Straight from preschool to year 2.

[Quintessentialist]

My son has followed the Norwegian school system, where they start school at six. So he had not yet started school when we moved to London.
He came here knowing capital letters, and the alphabet.

The SN teacher is convinced he will be on par with the other children in his class by Christmas. I think it is going to be hard work.
He needs to learn how to read, and spell!
He speaks English, but naturally not as well as the British children in his class.

I think I am going to need a lot of handholding, and a lot of patience.
How can I ensure he stays motivated through all this work?

He will get 10 new words ever week, 4 reading books, and spellings, in addition to mathematics homework. We will review after half term.

My son went from Kindergarten (in Germany) to Y2 (in the UK). He knew how to write his name, the alphabet song and maybe half of the single sound phonics.

With spelling homework we spent 10 minutes twice a week learning words. This meant that he often had 1/10 or 2/10 in the beginning but it would have taken hours of practice and lots of tears to get him up to 10/10 so I had to be strong and learn spellings by time limit.

Reading books are set by reading ability so wasn't a problem.

Maths: He had actually picked up a lot of maths by learning through play but had to learn how it related to maths that is written. For example, he knew that a lego brick with 2 rows of 4 dots has 8 dots but had no clue what 2x4=8 meant. Even when he had just started maths homework didn't take long.

Words: Do you mean sight words? (Words that you have to read on sight like "the") In my experience you only get new words once the initial set has been learned.

I set a homework timetable and it was done in short bursts which I think helps as 6 hours of school is tiring if you're not used to it.

He was "average" by Christmas and on top tables by Easter. The range of abilities is huge (in a state school) so try to relax.

Just try to make it fun. Any game with dice etc. I'm sure mrz will be along with lots of good strategies.

Many comments on MN about Oxford Reading Tree scheme which repeats high frequency words - I would supplement with Usborne phonics eg Frog on a log, Shark in the park. They were much easier to sound out initially to DS.

quints I'll offer you my hand too. We moved from a US system to UK system when DS was in year 2 last year. He was behind but by the end of the year had caught up. The culture shock was the hardest for him, he really wanted to learn once we got over the culture shock.

He'll be fine. Just do a little each day without pushing- am sure he'll want to join in with his classmates and he'll soon catch up. They are flexible little people you know! Bet he surprises you!

My dcs moved from UK to France and were reading, writing and speaking French within 6 months. Don't panic. After an initial time of adaptation, it'll all be fine. It's probably important he is with children of his own age so he can forge links socially. We have also popped in and out of the US system. Children are very adaptable.

Phonics are so important in how they learn to read/write, and what I have found worked best was to buy the phonics audio CD and listen to it at home and in the car. It comes with a booklet with all the gestures to accompany the sounds.

It will be hard for your DS, but even children who don't speak English at all and start at year 2 catch up.