School wants to move year 3 DD to yrR for literacy- yes or no?

[Dreameronastar]

Some of you may remember my thread on here last week about my DD- just gone into year 3 and can't read or write at all as such. She is able to memorize the letter patterns which make up a certain word and associate it with the correct sound if I go over it a hundred times over with her, but she's not actually 'reading' it, because she has no grasp of phonics at all. She moved to a new school in September for various reasons and the new school has only really begun to take any notice of how badly she is struggling- that's another story . Now they have proposed to me that DD goes to join a recpetion class for literacy Monday-Friday in order to go back over the basics.

I'm not really sure about it. Verbally DD seems to be very bright- vocabulary-wise apparently she is actually ahead of where she should be now, she just can't write anything down because she doesn't seem to have a clue about the basics. The school are saying that they want to get DD up to speed ASAP, but I'm worried that by not having any literacy lessons with her age group at all, she's going to fall behind with other things. There's more to literacy than just the reading and writing part and verbally DD's actually very good at making up stories, comprehension (if someone reads it to her) etc; I don't want her to fall behind with anything else. But I'm also aware that she badly needs to learn how to read and write and she can't do that in her regular literacy lessons.

And then there's the age issue: DD is almost 8 so there will be a 4 year age gap in the reception class, obviously not ability wise but certainly maturity wise. And I don't want DD to think she's stupid/other children to start saying things, she's having enough friendship problems as it is. Obviously I need to make a decision one way or the other, but not sure what to do for the best. Any advice?

That's an awful idea (I'm a reception teacher) I think it would be totally demoralising for your dc to be with much younger children. Imagine how much of a blow it will be when some of the reception children make better progress than them (which is likely).

As others above has said, the school needs to provide 1-1 wave 3 intervention support, wih a clear IEP in place.

What mad woman said

Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service

Just to say though that there hasn't been much investigation yet to find out what might be the reason for DDs difficulties. From what you've said and my experience I'd say something relatively straight-forward like dyslexia could well be the reason for the challenges here. A bit of a guess though since I've never met this little girl !

Nothing wrong with a 'label' if it's the right label; the missing puzzle piece. My dd actually felt empowered by her dyslexia 'label' since she felt reassured that she wasn't merely 'thick'. Get an Ed Psych assessment and stop pissing in the wind

Sorry - bridling at your 'labelling' comment, I hope you get things sorted for dd

And an emphatic 'no' - what a cruel and unhelpful suggestion

What a wicked idea from the scool-it could have a devastating effect on your dd socially without helping her academically.I would suggest after school tuition maybe half an hour twice a week.I bet some one to one tuition would soon have her catch up.

Socially I think this just wouldn't work.
Educationally it might.
My dyslexic DD1 got given odd bits of very poorly structured help from a hopeless TA.
A couple of hours a week relearning basic spelling patterns and sentence structure with a proper teacher would have been better.
I'm not sure she'd have minded if she redid carefully chosen lessons with younger children. She didn't mind getting Y4 worksheets in Y6.
I'm afraid SEN help appears to be really poor in most schools. There seems to be a culture of get them to do something in registration to shut their parents up, very little monitoring of whether it's the right something.
Wishing the OP and her daughter well.

I'm horrified that is your experience of SEN provision startail

Startail that sounds absolutely nothing like my experience of SEN provision, so I'd challenge the "most schools" bit.

Startail's child has dyslexia.

I think Startail's perception of what happens, is very common for parents of dyslexic kids.

I'm sure her school's perception of what happened is that they did everything they were meant to for a child with dyslexia, they followed 'best practice'

I don't think it's common to measure the effectiveness of an intervention, or to change an intervention if it's not working.

I think dyslexia is a very complex problem, which schools take a very simplistic approach to. Schools think that what they should be doing for dyslexia is 'overlearning', or 'synthetic phonics' or any of the hundred 'learn to read' interventions.

But none of these actually work, so the parent is left feeling that the school doesn't care and isn't trying, and the school is left feeling that the parent is in denial and being unreasonable, because the school are doing exactly what the EP told them to do for the last dyslexic kid.......

Certainly it took me far too long to realise that school couldn't do anything else for my DD, and that they were actually doing best practice. In short it took me far too long to realise that although dyslexia appears to be an educational problem, it actually isn't, and therefore school can't do anything for it.

I agree to an extent Indigo ... most schools don't have access to the professionals and treatments that a child with complex needs may need but startail said

My dyslexic DD1 got given odd bits of very poorly structured help from a hopeless TA. and There seems to be a culture of get them to do something in registration to shut their parents up, very little monitoring of whether it's the right something.

and I'm horrified at the idea that may be the case in some schools.

As you know I'm a SENCO and I identified a child in my class as in danger of failing (currently almost two years behind - working mid reception level) I put together a daily programme which I intended to teach during my lunchtime and the response from his mum ... I don't want you to force him ...he will read and write when he's ready osmosis?

That is the laziest solution I have ever heard

Even ds' absolutely clueless school (the one that refused to allow a wheelchair bound child to use the disabled toilet) were able to offer him targeted reading support within his own class; it is not an uncommon situation, so the school should have a plan. And it should not involve humiliating her (show me an 8yo who would not be humiliated by being sent to work with 4yo!). And they should be discussing it with you.

Mrz - maybe your child's mum is a MNer . An awful lot of them seem to think that 4 is too young to teach kids, and that they all learn in their own time....

Part of my point was that it's startails perception that the TA was hopeless. She may be - or she may have been directed to do stuff that doesn't work. It would be hard for a parent to know what's really happening.

It's perfectly possible That the TA is fine, and she was doing what the SENCO told her to, and that time with a teacher instead of a TA (which startail wanted) wouldn't have been any more effective.

It totally depends on the severity of startails DD dyslexia.....

If 'effective teaching' was the solution to startails DDs dyslexia, then she would have been able to solve the problem herself with lots of work at home. I'm assuming that startail tried to do extra work with her DD and had no more success than the hopeless TA....

'Very little monitoring of whether it's the right something'...

That's not my experience. We have formal IEP reviews every half term, where we go through every intervention that every SEN child has and look at what impact it has. If it has an impact, we continue it. If it doesn't, we look at changing the intervention or having the child externally assessed (again, if they've already been assessed once and the suggested interventions aren't working) to try to ensure the maximum effect on every child.

I thought that this was standard practice - especially as we have very, very high levels of SEN (almost half my current class) and in most schools it would be significantly less time-consuming.

I accept that for some children that even the very best that we can do will not have the impact we and their parents would wish for (I cannot make my pupil with brain damage from meningitis perform at the expected level for his age - but I can plan with the TA and SENCo a series of interventions that allow him to make incremental progress from the level he is currently at). I also accept that some of our children come from home lives that only a multi-agency approach, rather than anything we do in the classroom alone, will have a genuine impact on that child. But I disagree heartily that there is very little monitoring...

Indigo he is SEVEN and one of the oldest in the class but working at the level of a reception child. I'm more than happy to give up my lunchtime every day (I actually have 3 groups I work with at this time ) but she has refused to allow him to join me for 15 mins per day! (I planned to use Apples & Pears)

Teacher - in neither of the schools my kids have attended have failing IEPs meant anything. The teachers have always said to me 'oh, don't worry, we'll just roll the target over'!

I hope your school practice is more common than mine - but I'm not sure that it is.

Reviewing IEPs half termly isn't common either. Most schools do it either termly or half yearly. 'Best practice' is termly :(

I have found from 2 schools, and 2 kids on the SEN register, that they just roll out a standard intervention for your child's problem and assume it will work. And if it doesn't they avoid you and say there is nothing else that can be done.

mrz - I know that your child is 7. The mum's attitude is sad and absolutely shocking. Have you shown her the statistics that if a child doesn't learn to read by 8, they're highly unlikely to ever learn to read? I think at least 50% of children who don't get a level 2 in KS1, leave Y6 unable to read properly.

I asked what if he still can't read and write at 8, 9, 10 or 11 and she said that's not likely he's an intelligent child ... yes a bright little boy who needs help because he's failing to learn fortunately the other parents are more supportive

We review provision every 10 weeks if it's working we continue if not we either review how it's being delivered or look at alternatives.

I think there's a reason why school won't let me be the SEN Governor

The difference between what mrz and teacher say happens in their school, and what happens in mine and startails (and presumably lots of others) is vast and shocking.

One year they'll have to let me by SEN governor

(Obviously in the mean time I'm 'negotiating' better provision for my kids - but that's not what it should be about :( )

Thanks everyone. I think the verdict is I'm going to tell the school no, they can't move her into reception. Nothing has been suggested about reading support with a TA at lunchtimes, etc, so I'll bring that up on Monday. Nothing mentions about camhs either, I'll investigate that too. THanks again :)

teacherwith2kids, you obviously know the little boy who had meningitis v well and are able to comment on his individual potential. but i would just like to interject and wave my(8yo) dd2 around a little bit, so just so that the idea that brain damage = ld isn't too fixed. dd2 has cerebral palsy caused by brain damage due to a birth injury. she has an iq of 142 and outstrips the majority of her peer group cognitivels. she just struggles to record due to her associated fine motor difficulties. and as she didn't become verbal until v late (with severe dysyrarthric speech) a lot of her potential was v well hidden

fortunately, we (and her teachers as a result) know this. but it wouldn't be the first time that a child had been effectively written off because they drool, slur, and fall over. several times they have discussed moving her up to higher grade, but socially this would be a disaster. so they differentiate (in both ways lol - for ability and recording) with her peer group.

and like i said, i'm sure this isn't the case with the little boy in your class - but sometimes perception of potential is flawed, and the brain damage thing in particular is classic. so i just wanted to put it out there as a small reminder to not judge a book by the cover etc etc. it being a bit of a bug bear for me

sorry for slight hijack op. hope you get some more positive idea from school this week. good luck x

madwoman,

Apologies - I am guilty of using 'brain damage' as a useful message-board shorthand for the detail of this child's difficulties. He does have genuine learning difficulties.

sure, i realised that just wanted to underline that the one does not necessarily equal the other. no apology necessary.

Do you mean for Letters and Sounds? Year R don't do Literacy...

If so, L&S is only 10-15 mins a day so she wouldn't be there for long. I assume she needs to access Phase 2 of the programme, are there really no children anywhere else in the school at this stage?