and their ability to cope in a busy school environment meant that they really struggled.

So I’d say it’s best to get as much support in place now before the move up to High School

Thank you for your reply @naturalstressor. I have read some of the comments on your post, the internet is ‘wild’ with opinions but I guess that’s what writing on a forum will attract 😅so I fully expect this from the post lol

Our boys sound very similar, reassuringly his school is keen to implement 1:1.

it might be worth speaking with other local mainstream schools now you know your sons struggles to see if they have any other opportunities for such provisions like 1:1 that could support him.

like you say he is only 6, yes it’s young but you want to ensure support is provided early on to ensure the lag in his school work isn’t profound by the time he is 10.

I stand in solidarity with you too!

Thank you @JustaSongAboutPingPong that’s all really helpful! SALT have been involved since reception but I’m yet to receive feedback since March.

Hes also been seen by an EP but I’m waiting on his latest report as his assessment was a few weeks ago, although his teacher has said the assessor was ‘happy’

In regards to EHCP request the school have said a certain assessment needs to be completed first which I’ve given consent for… I can’t remember the name but it’s some sort of ‘cognitive’ test which will support the case.

if you don’t mind, how is your son doing now and what interventions appear to have helped him?

Thank you ☺️

So glad that you’ve got SaLT and an EP involved already. That should help.

I’m not sure what the School mean about the cognition test. Perhaps if you ask in the SN Children section they can tell you more about this?

Personally, I would apply for the ECHP now, you can find some templates on the IPSEA website.

I wish we’d done this at the age your DS is now and gone for Special School. DC2 just didn’t cope with High School at all and I think they would have had the same GCSE results as we have some excellent Special Schools nearby.

As for how they’re doing now, they’re in their late teens. They’ve done a Diploma and have a job related to that and seem fairly happy. They have friends and whilst they do need more support than most other Teens they seem to be doing as well as they can be. Thanks for asking 🙂

The school has misinformed you. You do not need any tests, assessments, diagnoses, reports, etc. before requesting an EHCNA. Like @JustaSongAboutPingPong, personally, I would request an EHCNA yourself now using IPSEA’s model letter.

Other than some 1:1, what support is the school providing? What have they already tried that hasn’t worked?

Other than the EP and SALT, are there any other outside agencies involved/previously involved?

Sorry I always seem to get the abbreviations for these things wrong.

@JustaSongAboutPingPong you have no need to apologise to me.

Thank you for your message @roaringdragon so this is thing where our frustration lies with the school. We have not been informed of any other interventions that have been used which haven't worked. We had a positive parents evening with a small acknowledgment that he is struggling academically but not to worry as they can ‘plug in the gaps’

Next thing we had was a message from the head requesting a meeting to discuss his progress, at which point they suggested 1:1. I was so overwhelmed with information at the time, we now have requested an additional meeting to discuss further so
i want to be armed with insight.

no other outside agencies are involved

Is the headteacher also the SENCO? If not, request a meeting with the SENCO.

Ask if DS has a SEN support plan. These are called different things in different places but you might hear it called things like IEP, one page profile, ISP, My Plan/My Plan+. It is a document that sets own DS’s needs, support the school is going to provide, etc. If DS has one of these, you should be involved in the process and you should have a copy.

If your LA still has them, ask the school if they can involve the specialist teaching service.

Has DS had a hearing test? And an eye test? If not, I would look at getting them done.

I would also look at an OT referral. Although if you request an EHCNA, and the LA agrees to assess, an OT assessment can be part of the needs assessment without sitting on the normal waiting list.

I would chase the SALT too.