6 year old daughter seems to know less now then when started school.

[cherpears]

Hi, This is my first post on mumsnet so please bare with me.

D.D has always been considered bright by everyone thats ever known her. She's a quirky little thing, who is very articulate, interested in life and the world, questions, questions, questions, excellent sense of humour. The school have consistently said that she is 'able'.

Reception year went fine in all areas , friendships, school work, after school activities, she did well in EYFS and basically was a happy bunny.

This year has been a nightmare! her 'buddy' left (year 6)and I think this impacted hugely on D.D. She's had friendship issues, which have now been nipped in the bud. My main concern is that her school work is really suffering. i can't believe that a little girl who could write her name at three, knew all of the key reception words before starting school was struggling to read words such as 'we' and 'out' this morning. She really wants to work hard, she's always been keen to please, bless her she goes up to her room and writes little stories, and this morning when I admit I got frustrated and said just put your book away she cried, then took some phonics cards into the bathroom and sat on the loo reading them!She just can't seem to get her head around concepts such as 'ow' 'ou' etc.

Since Dec she has been saying that she can't read and she doesn't like reading.It breaks my heart. How can she be going backwards? She has a lovely well-balanced life, lots of fun, outside activities, close extended family, close to neighbours, no emotional traumas whatsoever, but I really can't get my head around why she is not maintaining what she has previously learnt and builing on this. I really want to help her. Any advice, opinions gratefully received.

Memorising key words is not the same skill is being able to decode words phonetically.

So it doesn't sound like she's gone backwards, it sounds like she never learnt to decode, and now she needs to.

I think perhaps she needs some 'space'. Don't push any home learning at all apart from reading for fun and looking at school readers? If like my ds in year 1 she just brings home reading books and no homework, that should be easy. If she does have homework perhaps do it 'lightly' and don't make a big deal about it. It sounds to me like she feels under pressure to 'do well' and just needs to relax for a bit. Perhaps just leave the concepts to the school for the moment and concentrate on fun things at home not obviously linked to learning. She sound stressed and in need of a break from home phonics cards etc.

I think IndigoBell has a point. It may be that she learnt all her reception words off by heart and now that she actually needs to break words down into sounds she's feeling lost and confused. Looks to me that this had made her lose her confidence and her friendship issues certainly don't help.

Before starting school my DS loved books, couldn't 'properly' read them but enjoyed looking at them, telling a story etc etc. However, once they started teaching him to read at school he found it hard, lost his confidence and wouldn't even pick up a book, never mind look at one. It also seemed that all his friends were understanding it all easily and that made him feel worse and upset. My heart goes out to you and DD, it's so hard and you might both get very frustrated.

I started reading about phonics and just tried bringing in a bit of fun while learning phonics. I bought the Jolly Phonics song book and we sang songs from there. I can't remember what else I used 'cos it was a little while ago. Basically, I introduced letters and their sounds slowly and gradually. It took a while but it did all click in the end. I tried not to make an issue of it which was really hard.

Also (although it may not be the case for your DD), my DS initially struggled with the 'jump' from Reception which was play based learning to the more structured lesson type of Year 1. Although the teacher would say he seemed happy at school, at home it was another story and he indicated that he was finding that step hard.

What a ramble! Anyway, it doesn't sound like she's going backwards, just seems that she's dealing with lots of new things and maybe her confidence has taken a knock.

Thankyou for your replies, I really appreciate the advice. The teacher has taken DD off ORT books at the moment (she was on stage 5) and she is bringing home the Nelson Thorne wordstart books to help her with decoding, and to go over and over the word patterns.

I am worrying that the 'patterns' just aren't sticking for DD. Would this ever be the case? Are there alternative ways of learning to read? I'm sure we didn't learn phoenetically when I was at school.

I know I'm probably being over anxious but I just want to help her, as I think it is knocking her confidence, she is a nosey thing who is very aware of who is doing what in her class.

We have tried completely backing off only doing school books and homework, then reading to her the 'Daisy' books for pleasure. She enjoys listening to Roald Dahl story books on CD at bedtime.

oh, meant to say we have the jolly phonics, dvd, book and workbooks which we did whilst she was in reception. She loved her phonics then.

I think she has struggled with transition from reception to yr1 I know this is a well known difficult transitional phase. Just thought she would take it all in her stride,as she has done with most things in her little life.