should I worry about ds?

[leftmysociallifeatthedoor]

He is 5y2m, started school in Dec.

He likes school, has loads of friends, cries sometimes when I drop him off but really loves it most of the time. He's always been very active and energetic but he also likes learning about things like space, the human body and listening to stories etc.

However, he just isn't interested in reading and writing at all. Even when he writes his name he gets letters the wrong way round.

He can tell you all the phonics sounds no bother and correlate them to their letters if that makes sense but doesnrt make an attempt to read. When he does read he does so by sounding out rather than 'by sight' which is what he's supposed to do apparently.

Its hard to get him interested in it and I don't want to force him and make it a horrible experience doinmg homework.

Would you worry? What would you do?

Absolutely don't worry. Sounds like he's doing very well.

He is meant to read by sounding out, not by sight.

Sorry for typos - sleep deprived. Also he started school in August not Dec.

Well, problem is that they do a game in class (I was there so its not one of ds' made up scenarios) where they get a point if they can say what the word is when they first turn over the card but no point if they sound it out.

:( :( :(

He needs to sound out words until they get into his sight memory.

What the teacher is doing is very concerning.

Yeah I think that's the thing - he struggles to move over to learning them by sight alone iyswim.

I think the teacher is trying to encourage them to get to that stage with this game but it discourages ds tbh. He feels like he can't do it so he won't try.

Sounds as if he just isn't ready. I didn't learn to read until I was 9, then in a 1-1.5 years I could read and write very well. My brother on the other hand could read whole books at 3 and isn't at all as accademic as me.

Try not to worry, unless it's bothering him.

Thanks mummyloveslucy. I don't think it bothers him but he does tend to bottle things up.

My DD was like that. She actually has some learning difficulties. When she was at school, she used to cry in the mornings, but never said why.
Things did get very bad, so we decided to home educate her. It took about 6 months for her to come out with things like "I'm stupid, aren't I" We'd reasure her, but she'd say "that's what they all said to me". It took a long time to build her confidence, but now, It's just amazing! She'll chat to anyone like a little old lady and has quite a big ego. (Maybe we went too far)
Sorry for going off on a tangent. What I'm getting at is, try to get him to talk about his feelings. We use puppets, they're brillient for this. It has been really hard with my DD but so worth it in the end.

Thanks, he does talk to me some times and he has loads of friends at school and is really popular. I just don't know whether to worry about him academically..

In that case, I wouldn't worry. Boys do take longer to develop these skills than girls anyway. I'm sure he'll be fine.