Need a bit of advice - year 1 dd age 6 really behind at school !!

[laughalot]

Went to parents evening the other night and came out crying I am actually really angry with myself for not asking the teacher more questions. My lovely little girl is 6 very confident does not stand for any rubbish slightly hyper at times and struggles to concentrate for long periods.

She is very behind at school virtually at reception level or where she should be when she left reception. She does struggle to read but is getting better because she cannot read this really affects her writing. The teachers advice was that she needs to concentrate more which I take his point on board however I expected him to tell me what plans he would put in place to help her. I know class sizes are big and she cannot have someone to help her all of the time but she does need some help.

We have been out and bought her a load of work books and we have got the flash cards out again I suppose I just want a bit of advice of how to help her and to know that it is possible for her to catch up.

Cook Pot Cook is ORT 3.

According to this guide she is within the range for less able readers in her year which goes from red to orange. The average would be green band.

You have all been a great help thank you. I spoke to her teacher today and he is going to see me after school tomorrow.

Read lots to her too. My daughter suddenly clicked when hearing me read, she realised that she didn't need to read so slowly! I'm amazed at how by simply telling her she can read faster that she does. Good luck with the meeting x

Hi Laughalot:

First off remember that in many countries children do not formally start school until the year they turn 7 and they end up doing as well or better than British children. So start off by remembering this is a marathon not a race.

Sounding out/ blending help: try getting in some jolly phonics workbooks - but then really reinforce those sounds your DD is working with in your reading. (i.e. if she's learning sh- sounds - then make a point of having her sound out all sh words (maybe with a bit of help from you) in whatever you're reading.

Reading: Make sure this is a regular feature of your day. We do this after bath and before bed time. You may be doing the bulk of the reading right now - but you can include your DD by identifying words she should know (high frequency words: www.saintambrosebarlow.wigan.sch.uk/Infant_spellings/infantspelling.htm & select H/F words list 1 and 2). Start regularly pointing to them and have your DD read those. Gradually you'll move from your DC reading one or two words per sentence to reading whole words.

If you haven't come across it - OXFORD OWL has a lot of advice and useful on-line e-books for free: www.oxfordowl.co.uk/Reading/

MATHS: This is really up to you and what you're comfortable with. It may be that you have strong skills and can support this yourself. Oxford owl also has a maths section for early years, which may help. One thing I picked up on with my own DD1 (who also was very behind in KS1) is that she learned maths better through visual examples. So lots of raisins, smarties, buttons, etc.... and drawings to support explanation in workbooks. Ultimately we opted for an on-line tutorial which focuses on basic calculation skills (mathsfactor: www.themathsfactor.com/) but others here on Mumsnet have sung the praises of mathletics (www.mathletics.co.uk/) and mathswhizz (www.whizz.com/)

For Year 1 - the real aim is addition/ subtraction with numbers up to 20 and counting by 2, 5 and 10 (early multiplication tables). The real hurdle for us was numbers over 10 - but this can be shown visually by working from the start with units and tens and making sure your DD can visualise the difference between them: so for example in the number 24 the 2 = 2 tens and the 4 = 4 units. The best way of explaning this is using two different but related items. We used grapes (for tens because they were nice and big) and raisins for units. So 24 = 2 grapes and 4 units. To then take away 10 from 24 would be the equivalent of taking 1 grape away. You can also teach borrowing by cashing in a grape for 10 raisins.

Games like snakes and ladders can also really help with counting on (playing forward) and counting back (playing backward from 100 to 0). To increase numbers you're counting - use two dice.

I've been there - but if you take a deep breath, accept this is going to be a long, slow haul and just keep plugging away at it when you can (30 minutes or so a day max including reading time and ideally not in one solid go) - you will find that you do make substantial progress.

HTH

Thank you everyone did not manage to see the teacher yesterday as I have the dreaded tummy bug. I did ring school and he is going to see me next week they did send home with her her 200 keywords that she should know by the end of ks1 so that is a start.

You have all been fantastic thank you.

if your child is in state school I think this is a nice resource to show what's expected at KS1 and let you know where she may have gaps.

If you want to help her with her reading I would say go for a mixture of high frequency words (the ones you will have been sent home) and phonics. As she is Year 1 she will have the Phonics Screening to do as well in June which is a pretty good indication of her decoding ability - not necessarily her reading ability! You say she can sound out words like can but does she know any digraphs/trigraphs - 2/3 letter sounds. In Phase 3 of Letters and Sounds these begin with double letters like ff, ck and ll but then move onto sh, ch and th. After that it moves on to vowel digraphs such as ai, ee, igh oa and oo. This is Reception level (Phase 3 ) so your dd should have at least done them once, even if she hasn't picked them up yet. Once children know these, it makes reading a bit easier, although they often need to have thempointed out in words for a while. Phase 4 concentrates on ccvc or cvcc words (consonant and vowel) such as crab or lamp - these are a bit harder to blend than 3 letter words. Phase 5 is where children should be in Year 1 but many schools work at a slower pace. This introudces more ways of making the vowel phonemes such as ay, ea, ie, oe, ue etc and therefore gives children more options. I would look at the first 100 high frequency words and see how many she can read. Make/use some flashcards for the first 5 she doesn't know. Practise reading and writing them as often as possible.
As others have said, sharing books with you is also so important. If she sees/hears adults reading it will help her value reading and want to do it more.
Good luck and I hope you feel better soon.

Hi, I have a quick read, I haven't seen anyone mention this website

www.prometheantrust.org/soundfoundationsbooks.htm

These are books for parent to help at home. I have found out about the books here on mum net. These book really increase his Spelling Awareness.

MY DS1 in year 3 doing Apple and Pear A for spelling which is really help with the writing, the book state that you can start this at the age of 4+.