Tell me I'm being a wally!

[blueberryboybait]

DD is in reception born on the last possible day for entry into her year group, youngest in her class by 3 months.

She started school being able to read, mostly by sight but knew all letters and some digraphs, so has needed to learn some phonic combinations. She has absolutely no fine motor control at all, struggles with pencil grip and pinching to pick up things. Her teacher has stroke 6 weeks into term and has been replaced by a lovely but somewhat uninspiring replacement. DD is still on the pink band book along with the whole class because they want to progress them all together, DD is bored and refuses to read at all to anyone.

She actively avoids anything to do with writing/drawing and will find a reason to do another activity when presented with pencils and they are not doing anything to encourage her. It took 15 minutes but this morning I persuaded her to come and draw with be during the before school enrichment session, but as soon as someone came along to write she wanted to move and seemed almost embarrassed that she couldn't do what they could. I mentioned it to the TA and the teacher and both brushed it off saying she will catch up. I am sure she will but she seems so very unhappy not being able to hold a pencil and make any remotely slightly recognisable marks apart from a P.

I spoke to the new teacher at parents evening in Nov but nothing has changed. I am told she is lovely friendly quiet and polite so suspect she is just being overlooked because she isn't demanding anything.

Tell me I'm over thinking.

You're not over thinking at all. In Reception there will potentially be lots of children who aren't ready to write yet. Putting a pencil in her hand isn't going to do the job. They should be providing lots of mark making opportunities for her - in shaving foam, rice, fingerpaints, using chubby crayons and chalks... They should also be giving her activities to do which will help develop her fine motor control - threading, squeezing playdough, using tweezers... Giving her a context to write will also encourage her - writing shopping lists in the role play area, making signs for outdoors etc. I would be go in and ask the teacher what they are doing to support and encourage her .

As for moving everybody through the book bands together - WHAT??! Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Not being able to write in reception is perfectly normal. However u say that she hasn't got the motor skills in order to do it so that is something that will need to be worked on so I would try again talking to teacher as there will be special methods needed in order to get her holding a pencil correctly etc. I think that sometimes the trouble can be that expectations from kids in reception can be so low that finishing reception unable to read or write , which in many cases is normal as kids learn at different speeds, however it does mean things r often flagged up later when something should have been done sooner. If that makes sense.

As for the lack of differentiation with the books that would concern me. Teachers neec to recognize when some struggle and others need moving on.

There r pen grips available and teachers should have some. They help the child hold correctly, there r also special pens available online from -pen again.

You are not being a wally at all, don't do yourself down.

I can't believe they want to progress all the children together! I think OFSTED would have something to say about the lack of tailored individual teaching being offered.

You need to take this further I'm afraid, and find out if its just this teacher or whether the school is actually under poor leadership and not delivering. I would talk to the teacher, ask what they plan to do to teach your child as an individual, with agreed steps and a timeframe for implementation, then take it to the head if/when not followed through. To be honest, a good head would want to be involved in this kind of conversation anyway. If it is a school-wide problem, then you can either carry on pursuing it through the governors and ofsted, and/or look at moving schools.

Don't panic, it is only reception after all, and there is a lot you can offer at home. But you do need to get to the bottom of this before your child moves on to Year 1.

My eldest has the same bday as your dd, now in year 3, is small and needed help with fine motor skills.

There are lots of exercises you can do with her to strengthen the skills. I just found these on the Internet:

--www.squidoo.com/helping-children-develop-strong-fine-motor-skills--

--handsonaswegrow.com/30-kids-activities-materials-for-promoting-fine-motor-skills/--

There's lots more websites too.

My eldest still doesn't have the best control and I think that manifests in messy handwriting, however I do think it will come with age.

Also, I wouldn't worry too much about where she is compared with the rest of the class. It took my dc til year 1 (final term) for reading to 'click' and just came out as 3 years ahead at a recent assessment. I'd like to think that if she had any obvious issues, that they were worried about then they would talk to you about it.

Just do as much reading and writing/drawing as you can/she wants to at home and make it fun.

Good luck.

www.tts-group.co.uk/shops/tts/Range.aspx?search=penagain&gclid=CP_5t6CPkLUCFe3KtAodbFUANw

These r the pens. And above poster is right, look online for some tasks and fun exercises that will help improve your dds motor skills.

Sorry messed up the links!

handsonaswegrow.com/30-kids-activities-materials-for-promoting-fine-motor-skills/

www.squidoo.com/helping-children-develop-strong-fine-motor-skills

CHildren should not be expected to move through bookbands together - in year one at my son's school they have children still reading pink books and some reading lime/moving on to free-reading. That is totally wrong - children should be encouraged to move on at their own pace.

The idea of children moving through the book bands together is bonkers.

Try squeezing clothes pegs say 10 times in each hand first thing in the morning and in the evening too...

In the bath get her squeezing out all the water from her flannel/sponge.

Also ripping up newspaper and squeezing it into balls.

Threading beads is good and also if you have any small beads to bury them in a small amount of playdoh/plasticine so that she will strengthen her fingers by digging them out.

My DS (now yr3) is also 31st Aug (born 2 weeks early) and he really struggled with reading and when he was in reception did not even have a book at this stage.

Thanks everyone, I will work on her finger strength and get the physio (DD sees her for hypermobility) to help too. I have made an appointment to see the teacher and asked the head to sit in too. Hopefully we will come up with a workable plan.

On a happier note DH put a new Bake a Wish book on her pillow tonight with a torch, I popped up 10 mins ago to hear quiet murmuring from under the duvet. I think I am going to have to let my bedtime routine slip for a few days until she is happy reading again.

Do you think it might be worth checking to see if she is hyper mobile too??

Hi blueberryboybait:

Sorry to hear of your troubles and interesting that your DD has hypermobility but isn't showing good coordination/ flexibility with writing/ drawing.

DD1 wasn't into drawing at first and we then twigged it was the content - she was endlessly getting princessy girly colouring books. We went down the line of geometric colouring books (just type geometric colouring books in on amazon) and natural scenery colouring books and invested in some crayola twistables colouring pencils and have never looked back.

Other ideas:

pick up sticks

balancing games like jenga or barrel full of monkeys - which require fine movement and control of pressure

eating with chopsticks

sewing kits (simple cross-stitch kits often are on sale at supermarkets/ lots of children sewing kits - puppets, slippers, etc...)

have her cut up magazines and make a collage picture. Really nice idea of cards - have her cut out letters and make an intricate design.

finger painting

watercolour by number painting or just watercolour painting

All of these will work on eye hand coordination and believe it or not the best thing is ye olde Nintendo DS/ Wii or Xbox video games/ PC video games - which require a lot of button typing/ coordinated actions.

Like all these things - its time and patience. But if it is any consolation DD1 didn't really get to grips with writing until late Y2 (also a lefty with a very odd grip initially).

HTH

Other ideas for better manual dexterity:
playdough with any number of things added to it, cooking things, plastic animals etc,
playing in a big bowl with cornflour gloop ( cornflour and water mixed together) with spoons and containers of various sizes,
exectutive squeezy toys,
making bread with you,
games like Operation (there is a junior version),
small ( within reason; ie how likely is she to put them in her mouth!!) beads and threading,
junk modelling,
finger pasinting without expectation of a 'picture'

Other ways to give stressless oportunities to write/draw are to use whiteboards and blackboards, bath crayons, steamy windows or mirrors all of which take the pressure off producing an acceptable "product" and onto enjoying the process as they are erased straight away. In addition using paint brushes loaded with water to paint on external walls or hard ground during dry warm weather is great fun, and doing things BIG usually comes before doing them small so if you can get hold of big paper for her drawing (including using chalk or fat markers on old newspapers) that is great. Don't be worried if she produces lots of scribble that is all part and parcel of starting off

Thanks again everyone.

if she won't read to anyone, how can they know if she is ready to progress?i suspect the 'all moving together' is a fob off.

I had a meeting with the teacher this morning and they have 'taken on board' everything we have said and will start implementing changes. At the end I asked if DD could come in and see if she would read, she did and ran through the reception keywords list, so no real pressure to perform, she read them all with very few requiring sounding out. Someone will read with her this afternoon and find her a suitable reading book! I am please with that but will wait and see on all the other points I raised.

socharlotte, the fob off thing makes perfect sense. If someone said that to me I'd think they really had lost the plot.

I am stunned it took a parent raising this for them to start implementing changes and "taking everything on board". When would alarm bells have rung if you hadn't?