Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

Still struggling in year 1

75 replies

MustTidyPlayroom · 27/10/2012 11:29

I've posted about DS2 (born May 2007) earlier this year and got some great advice, but the general feeling was that I was worrying to soon.

So, we are now half a term into year 1, parents evening is approaching and DS is still struggling.

Reading - DS can still only sound words out and doesn't recognise words from one page to the next - reading books are a thing of the past and we are now doing something called Sounds Write. The teacher is also sending home lists of words to go through and letters so DS can spell them out.

Maths - DS is struggling with simple number bonds and we have started using Komodo maths at home to help him with this.

Speech - DS has some on going speech problems, which are improving with intensive therapy.

On the other hand, he loves school, has lots of friends, tries hard and excels at sports.

What should I be asking the teacher at parents evening?

Should I be worried?

What more can we do to help?

My other concern is that DS is in a fairly small, but high achieving prep school (children are expected to be working two years ahead of their age in maths when they leave at 11). I am considering moving to a state school as I would hope he would get more support - or is that wishful thinking?

OP posts:

Sparklingbrook · 27/10/2012 15:07

I see what you are saying Fluff, we must have struck lucky. The tutor we found (via word of mouth) spotted the problem and sorted it out for DS. Basically he had just drowned in Maths, the teacher had moved on and he had been well and truly left behind. This is the teacher who told him' don't bring me your work unless it's right'.

Fluffanstuff · 27/10/2012 15:21

Bleurgh ... How do these people get jobs ! Its something if said many times , I wish teachers got performance related pay / easier to get sacked.
I hate it , Its so hard to be a good teacher nowadays because of poopheads like that. I always wish kids would turn around and tell them It would be right if you taught me properly.... My feeling is if a child is 'failing' its my problem I must be doing something wrong and I need to change my practice to sort it out ...its never the kids faults.

Sparklingbroomstick · 27/10/2012 15:24

You are not wrong Fluff. We as parents were asked what we were going to do about it. hence the tutor.

Sorry about mid thread Halloween name change.

Fluffanstuff · 27/10/2012 15:28

There needs to be some sort of good teacher revolution ... I'd be willing to head it up problem is I don't know many good teachers lol !!

Always my ambition to be that one teacher you remember as a child that could just 'solve the world' But I work billions of hours for free and do it because I love it ...it is a vocation not a career . I've debated many times becoming a teacher trainer to pass on my attitude but then I leave the children :( !

mrz · 27/10/2012 15:35

The problem is Sparkling, tutors are no more qualified than the average teacher to diagnose dyslexia or dyspraxia but have more to gain by suggesting that is the problem.

RiversideMum · 27/10/2012 15:44

Sounds Write is an "off the shelf" phonics programme which would support the way your child is learning to sound out and blend. If your child knows simple letter/sound correspondences, I'm not sure why they would have abandoned books (unless the books they have aren't decodable).

Are your child's speech problems to do with pronounciation or to do with receptive and expressive langauge?

sazale · 27/10/2012 16:48

My DS 5 (will be 6 in Feb) is having real difficulty learning to read and with numeracy. He has barely made any progress since starting phonics at the end of F1 (he is still on same first sounds). I was concerned that his speech disorder may be the reason. He also has no sight word recognition apart from his name. His SALT has carried out a phonological assessment and identified that he has phonological processing difficulties that are affecting his ability to learn to read and has a very poor working memory to the extent that by the time he's finished sounding out the 3 letter word he was asked to spell he'd forgotten what the word was! He's ok with 3 letter words if they sound like the three letter names. We are working on him associating the letter sound rather than the name to the letter atm. Four letter/3 sound words he just can't get at all but then again I'm not sure if he'll have done that at school yet. There is info here about how speech and language difficulties put children at a higher risk of literacy difficulties.
www.ican.org.uk/~/media/Ican2/Whats%20the%20Issue/Evidence/1%20Communication%20Disability%20and%20Literacy%20Difficulties%20pdf.ashx

Badvoc · 27/10/2012 16:50

Check out the tinsley house support thread part 2.
Also see "is that my child?" By robin pauc.
There is a lot you can do to help your son.
Good luck.

Original poster

MustTidyPlayroom · 27/10/2012 17:48

mrz - I'll give that a try later and let you know how we get on. We are on holiday at the moment and my Dad did reading with DS2 this morning, he is the most patient person I know and even he looked fed-up by the end of it.

RiversideMum - DS is not typical for his speech problems. He has some specific sound issues "l" "w" for example and "sh" "sp" words. His vocabulary is good and I feel his understanding is good, although our speech therapist did question this, as he struggled on a few of the tests she set (to be honest after an hour I felt his concentration had gone and could see that he was pointing at things randomly). His other problem is inconsistency in his speech and we have had "core vocabulary therapy" recommended which will cost around 2K - I am currently arguing the case with our NHS therapist.

I will also ask why he isn't bringing books home - I am working through some level 1 ORT books with DS at home (he would much prefer to be looking at "Where's Wally" though).

SparklingBrook - That's an awful attitude from a teacher, thankfully DS does have a good teacher and TA and does get some one to one support - I am just not sure that we will get specialist help if needed, although I do know of one girl higher up the school with dyslexia who attends a unit (LEA?) once a week for a few hours for extra help.

Sazale - That sounds very much like DS - I will have a look at the link - Thank you.

Badvoc - Thank you for the suggestions - I'll have a look at those too.

OP posts:

Original poster

MustTidyPlayroom · 28/10/2012 11:00

Quick update - This morning I explained to DS that I wanted to read the words and not sound them out. It was a text he was familiar with and he managed to read it without help, although he was very slow and no doubt sounding out in his head first. The text is along the lines of...

"The pig and his pal the rat ran to the web. The Pig gave the web a tug. It was wet. The pig and the rat ran and hid"

He did struggle when I asked him what was wet though.

Maths was very frustrating. His teacher asked us to concentrate on putting the numbers 1-20 in order and recognising them all.

1-10 is fine, but 11-20 is hard work especiallly the numbers 11,13 and 15.

Any suggestions on how to help with this would be appreciated - We are using number flash cards at the moment.

Thank you.

OP posts:

mrz · 28/10/2012 11:10

Try putting them in two rows so he can see that the order of the (units) numbers stays the same and you are just putting a 10 (1) in front. It's easier once a child understands that the first number shows how many tens and the second how many ones

0 - 1- 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9
10-11- 12-13- 14-15-16-17-18-19

I sometimes say 10- 10 and 1 is 11 10 and 2 is 12 etc

Original poster

MustTidyPlayroom · 28/10/2012 13:46

Thank you mrz - i'll give that a try, I had been mixing the cards up a bit as he was just counting to get the number rather than recognising it - time for a new approach.

OP posts:

sazale · 28/10/2012 13:54

It's funny you mention the counting, MustTidyPlayroom, as that is something I've noticed DS doing particularly this morning! We've bought the magnetic numbers and letters and he's fine up to 5 and the number 10. He recognises them but is inconsistent with 6 to 9 and doesn't know above 10. I noticed that with the numbers he's inconsistent with he is counting silently to try to work them out.

I'm going to give that a try mrz!

slipslider · 28/10/2012 14:13

MustTidy, you suggest that your son can read in his head and others are mentioning dyslexia etc. People with dyslexia sometimes do not have an 'internal voice' and if they don't have it they are unable to read in their heads.

Original poster

MustTidyPlayroom · 28/10/2012 14:32

Slipslider - he does seem to be able to if reminded, but slips back to sounding out if I don't remind him. His reading record suggests he his sounding out in class too. The only "tricky" words he seems to recognise are "the" and "at".

When I ask him to just read the words it seems to be sounding out in his head and I can often see his lips moving as well.

OP posts:

mrz · 28/10/2012 14:42

I wouldn't see it as a problem if a child was "sounding out" in Y1 or even in Y2 (and for some words I would hope older children would use sounding out rather than being stuck).
I would see it as a problem if any of our staff were telling parents that "at" is a tricky word [hhmm]

slipslider · 28/10/2012 14:46

Sounding out is common in year 1 and especially at the beginning of the year. I always asked the year 1's to sound out at first in order that I could check their blending skills and see if there are any parts of words they struggle to blend like 'star' some will struggle with blending the 2 consonants at the beginning so I would be watching for that. Then when they get more confident we tell them they can 'sight read' but still use blending when they come across a word they can not read on sight. So that is pretty normal to go from one to the other during the course of reading. How about playing games with high frequency words or using websites like phonicsplay...playing games when he is out and about - can he find the sign saying 'park', ask him on shopping trips to help you to read simple packaging of items you normally don;t get so he wouldn't know it from the item itself.

learnandsay · 28/10/2012 14:49

I don't know what the not sounding out limit on reading is. One of our books contains Suchomimus, Tsintaosaurus and more besides, I'm sounding them out and I'm a bit beyond Y2

I'm a free reader (as far as I know.)

mrz · 28/10/2012 14:54

It's amazing how most people resort to some sort of sounding out when they encounter new words even if they weren't formally taught phonics

RiversideMum · 28/10/2012 14:55

If your child has quite a complex speech disorder then that may be the issue holding up the other areas of learning.

learnandsay · 28/10/2012 14:58

I'm not sure what else you can do. But some form of sounding out isn't the same as official phonics. Some form of sounding out doesn't have agreed upon rules. The person just uses whatever method they think will get the word read for them. (I personally don't think it's that big a deal.) Phonics purists believe that it has to be done in a particular formal way. Personally I think lots of people get along just fine doing it informally.

mrz · 28/10/2012 15:02

and lots of children fail unfortunately

learnandsay · 28/10/2012 15:09

My "people" wasn't specifically referring to children. It was more general than that. I believe that one requires a good foundation to excel in any endeavour. But I don't tend to believe people who say our foundation is the only one possible, especially when it clearly isn't the case. But to say a good foundation is available from us is perfectly acceptable to me.

mrz · 28/10/2012 15:13

OK a lot of people fail to get along fine unfortunately

learnandsay · 28/10/2012 15:17

Even the best teaching in the world isn't going to eliminate the effects of a poor environment. It might minimise them. But it won't eliminate them. So lots of people are still going to fail to get along fine, (in lots of areas.)

Flip

1 2 3

Swipe left for the next trending thread