Reception class

[Zakh]

Hi, my daughter is 4 years ild and is in reception. She was born in June. She had delayed speech. She has picked up her communication skills a lot in last two months.

I attended her parents evening tonight and saw her books. Each page and activity had teacher's comment that she could not do it.

I spoke to the teacher and said that it might be related to her delayed communication skill as she is still somewhat behind than children of her age. The teacher agreed about delayed communication as they noticed this at school too. Thw teacher said they would observe my daughter with SEN teacher and might have different objectives for her than other children. My concern is that if the she will have different objectives the gap between her knowledge and learning and other children will be too big.

I am very stressed since I have come back and don't know exactly how to handle rhis situation. My daughter has very good memory and is very sensible and reasonable, I mean she does not do anything silly, she is not aggressive. I think I should ask the teacher ro keep her target same and give her some support and I will support her at home too but she just does not like learning maths or writing at home. She loves reading story books with me.

I think I cannot make a decision. Can some advise please? Is there anyone who has been in this situation and how did they resolve. Please be kind in tour responses I am already feeling very low.

Thank you.

By giving individual targets they are changing the expected lower so she achieves - she gains a sence of self belief. Not that I agree with this at this young age.

If you want to help your DD then look up the national curriculum and ask the questions about what she should be achieving and work on those at home.

Its really hard to offer any advice without knowing what she's struggling with in particular. Is it numeracy and if so in what way? Is it phonics? There are a lot of things you can do to support at home in a fun and engaging way to help her catch-up.

My DC is in reception and struggling, she has a speech delay and they give her 10 minutes of extra 1-2-1 time a day, she’s in a very small group for extra focus and she will have a SLT attend school regularly to help her.

She knows she is different (likely dyslexic) but she is happy and working hard.

Her targets will be different to her friends, adapted to suit her, it’s about what she needs to learn, not what I need for my ego.

I think it is fine for her to have her own targets.

A not real example would be having a target fohea child to have a sound knowledge of countintoup up to ten.

Another child might have a target of adding two numbers under 5. But you can't add the numbers until you know them confidently so the first target is a stepping stone to the next. Without that stepping stone you would feel a little at sea - trying to add numbers when you are not confident of the sequence.

Let the teachers adapt to what your daughter needs. It sounds like you are pleased she is progressing quickly and nothing she is doing at school stops you from enjoying learning with her - reading stories to her and anything else she enjoys.

Try not to worry. Making progress is fantastic because while you are progressing you will get there in the end!

Allsnotwell my worry is that she should at least be given some opportunity to work towards the expected learning objectives with support rather than moving her to lower objectives straight away.

LondonGirl83 She struggles with communication. Her speech is better than her understanding. She knows some sounds of letters and she finds songs and pictures helpful. She knows her numbers up to 10, can count things but struggles with 'few or more' of items. She struggles with 'why' questions. She finds it difficult to process too much information but once she gets something, she's good in remembering it and using at right time.

Hmm this reminds me of a video I watched recently (can't find the link sorry) where the teacher splits the class in two and gave them each three puzzles. The last puzzle was the same for both halves, but for the first two one half of the room had the first two puzzles were unsolvable and for the other half they were easy. It was fascinating how many of the half of the room with the impossible puzzles to start didn't get the answer to the last puzzle (they were told to move on so all had the same amount of time on it) because their confidence was knocked from not getting the first two.

I guess just don't underestimate the importance of her having something to build up her confidence. The higher target is still there, she just has another one in between.

AllBlocChain. That looks sound plan and good support from school.

Winter2020. Thank you, your comment makes me feel a bit better. Have been using breathing techniques all day here and there to distract myself and function normally with little success.

I'm an early years teacher. The targets they will set her will be skills that she needs to develop in order to work towards the same outcomes as the other children, they should just be more broken down to help her achieve. They won't hold her back. The gap is more likely to widen if she is made to work on targets that are out of her range at the moment. I can't speak for what her school is like but in my class, she would have the opportunity to access many of the same activities as her peers throughout the day during free flow activities anyway, it will just be the teacher focused tasks that will be differentiated to her individual needs x