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.

Don't be worried about your daughter. You know she knows how to read.

Maybe her teacher found her comprehension on one or two specific tests lower than her usual.. or perhaps teacher has yet to fully assess her due to ....busy ..noisy class ...etc.

My own similar DD loved ..
The Little House on the Prairie Books
The Enid Blyton collection
The Midnight Fox
The Hatchet series
And some book with choices of different ending.
A rainy day or a long car trip were bliss to her.
She is still an avid reader.

Wow. There are some mean people on this thread and clearly a lot of people who have NOT read HP and know nothing about Gifted kids.

The first 3 or 4 HP books (it's been awhile, so I forget where the cutoff is) are fine for a 5 year old. My ds was reading them (and comprehending) at this age, but I wouldn't let him read the rest of the series until he was quite a bit older because of the mature content and his ability to comprehend what he was reading.

This is for the OP and the rest of the haters can just keep on hating as this will not be relevant to them.....
Now, on to the things I experienced academically as the parent of two ND highly gifted dc's with significant learning differences (all backed with several series of PsychEd testing at different stages of development).
My ds' qualified nursery school teacher in the UK, marked him at age 3 as being unable to count to 10 because she had only "heard him do it backwards." He could count to 100 forwards but was bored so kept doing it backwards. Every year of elementary (we moved back to USA when he was 5) his teachers would complain about his issues with some aspect of academics. I finally had the first round of testing done when he was 7 or 8 and the psychologist suggested that I send him to a special school for geniuses...(I did not go in that direction academically for a variety of reasons which I don't regret). (DS was hacking the parental controls at his elementary school by age 6 and built his first computer at age 10 and finally learned how to tie his shoe laces at age 16.) I eventually decided that I had to accept that the usual matrix for measuring academic success was not going to be useful for gauging my son's abilities or mastery of the curriculum.

I was better prepared when my DD came along 2 years later. When her teachers told me she would struggle with reading because she couldn't do phonics (age 6)....I just giggled quietly to myself because she was reading 300 page YA novels at home. She was eventually diagnosed with Dyslexia. And when her teachers complained that she couldn't do math quickly enough and tried to convince her that she was "bad at math," I just giggled to myself because who cares if she can't do math in her head....she could figure out how much the sparkle shirt she wanted would cost on sale and with tax added on by age 7 and could invoice me on an excel spreadsheet by the time she was 9. She was eventually diagnosed with Dyscalculia. DD is now 22 and has graduated university with a degree in Philosophy and is doing up budgets for buying her first house with the money she saved from her part time job while at University.

In both cases, the hardest part was having to constantly remind my dc's that they were not defective in the ways that their teachers kept telling them they were and that they just learned differently than NT kids and needed to know that about themselves. I also gave them the choice of being home schooled or wading through a conventional school education and putting up with its limitations (they chose the latter with some modifications). It was helpful to get the ND diagnosis for both of them, although that didn't actually happen until they were young adults. Until then they had the Genius IQ diagnosis plus a handful of Learning Differences each and not a whole lot of information about what to do with those in an academic setting. I think there is a lot more information now to be able to help kids like mine (and the OP's). Research suggests that kids who understand how their brain works do better academically, so I would encourage having some PsychEd testing done (even if you have to pay for it privately).

Could she be bored with the curriculum and refusing to engage? I changed school at 7 and was put into sessions for kids with challenges learning because I refused to read the texts they were doing - it was simply because it was boring and I didn’t want to read them.

This.

Doesn't sound like that at all, I don't get why people are against reading early especially in OP's child's case where the parents are teachers

Exactly

I'm interested in posts like this because I feel like it's only focussed on this generation. In the past, children did learn to read earlier, certainly from older family members I've heard it was considered completely appropriate to start school reading and praised if you could read well. Just because attitudes have changed now doesn't mean people have. I don't understand why some posters believe children should read less when they're younger or limit the type of reading as long as there aren't inappropriate themes why stop children doing something they're obviously good at or infer potential additional needs

Most reports are chunks of copy and paste, so I would assume it is a typo/mistake. The most I would do is ask the teacher to elaborate on the actual observed issues so that you can "support your child".
I went to a confusing parents evening once where one teacher had completely mixed up my child with another. They do look very alike. We did not bring child with us as it was primary school. I was completely baffled until my child explained that it was always happening.

I think it’s probably just a mistake when the report was written.

However, if you’re both teachers then you should know that teachers are not immune from being ‘that parent’, in fact in my experience they’re often the most problematic parents in the class.

They may have mixed your DD up with another child, due to human error.

My daughter could read from two and a half. By the time she started school she was reading Roald Dahl books.
But then she started school, which didn't cater for people who could already read. She then went backwards, bringing home books that were way below her abilities, because that was the teaching level for the class. Repeated the same book two years in a row.
My daughter hated school because it caters to the majority and those on the periphery - if they are brighter - are just left to get on with it.

Yeah of course she could read at 2 🙄 and I’m next in line to the throne!

Is she not scared of the vicious three headed dog, or how lots of adults conspire or appear to be conspiring to murder a young child?

Is this the result from her baseline assessment done in the first few weeks? Parents have a right to see this so would be interesting to know how she did in that. My first thought is maybe she's under pressure and, wrongly, downplayed her autumn data to make progress look good 🫣.

In eyfs it's really hard now there is no exceeding if a child comes in meeting the eyfs elgs there's no way to show progress.

Id definitely query it though.

Why are you asking on here if you know everything? Seems silly to ask a question then argue with anyone who responds 🙄

I expect they have no idea of her ability what with being only a few months into school. The penny will probably drop over the next year. Personally I’d keep quiet and let DD enjoy the lack of pressure and play. Creative play is the most important thing at that age.

I was also the parent of an early reader. A total bookworm who loved nothing better than cuddling up with a book for a few hours each day. Reading ability and comprehension are two separate things, so good to ask her about what she’s just read to build understanding.

All my kids read early and hated Biff & Chip in reception. We tried but quickly abandoned Biff & Chip part way through the reading scheme in favour of Captain underpants, 13 Storey Tree. House and any other silly books we could find. All books they could read with ease and thoroughly enjoy.

Query the report if you want to? You’re both teachers; surely you know how this works! Could have been copy and pasted or mixed up with another kid. Could be that you need to have a discussion with the teacher about something.

Not sure why two teachers would seek advice about education on Mumsnet, honestly!

Two things:

To OP - it would be normal for a parent to contact the teacher on being told that their child is underachieving in a report. Maybe it's a mistake, maybe your child isn't performing the same at school as at home, or maybe the teacher has picked up on something you missed. Contact the teacher though - by not doing so you're doing your child a disservice. It's a completely different thing to a report that says your child is average when you think they're G&T. There is nothing 'that parent' about asking the teacher for feedback if they're reporting that your child is below where they should be.

To everyone else - Why are we talking about age appropriateness of Harry Potter as if it's one book and they're all the same? A very strong 5 year old could understand enough of Philosopher's Stone to get benefit from it and I don't think it's particularly inappropriate. Probably not what I would choose but if the child was interested, why not. Obviously Deathly Hallows is entirely different and I would probably not even be ok with Chamber of Secrets (depends on the 5 year old!). I actually avoided starting DS on the Harry Potter series (at 6/7) because I wouldn't have let him read the whole series and didn't want to get him hooked. That said, he wasn't asking to read them.

She was probably copy and pasting the school reports and just did it to the wrong person. Good luck sorting it out.

I would talk to the school, mines the same age and similar to yours (2 years ahead and being progressed, could decode harry potter but her comprehension wouldn’t be on par with your DD’s I don’t think). The school don’t go up reading bands until they are happy with her comprehension so I assume thats the same in your school and thats all fine.

I think theres been a mistake tbh, have a word with the teacher and double check but I can’t see how her performance marries up with her report.

I absolutely believe their are kids who can read and understand Harry Potter, they may not get some of the subtleties in human interaction but some kids are just extremely able. They are a tiny minority but they exist. On appropriateness, my child’s favourite book was about venomous animals and how they can kill you, we just let her read whatever she likes.

I've not read the whole thread because it's a bit prickly!

I'm wondering if your daughter could be pretending? I have never heard the term hyperlexic before but I very clearly remember that when I learned to read - I wasn't as young as 2 but I was younger than school age - I had a day when I couldn't read and then the next day I could. And once I could read, I could read everything. It was glorious. I thought it was wonderful and made sure everyone knew about it.

But the same thing happened to my younger son and he pretended he couldn't read for ages. I suspected he was pretending but he was very good and he wasn't at school yet so I didn't fuss. Until one day he slipped up when we got in a lift at a station and he said "are we going to the concourse?" which was written on one of the lift buttons instead of numbered levels.

And my mum who was also a SEN teacher funnily enough then told me that the same thing happened to her when she was little but she also pretended she couldn't read for ages when she started school.

So I just wondered if that's a possibility for your daughter?

I was with you until this point op. I too have a psych degree. And another in history. And I am socially able. And guess what? Im ND. You can be a holier than thou teacher with a degree and also be ND. And if your child is really this advanced then she likely has some ND going on. And it isn’t actually bad to point it out to someone asking advice on anonymous forum - plennnty of people don’t realise they’re ND until someone points it out in some way.

as for your DD, im sure as a teacher you’re aware that children present differently in school, group settings, have different anxieties which present around learning in different situations, get distracted, chat, day dream, get scared to ask questions…all sorts of reasons she’s performing differently at home to at school. Your job is to figure it out.

Also, in case you hadn’t noticed from your “I’m an experience teacher” high horse, some teachers are not always great at noticing what’s going on around them…..so don’t expect ‘teachers’ to recognise what she’s not demonstrating to them.

I teach and my own little boy is 4 and a sight reader - very similar to yours - I'd be asking about that judgement!

I don't really plan on saying anything but I'm just a bit baffled

Surely you'd be remiss not to say anything? Don't you want to understand what the issue is that the teacher had identified with her language and communication? Then whatever it is, you can apply your own expertise to work on it with her.