Has anyone had a struggling reader in Y1/Y2 turn themselves around in later years?

[Kellamity]

DS is a summer born and while he has plenty of enthusiasm and determination he is one of the weakest readers in his class. Is this always going to be the way for him? The unending game of catch up?

Dd really struggled in yrs R-2. She'd get frustrated and very down because her siblings read very quickly and picked it up with little bother so she was always comparing herself to them as well as others in the class.

She kept at it, but what got her going finally weren't those endless Biff and Kipper books which didn't really help much, but Dr Seuss. Those stories bounce along, you feel like you are really doing it yourself and theyre fun too - all very satisfying.

She really took off with those and quite honestly never looked back. She's in yr 5 now. A huge bookworm and reads books well ahead of those aimed at her age.

These messages are really encouraging thank you

My dd, also summer born, could barely read "cat" at the end of year 1. She's now in Y3 and in the top literacy group for her high achieving class.

My DP is an August baby. I was chatting to his mum and aunt about whether August babies are slow to start because I couldn't image him ever struggling. They just exchanged looks and burst out laughing. Apparently they genuinely thought he had some undiagnosed problem until he was about 12. He always preferred non-fiction (still does).

DP has a training contract lined up with a big American law firm for two years' time. You would never, ever guess to look at him/see him work that he struggled at school. In contrast I was a September baby, always at the top of my class at school. You would struggle to believe that now - he works much, much better than I do.

I'm very late July bday,was top of everything in the latter primary years ditto dp.We have 3 degrees between us.

Check all the different suggestions out, I recommend 'toe by toe' because it worked for us but i am sure there are others out there just as good (and probably a bit less boring!) it is a few years now since i had to do this and there are bound new materials out there. I seem to remember 'Toe by Toe' has a minimum age of 7 and I think ds2 would have found it hard to stick with at that age.

I agree with those who suggest reading chapter books, i read books to DS2 that were way ahead of his reading age and am sure this helped him build up concentration and memory. We also have a lot of graphic novels in the house asa DH used to be a comic artist and DS2 enjoyed comic book versions of books such as the Hobbit before he was confident enought to tackle them in print only.

My spring born DS couldn't count when he started reception, he was young and I thought he would catch up, at the end of Y1 he was still behind (couldn't add up beyond 10). He was 6 now, so that summer I started working with him, it was slow going at first, but getter better.

Now in Y2 I noticed that he was working with Y1 children and that the work was too easy for him. It took me 6 week to get him reassessed - but now he is amongst the best his Y2 group and liking maths.

However, we still have issues with DS often not paying attention and not working well independently, which will hold him back if we don't get on top of that.

another slow goer over here!!

my dd has only just ignited in year 2. year R and 1 were a real plod to be honest (as anyone who has read my posts over the last two years will tell you ).

Having seen her younger brother (yr R) start reading now, I'm beginning to really fully understand how differently she learns from him. Not right nor wrong...just different.

I feel certain that they will end up successful in their education however, their journeys there are clearly going to be quite different.

DD2 isn't even summer born (October) but was very, very slow to catch on. I assumed she was dyslexic but just kept plugging on.

She's at Oxford now, reading History, doing well amongst her peers :)

One of my friends works at a school that uses 'read write inc' and also her son's school use it and she raved about it, I don't have any personal experience of it, but may be worth a look for some strategies. Maybe someone on here has some thoughts on it.
I'll try and link if that would be helpful?

I genuinely think we push reading too young for many children. We shouldn't hold back those who get it early but we should make a huge issue about it until they are 7-8.

One thing I know - the more of an issue you make of it the harder it is for everyone.

throckenholt - I agree fully, however, I am finding it hard to hold back as the whole system expects them to do and learn certain things aged 4 and 5. I know its silly, I managed to hold back until the end of Y1, but then DS was 6 1/2 - what if he is just not very bright and will always be at the bottom - that's a worry and it would effect their self esteem.

We have made brilliant progress with maths at home. However, he still isn't a keen reader, just reads what he has to, just about average and progress is slow and he is not very interested. We do read every day at home. Still waiting for a breakthrough, he is almost 7 now.

I think the thing is to read with them. You read some and then they read some (balance how much works for you). Make it fun. Point out occasionally how the sounds go together to make the word.

Use whatever books he likes - can be favourite picture books, comics, some passion (eg football magazine or in our case tractor magazines !).

In other words give him a reason to want to read (not just what they are doing at school) - something that makes him realise it is worth the effort to decode it all. Once he has a reason it will work it out amazingly quickly.

By the way - in Yr 3 my Ds was bored rigid with the books he was bringing home from school - he hated them and wouldn't read them (and had no confidence to pick up any other book). Ask told his teacher that and she said ok try something else. He came home with a Roald Dahl book which was seemingly way ahead of his level - but he really got stuck in and got very enthusiastic and within a couple of weeks had read all the shorter RD books on his own. It was genuinely amazing.

So I tend to think don't make a big issue of the books school send back - they can read anything they like - even cereal packets at breakfast - any practice is good practice.

I wonder how long UK will keep teaching 4 year olds to read for. It does seem that we rather play at it for a couple of years and then in year 2/3 they generally get going (ie become "free readers" or we panic if they don't as they've been doing it (switched off?) for years. Not that surprising that other countries wait until then and then go for it. Ah well.

Yes. My DD struggled with reading all through infants. In yr3 it clicked. I was quite worried (I'd been able to read before starting school) -DH wasn't because he'd been exactly the same as DD.

By the end of junior school she had a 16+ reading age; she's at grammar school now. And glory be, she actually reads for pleasure (though she still loves me to read to her at bedtime )

haven't read thread properly, but dd was a rubbish reader at 7/8 even...now at 9 she reads voraciously; has read every Jacqueline Wilson (except the older ones) and I'm just expecting her to break the sound barrier and try reading something a bit more difficult - say Little Women (she likes listening to me read it) for herself. The trick is to find a series they like, and then they can't resist trying it out for themselves. And lots of reading aloud.
Her brothers were much better at reading at an early age, Ds1 still brilliant but rushes through things, and Ds2 (her twin) who far surpassed her in Yr 1 has fallen way behind, because he won't read independently, or rather he will read, but just looks at the pictures in factual type information books for ages and ages.

The sad thing is that their school work suffers when they don't learn to read early, because so much for the work is to do with reading instructions. So even if they catch up and surpass everyone there's a built in feeling of inferiority from earlier. It's a bad system. Dh hmself (2.1 from Uni) didn't learn to read till he was 7/8, his mum was mortified at time, but it really meant NOTHING. He now reads about 5 novels a week, as well as reading academic stuff all the time fro work. He still feels he's was stupid because he didn't learn to read when he should have, but he's clearly NOT.

sorry typo on the he's was stupid..

There is so much evidence just here of children not learning until 7/8 and then flying. Doesn't this tell us something? It seems unfair on these children that they struggle for a couple of years and as pp said and have that feeling of inferiority. I wonder if that's why year 3 is called "year 1" in Sweden, and year 2 is "reception" and they teach them to read in year 1 (ie year 3, yes, year 3 equivalent). Says she who has a son in Reception who is doing well with reading so far but can completely sympathise with those who are not. Gets off hobbyhorse.

DP (June born) and moderately dyslexic was 'useless' at primary school he says and some of his family confirm that (but not in front of him). He told me that his mum send him to a different High School as all his early friends thought he was stupid.

He caught up there, went to Uni, left with a 2:1 and has a successful professional career now.

However, the low self-esteem is still there and he often doubts himself.

Yep this is a MASSIVE bugbear of mine...not a conincidence that europe has the best literacy rates in the world and the UK and US some of the poorest

Sigh.

Some kids ARE ready before 7/8 but IMO most arent...think of all the remedial reading programmes out there to try to counter this "problem" of kids not reading well til they are 8/9?

Some kids can catch up but - as the latest research shows - kids who are in the lowest abilty groups at the end of primary tend to stay there from a combinatation of low self esteem and low expectations from the school/teachers

"Yep this is a MASSIVE bugbear of mine...not a conincidence that europe has the best literacy rates in the world and the UK and US some of the poorest."

What do you mean by this?

bonsoir Most of Europe does not start formally teaching reading (or numeracy) until 7 years old (eg: Austria/Sweden).

They have some of the highest literacy rates in the world and best exam results.

We dont.

Simple, really.

They also have the lowest incidences of STDs and teenage pg - they teach sex ed early and well.

Becaroo - there are significant differences between "European" countries (and the UK is a European country) in the order in which basic skills are addressed in the early years. Some countries teach penmanship as almost the first skill (and there is a lot to be said for this, IMO), others, like the UK, teach reading as the first skill.

A very good reason for starting to learn to read early in the UK is that English is the hardest European language for children to learn to read - its alphabetic code is the most opaque. It is very wrong to look at "start ages" for reading in German-speaking, Italian-speaking, Spanish-speaking or Finnish-speaking countries and to conclude that it is their later start ages that make learning to read easier. It is their far more transparent alphabetic codes that make learning to read easier, and, as a consquence, also reduce the incidence of dyslexia.