Weird school report?

[sambaba]

DD, just turned 5, has been able to read since 2. She can now read for example Harry Potter. She will ask about and respond to punctuation in text. Comprehension is amazing.
She started school this Sep and her first school report says underachieving for language and communication.
Both her nurseries identified her language was very advanced.
For context DH and I are both teachers and were also both GAT at literacy.
Is this a bit odd? I don't really plan on saying anything but I'm just a bit baffled.
It's two form entry and there are a lot of challenging kids I think including one whose been a bit violent at time, I suspect she's a gentle soul and doesn't say much.

What a ludicrous thing to say. Look up the definitions of both.

This thread is boring. What’s there to say until you speak to the teacher?
Unless it’s a secret show off

I thought we were past the "reading Harry Potter" thing. I am embarrassed to remember doing it myself with my own precocious reader 20 years ago. There are so many fabulous age appropriate books for children-they will miss so much if they are rushed ahead. Very good readers may have to go "up" a year or two of course, but there is no advantage in zooming ahead. I reckon using older books as read alouds is a good idea though. You can explain, censor, and, if you like, skip the boring bits as you go.

Exactly

You are all hilarious saying Harry Potter isn't appropriate at any age, I had read the Bible a couple times by age 5 and there's really not much it doesn't cover.

Haven't RTFT so sorry if I missed something but.... you're a very qualified professional as you are constantly reminding everyone on this thread. Why on earth don't you just use your own language and communication skills and ask the teacher who wrote it?! You don't need to march in kicking or screaming you can ask politely.

It could be an error. It could be that they're not seeing something that you are. To me language and communication skills falls more into the category of communicating what she wants and how she feels to her teachers and friends rather than reading or comprehension.

This is why I don't like these tick box reports. They don't offer any context. However that is what it is. You can either file it in the rest of the 'nonsense you don't give a shit about', talk to her teacher now about it or wait until she has a proper parents evening. One thing's for sure though you won't get anywhere being snippy with people on mn about it.

OP, if you are a teacher and you know your child, you know you can ignore those reports!

Keep reading with and to her. What else does she enjoy? The Claude books, Kate on the Case seem to be popular with my 7 year old so perhaps your daughter could read those independently. I think they would be more enjoyable.

OP you'll get the usual pile on and you'll have to wade through most of it. My kids are grown. What I learned is:

1. Trust your instincts and common sense. If you think it's wrong, challenge it as nicely and unconfrontationally as possible. There may be a simple answer.
2. Look deep inside yourself and assess the extent to which wishful thinking about your child's abilities is clouding your factual assessment of her skill level. (Not saying you are doing this and appreciate your professional background - just that I think being honest with oneself is one of the greatest tools we have in life).
3. Relax a bit about education. For me, it was the most stressful part of raising children. Horrendous process. Pace yourself for the long haul. There will be wins and losses over the course.

It sounds like you and DH have been quite biased in assessing your DD's reading and comprehension skills unfortunately, turning a blind eye to her development. I would take the professional teacher's words on board and arrange a meeting to see what you can do to help her catch up with her peers.

They could have mixed her up with someone else or perhaps they assessed her and she wasn't in the mood for it so didn't cooperate or something? Definitely worth asking them about it

I would imagine that the most likely outcome here is that you have useless teacher who does not know your child and has written or more likely copy and pasted a generic response for a quiet child they have overlooked.

My question is, why won't you be bringing it up with the teacher? As a teacher would that not be what you would recommend parents in your situation to do in order to understand why there is a mismatch?

It may well be their listening and attention skills at this point in the year that need further development. Listening and attention, speaking and understanding all come under communication and language. Your best bet is to chat with the teacher. I have a child who is extremely bright, a great reader with great comprehension but just cannot listen and engage appropriately during focused sessions. If this doesn’t improve, they are at risk of not reaching their early learning goal.

So much wrong with this statement. Starting with my use of G&T - I used this as that is the name of this board so posters on here obviously relate to the term in some way. Perhaps you should ask MN to rename it?

‘Neurodiverse’ is a group measure not an individual one - a single person cannot be diverse. Neurodiversity means the range of thinking styles within the population. Intelligence is one measure of that. Learning disability is one form of neurodiversity and refers to those with an IQ of at least 2 standard deviations below the mean. Those with 2 standard deviations above the mean (IQ 130) are equally as neurodivergent as those with learning disabilities. (Yes I know IQ is falling out of favour as a measure but is a useful shorthand here). High IQ is also recognised as an SEN.

Curious as to what your definition of neurodivergent is?

I watched a friend try to get through to the teacher that her child was like this. The teacher got her labelled as 'that parent' within the school so that the child and parent were bullied and disbelieved about her reading ability until they finally joined a class where the teacher questioned the label of lying child and came upon the truth. It was very distressing to see. I did actually witness the bullying of the parent first hand. For some reason many people just don't want to understand or deal with the fact that some children fall outside the norm. They can handle children with low ability but not those with unusually advanced ability. You are seeing in the responses some of the irrational anger at a child being described as advanced.

My advice is to tread carefully with the teacher, approach them trying to understand what they are seeing. This may be a mistake or unwillingness to believe the child or it may be child refusing to show off her skill for many reasons. It is good to get to the bottom of it but if you can't then you just have to ignore the schools processes and carry on with home reading until the class catches up. You don't need the school to stretch your child at this point or even to recognise their ability - you can do it.

Some children have amazing visual memories. Your daughter May will be a whole word reader and with two intelligent parents who talk to her a lot may well be able to be a good contextual. But at school, it’s all about the phonics, which is a complete different skill/process? How is she doing with her phonics?

Gosh, 'gifted and talented'. That's a blast from the past. Who knew there was a whole sub?

My guess is thats, it’s a mistake or because she is shy her communication observed with others has been lacking, or she has social communication differences that you don’t see. Parents are sometimes the last ones to see more unusual presentations of neuro diversity.
This is a classic mumsnet post of ‘tell me what I want to hear’ I don’t know why you bothered posting.

I'd have a word with the teacher and find out what the report means. I was an early reader (DM taught me at 4) but was diagnosed at 8 (in a new school) as a poor reader because I mispronounced words. I ended up in the remedial reading class until my DM intervened - but the end result was to be in the B stream (non-11+). I had a speech impediment having been born with a cleft soft palette. The school did not know this (until DM told them).
(This event is why I tend to pour scorn on teachers who say children with a speech impediment cannot learn to read using phonics btw.)
NB I doubt Harry Potter is appropriate for a 5-year-old - I don't think the child's knowledge base will allow comprehension.

Sounds like she is a genius so why care what school think? My dd has a IQ over 140. During parent eve they tell me she is very behind as she is a year out of cohort. Her end of year reports say she is exceeding. End of year reports won't impact GCSE results. They don't stream.in year R you know as a experienced teacher.

There's a curious disconnect in this post between on the one hand stressing your experience and expertise and on the other hand asking randoms on the internet for their advice. You surely know how best to approach this with the school without needing outside input?

I wonder if that's why some posters are branding you "that parent"...? If the point of your post isn't to seek advice (and it seems it isn't - because when you're given advice, you push back on it, pointing to your own and your DH's very relevant expertise and experience) - then the only other thing it's communicating is that your daughter is very advanced, you taught her to read by age 2 and she is now reading Harry Potter. That's genuinely amazing - a really wonderful achievement for both of you and definitely worth celebrating. But I think perhaps people are picking up that this is what the post is really about.

If you are concerned with what was on the report or think it is not accurate, discuss with the teachers. Perhaps, she is struggling communicating with peers and this is why they wrote that. She may be different at home, but at school perhaps she is shy or not communicating the way other children are....which would make sense, if you are getting her to read Harry Potter age 5 and the other children are reading books like Cat sat.....she might have been pushed to mature faster with the reading material she is given.

Harry Potter is not appropriate reading material for age 5, it does not matter if she asked for it. You are not supposed to give your child everything they ask for. Of course, reading a page is fine, but I would have then suggested to save the book for when she is 7, when she could really appreciate it...or 6 at the earliest. There are other chapter books you could find probably more age appropriate.

I would work on setting up play dates to observe her communicating skills or other activities. Talk to the teachers first to see if it was a mistake, and if not, I would focus on encouraging these abilities...which is important for dc to learn.

Yeah I was a teacher and had worked in SEN schools - still didn't spot that mine had Aspergers syndrome. Finally got diagnosed just before secondary school. He was also very bright and sociable in early primary.

Reading at 2 and Harry Potter at 5 is very unusual - I just wouldn't rule out ASD at this point. I would say though that the reason her report says what it does is likely to be because she is quiet and doesn't speak up - and the teacher doesn't have the time to really get to know what she is capable of. Your dd may also lack confidence in what sounds like a pretty full on class.

I have two hyperlexic children, both doing fantastically well at school and both autistic. One was diagnosed to have the social language skills of a preschooler when assessed at 11. Her vocabulary and reading age are years ahead, but social communication is a huge problem. This was not obvious at 5/6 but became more noticeable as she got older.