Any primary teachers able to advise?

[MonsterRehab23]

Hi,

My DD nearly 5 has just begun school. She’s enjoying it but having difficulty writing and learning her alphabet letters. We tried to teach her during lockdown but she just wasn’t interested.

I read to her almost daily, I’ve bought wall charts and flash cards and we’re practising her writing at night.However there’s not much improvement- she can only recognise the first letter of her name and recognises her name when written down. Her teacher posts class pictures and it seems most of the other kids can write their names.

Should I be concerned and is there anything else I can do to help her learn the alphabet? My elder child was diagnosed with ASD aged 9 and struggles with writing but didn’t have problems reading. You would think I’d be used to a struggling child but atm I don’t think I can face another 7 years of being told what my child can’t do. Any advice would be appreciated.

There is no need to worry yet. Keep reading to her and do less formal learning activities so she doesn't get sick of it. So for example she could make name cards for each family member and then every night before she goes to bed she could decide where everybody is going to sit for breakfast and put out the place cards ready.

One of the best things you can do for her is to learn the sounds yourself. Try Mr Thorne does Phonics on Youtube.

If you are helping her at home but you aren't reinforcing the sounds that she's learning at school this could confuse her.

Try not to worry. They'll get there. No child with a home situation like yours leaves year 6 without reading and writing. At 5 a couple of months makes a huge difference.
There's tons of great resources like nightzookeeper and YouTube videos that help.
It might also be helpful to increase her finger strength. You can do this by getting therapy putty on Amazon, do lots of colouring and get her to draw patterns instead of writing letters. Some kids find handwriting books fun. This will allow her to have the finger strength there when the phonics clicks.

Also, writing on the table with her finger or in sand if you have it. Order some craft letters off Amazon they're about £2 and you can add hot glue gun dots on them if you have one. Blue tack it to the table and get her to trace the pattern with her finger. Lay the letters out and get her to first learn the alphabet sounds and than the sounds it makes phonetically then she can move onto blending the sounds by building eg find the sound c and h and make the sound ch. Once you figure out her learning style it'll be much easier.
But again, she's incredibly young and in most countries she would not be expected to start reading a writing for another 2 years.

What's she like with playing on your phone / a tablet? DS wasn't that into letters but loved playing on my phone - educational apps are the only things he's allowed to play. I looked into a few, we got on best with the Alphablocks one to start with at its very simple to play if they aren't that coordinated at using a touch phone. We then moved onto 'Teach your monster to read' which does blending as well as the letters. DS wasn't that quick to pick reading up so the blending almost entirely escaped him first time through but it did get the letters to stick. We went back and played it again once school had taught a bit of blending. There are loads of other apps too.

She's still so young. Please don't worry. There are lots of ways to develop strength in children's hands and fingers, using playdough, tongs to pick up toys, tweezers to pick up Pom poms, etc... Please bear in mind that building strength in your upper arms will help, like from climbing and hanging activities.
Also writing letters comes easy to some and not necessarily to others, your child might have amazing social skills and that's definitely so much more important at this age.
Have a look at the photo below, your little one will be still developing all the bones needed for proper writing, hence most countries don't begin writing until age 6.