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.

So what is the point of this thread then?

You know better than your child’s teacher because you are one - so go and speak to the school? Frankly with my experience with teachers over 20 years, ‘being a teacher’ really doesn’t mean much as there is a huge variation between skill, commitment and insight between one teacher and another. We’ve dealt with some that really should not be in the profession or anywhere near children and others who are incredible. You could also have a bias and blindness to issues that an outsider can observe - I was a very early reader too, having read everything by the Brontes and Austen by the time I was 10, so thought my kids behaviours/development were normal. They weren’t compared to their peers. Turns out we are all ND and my kids struggled in secondary school (as did I) due to social factors.

There were clues and flags in the primary school reports that we dismissed but later realised were really significant: “your child has a strong moral compass and is not easily lead”, for example, I read as a badge of honour. It actually meant that she had rigid/fixed thinking, was very black and white in terms of understanding right/wrong, was consequently an obsessive rule follower who would melt down when people cheated, and found it hard to make friends as a result… all signs of her autism that was not diagnosed until she was 12. But she, too, was reading - and writing/illustrating - her own books at 6, too, so what did they know?

So rather than using this post to state how advanced your child is and how superior your experience is, perhaps you should take the advice of other posters and talk to the teacher and the school to understand what she is driving at?

Is it odd when people are jumping to the conclusion that she must be wrong and diagnosing long distance that both she and her child are ND on the basis of a few words?

This

Sometimes reports are wrong. A gentle checkin with the teacher should solve it, especially as you are a teacher yourself. My son got below expectations in writing his Y1 report. I was a little surprised as we'd had parents evening the week before and nothing was mentioned then. So I approached the teacher very politely and said I had seen the report and is there anything I can do at home to support his writing over the Summer so can catch up. She immediately said oh that must be an error, he is not below expectations at all. Report changed.

In terms of reading material like HP; younger children often enjoy books/films/songs on a very shallow level. They completely miss the deeper meanings so miss a lot but still enjoy the basic story. So a young child might well read, ‘understand’ and enjoy HP but fail to pick up on a lot of what is happening to the characters because they simply have no context to place it. If they read it again as teens or adults they would understand it in a different way. Most parents recognise this and are very grateful for this when it comes to their young children merrily singing along to pop songs with lyrics about sex, drug abuse or violence. If you do have a child with a very enquiring mind (as opposed to just reading ability) then you need to be more careful, not less, about not exposing them to age inappropriate reading material.

You are both teachers - your hubby is a senco... I can't work out why you have posted to the masses and not just asked the teacher?

You can be teachers AND be "that" parent btw.

Richly ironic in a post that wildly generalises and itself comes across as quite arrogant.

I think everyone saying Harry Potter is inappropriate is forgetting the range the books cover. Sure, when you get to Goblet of Fire and Half Blood Prince you are getting into some heavy themes, but they aren't really there in Philosopher's Stone. I remember reading that to DS at the age of 6 and he absolutely loved it - the humour around, say, the letters from Hogwarts and Hagrid is absolutely at that age level.

When my DD changed schools mid Y2 the new school after a couple months said they were going to assess her (which they claimed they often did with new students). They seemed to have concerns about her reading. I knew what the issue was - my DD was not a 'go with the flow' character, was very self contained and did not like her new teacher at all, and basically refused to read to her. They did the tests and she came out very well so that was the end of that (though she still wouldn't read for her teacher). Her spelling was also poor - still is. She got three A stars at A level though.

I’m bemused by all the posters who are proclaiming that HP is unsuitable for all young primary pupils as if it’s a fact. Why? As a PP said, certainly the earlier books have nothing worse in them than traditional fairy stories. Nasty parent figures, feeling like a misfit, battling enemies and winning, death are all very classic themes that children have been encountering in fiction for ever. Some young children unfortunately have to cope with these things in real life, and even for the others it’s how we learn about the world. Reading about death in fiction is much less traumatic as a way of encountering the topic than not even knowing it’s a thing until a loved family member suddenly dies, surely?

Some children might not want to read HP when young and some won’t be able to, but children vary. My DD, now in her mid-twenties, was powering through all the Harry Potters as they came out, having started aged 6 with a few in hand. She’s never been at all traumatised by reading them early. I think that bright children who want to read should be allowed to read what they want to, with the exception of adult material that is genuinely completely inappropriate because it deals with explicit sexual or other matters that a child should not be encountering at all. I’d have been furious, as a very similar child, to have been told I couldn’t read fiction for older children!

A child who is G&T IS by definition ND.

It could just be a copy and paste error and those comments weren't even for your child. I'd pop into school and ask,

@WarmingClothesontheRadiator

Please explain what content is so age inappropriate for an intelligent and curious five year old in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone that it would be inadvisable to give it to them to read if they have expressed a wish to do so.

I can’t think of anything.

The most basic fairy stories we read to children from a very young age involve copious amounts of death and violence. I think the hand wringing over Harry Potter on this thread is ridiculous.

But language and communication is separate to reading and comprehension so not sure that excelling in one doesn't mean there aren't difficulties in another. My son taught himself to read at 2 (ASD hyperlexic) but there were obvious language and communication skills difficulties alongside. School referred grandson to speech therapy because of his precocious language skills as a summer born reception child. Speech therapy said no concerns just very able and now in year one he is simply flying. You could always fund a speech therapy assessment to put your minds at rest.

Why do all parents who have early readers always use Harry Potter as the holy grail of their reading ability? Has she read all of them as don’t think content is suitable for 5yo.

I’m struggling… if you are both in the teaching profession with such a vast experience, what would you recommend to a parent who asks? Just wondering because it seems like you have the tools and knowledge but aren’t using them? This isn’t intended as criticism, I’m just perplexed.

additionally, and I am sure as you know, kids behave very differently in the classroom to At home. If there is a violent and disruptive child it maybe that your child stays quiet and keeps their head down, therefore not displaying their talents?

Of course you should speak to the teacher, but have they not approached you about her reading? Does she come home with a level 1 ORT or Biff Chip and Kipper book? Have you not had this conversation ahead of her starting school? "Underachieving" should be discussed, whether your child is a prodigy or not.

You're a teacher?

Then you would be picking up on how your DD is unusual and how that in itself can be symptom. You would also understand communication and language is nothing to do with reading level (why have you connected those two things) but interaction abilities and ability to interface with others and be understood.

Why did she have to step down? IIRC SENCOs were given three years' grace to get the qualification.

So much is wrong with this ridiculous statement.

Firstly, gifted and talented is an obsolete term no longer used in schools. It means nothing. That’s why it was phased out.

Secondly, intelligence levels vary across the population. Being more intelligent than average does not make you neurodiverse, for goodness’ sake.

OP says they have put her child up two years in reading so it looks like they have discussed this.

certainly the earlier books have nothing worse in them than traditional fairy stories

Traditionally fairy stories are for adults though. The step sisters, beautiful but with ugly hearts, cutting off their toes and heels so the blood dropped from their feet as they tried on the glass slipper, then their eyes pecked out by crows. Or sleeping beauty’s step mother made to wear red hot iron shoes and dance until she died….

Ignore all the armchair psychologists OP if you are one and your DH is a senco teacher - you guys are experts and you don’t sound super unbalanced to the point where you’d wildly overstate your child’s abilities. Clearly something is off of her report says that and yet she is lights ahead of her age group at reading - I would ask them what’s going on. Either a mistake, super inattentive teachers or something else like she is finding the environment hard to communicate in - but definitely find out.

Fairy stories have been the bedrock of children’s literature since the nineteenth century. Yes, some of them are gruesome. That’s exactly my point.