Help! Panicking that DS is falling behind in Reception

[TheRealMBJ]

Ok, DS is 5 (December born) and in Reception in Norn Iron. He is a bright, inquisitive if restless child who in preschool playgroup received a glowing preschool assessment. Particularly in mathematical concepts. He is not G&T but by all accounts from current and previous teaching and nursery staff bright and capable.

He is an extremely sociable child, friendly with everyone in his class and many other children in other year groups and enjoys being the 'class clown'.

He attends a lovely school with a very experienced teacher, but is in a bulge class (34 in his class - 4 of whom are preschoolers and leave at noon but still), with 2 TAs one of which has been on a leave of absence since the start of December) and I am worried, from what I'm reading on here, that he is falling behind national standards.

Currently he has excellent grasp of phonics, easily recognising all the phonemes but he is very reluctant to blend and actually start reading. He does not respond well to me or DH 'encouraging' him to try read a word while being read to. Which we do daily at multiple times and have done since birth. Asking him to do anything that could possibly be seen as 'performing' results in resistance and him ceasing engagement. This is a feature of his personality since birth. He gets no reading books home.

Additionally to the above,he has been able to write his own name since he was just under 4 yo and showed great interest in writing numbers and words initially, now has developed a mirror 'a' (amongst others) and refuses to attempt writing anything else at home.

He will not colour any of his homework, and although proud to complete his home activities when he has done them, it is a real struggle to get him to do them, one for which I (and he) have little energy in the week so we end up doing it all on a Sunday, which is too much in one go tbh.

I am trying to arrange a meeting with his teacher (she is off sick at the moment) to discuss but would really welcome any insight from teachers on here as to what are realistic expectations, what I should be asking and how I can support him at home in a not non confrontational manner.

Are you for real? Your child is five years old. As a primary school teacher, I'd say you need to relax. Back off the poor child with your academic ambitions. Read him lovely books and no pressure. If he is happy to read a bit to you, great. If not, see if he tries a bit with signs, labels, menus etc when you are out. Don't pressure him and make reading a chore. Meet with the teacher, but if he says your DS is doing okay, and you have no concrete reason to believe there is a specific SEN at play, then just let him be 5. Reading is not a race.

Relax, back off and let him enjoy being 5.
Your are seriously over thinking this.

Jesus! I'm feeling under pressure from your post! My December born five year old does not know all his letters and is just writing his name. But he's learning about making friends, socialising and how to play and learn the rules of school.
Relaaaaaaaax! He's only five!
So much pressure on the little ones these days.

I agree with previous posters. He is one term into school. Don't worry. They go at such different rates in the first few years in particular.

Thank for dismissing my concerns so out of hand. I recognise that they may be unfounded. I do not force him to do anything (God, living with this child for 5 years has taught me well enough NEVER to attempt trying to make him do something he doesn't want to) and never make reading a chore.

I had not been concerned about this until recently when, I happened to pop my head back onto MN to research a tangentially related topic. Just seemed to me on other threads on here that Reception aged children where seemingly reading a lot more confidently on average.

Seems to me that parents can't win. We are either not bothered at all, and therefore lazy and negligent, or pushy with unrealistic expectations.

And if you had actually bothered to read my OP you would have seen that I expressly asked for what should be realistic (not MN thread driven) expectations.

See this thread as a case in point. It was reading that,that initially started my worrying.

You sound very concerned, so talking to the teacher should definitely help you feel less worried.

Nothing in what you mentioned sounds like "failing Reception" to me. YR is a very gentle year, with the main focus being on getting used to school environment. His reluctance to perform for you is not unusual.

Dd1 in Reception did not want to read school books at home for a very long time. We didn't push and eventually it got better.

It I were you, I'd check with the teacher that he does participate in the class activities and responds to his teachers. Just to make sure that he is not behaving in the same way as he does at home. If they have no concerns, I'd just give him time to go at his own speed.

Really Maki?

I find that very hard to believe, in fact I don't think it is actually statistically possible as MN is too large a cohort.

I know exactly where you are coming from, don't think you sound overbearing or whatever. It's such a big change in reception year and any changes in the way dc are developing is something that gets notice and worried about of course.

I'd ask the teacher their advice and also what he's doing at school as it's probably completely different from home (mine does this lots!). I'd also back right off any homework/ learning at the moment, don't make it a topic of conversation or dwell on it, give him a rest from it.

And carry on doing other fun things where he learns 'by accident' as part of having fun, to keep up that joy in learning that's so important.

I know to others not going through reception year all these details sound silly but my ds is in year R now and it's hard for him and me to get our bearings in this new world of school. But we'll all be ok in the end I'm sure

Lake Woebegon effect on MN I think....

It's clearly a touchy subject

I just wanted to know whether or not I should be REALLY worried or not, tbh.

There are other concerns also, DS used to plover school, and now is reluctant to go every morning, he mentions a particular child every day, not favourably, and while i am sure that the teacher does her best, it is not difficult to believe that certain behaviours may go unnoticed in such a large class.

I worry that my child who loved learning and was showing steady progress, has regressed and is no longer as enthusiastic, and then I coe on here and read threads that would seem to suggest that he is actually far further behind than I had thought, and I worry.

Hence asking for REALISTIC expectations in the OP

Thank you Footle, Miscellaneous and Didactylos

Ah Garrison Keiller. Kerry Shale reading the books at Book at Bedtime. Happy days.

Ahem.

OP do speak to school, express your concerns; I do think you'll find he's doing just fine. Learning by accident is a good ploy - write shopping lists, play at being a cafe customer, encourage mark making with noughts and crosses.

As I said, I strongly suspect you are worrying unnecessarily. Talk to his teacher, but this is very common (v young children being put off learning for a time) due to children being sent for formal lessons far too young. He may be rebelling a bit against the combined pressure of school and home. If after a talk with his teacher and some reflection on your part you feel this may be the case, then back right off the homework and the 'What does this say, DS?'. Just keep reading to him. And talking to him. And having him explain things to you. And investigate the world with him. You will foster an intellectually curious child with solid verbal reasoning skills, and trust me that is a massive accomplishment. Leave the blending at school for the moment and only model it for him as you read to him sometimes. As to the troublesome classmate, this will be a continuing problem all through school. again talk with the teacher, but ds will need to develop coping strategies as he goes along. Which he will. But he is only 5, and it's not easy dealing with others bothering you, even as an adult.

I haven't read any responses but will in a moment.

Why are you pushing his writing at home? He will learn letter formation at school and it's unessesarily pressurised.

Read to him lots! Get him interested in stories and language. He will store up all these little stories with different scenarios will eventually spill out in to the page in juniors.

Make it fun, be silly. When sounding out at home be very daft, make it into a game. Bribe him with smarties for every completed word list.

Homework wise (maths, colouring) follow him. If he wants to do it then great, otherwise don't bother. The last thing you want to do is turn him off learning.

I don't think you are being overbearing, mainly as the description of your son fits my 4yo DS to a tee. It is a very big class too. I am lurking for answers rather than offering any, I'm sorry. I do worry slightly about my DS as he is so bright and curious but any time he is asked a question he refuses to answer, and I worry e will slip into not engaging at all.

In fairness to the op, I think her main concern is lack of progress. From where he started out to where he is now.

You often get people on threads, particularly on private/state school discussions saying - you don't need to pay just do work at home with your child. Also in lots is schools children don't read in class it has to be done at home

The poor op doesn't come across overly pushy IMO, but her son doesn't seem to have moved forward much and 34 is a massive class.

Op if you're worried I would be straight in speaking to the teacher. There's non point waiting until the end of the year and the kicking yourself.

I think unfortunately in big classes the top amd bottom get lots of attention and the middle well behaved children not so much. Your son may be sitting there so a nudge to the teacher certainly won't do any harm.

I volunteer in DS's reception class and I would say that only a third of the children have a reading book sent home so far. There is a huge spread of what the children know and can do, and recognising all the phonemes etc is a great start. Please try not to worry. He sounds like he's doing fine and you're clearly interested in his learning which, according the headteacher at my children's school, is more than half the battle.

You've hit the nail on the head Imperial. You constantly hear that parents have a part to play, that we should be engaged in our children's learning and that if you are concerned to act on it straight away.

I wouldn't panic.

My DD (5.5 in Y1) is in an Outstanding school that gets phenomenal academic results despite a very challenging intake. We get one book home a week and she reads to a teacher once a week if that. Obviously they do something right to get the results they do so I'm not panicking that her cousin gets a book every day and reads with the teacher 3x a week.

At the beginning of Reception she knew a few letters, could count to 20 but couldn't recognise them written down. She utterly refused to read until the summer term, and finished YR on L2 books.

I was worried as she's always been described as a very bright child and we'd expected her to be an early reader the way we were, but she had no interest in them - or in doing any homework. She sounds similar to your DS in terms of resistance and is stubborn as a mule.

I spoke to the teachers and they told me that she was a happy, bright child who needed to develop at her own speed - and that was nothing to do with intelligence or ability - and that as long as she was making progress, however small, that was the right direction.

Last term in Y1 was a disaster - utter refusal to do any homework or much reading. I have actually cried when I've had to hand in DDs reading record or homework book with nothing written in either. We are expected to read with them every night and record the book, pages read and comments on how they found it. They also had a book that they needed to draw a picture about what they had read and write a sentence about it. To date, there is not a single thing in the blue book.

I felt like the worst parent in the world and that the school would think I was dysfunctional and didn't try to do anything with her. In fact they were very supportive and told me to ask her nicely to either do homework or read each evening and if she said no then to just leave it. They also had a kind word with her about doing homework and reading with mummy. Ultimately we managed to get her onto a L4 by the end of term with a lot of difficulty.

I even put up a thread about my struggles on here at the beginning of January. This term we have turned a corner, she seems to have come to terms with not being a baby anymore and accepted that she can't go back to nursery or reception and play all day. She has started reading voluntarily for the last 3 weeks. The school had her assessed by a specialist on Tuesday and she's now on L8/9 and expected to be a free reader and on chapter books by the end of term. We are in shock.

I was so depressed about it all that I steered clear of any threads here about reading levels. Most people that post on them will have children who are doing really well and are ahead of the curve. Few parents post to say that actually their child is way behind or just average. Hence it appears that most children on MN are super-bright which doesn't fit the real world.

I actually don't know what the levels mean in terms of NC or age or what they should be on or anything as I've avoided looking so I didn't get even more frustrated and worried! I'm just relieved that she's reading and going onto more difficult books.

I would relax about it all for the whole of Reception. Let him learn at his own pace. Find books he finds interesting at home and just try your best with the phonics one. Having been anti-phonics I can now see just how great they are for teaching reading and am a complete convert.

He will 'get it' but in his own time. The UK wants children to be doing the 3Rs years before many other countries so don't worry that he's behind.

Oh, and having loved Reception and bounced in everyday, DD tells me daily that she hates school and doesn't want to go. Given that I have to drag her out of the playground at the end of the day I'm ignoring it completely - she just doesn't like mornings any more than I do!

If he's going in miserable and then coming out miserable then that is different.

Is this P1 (am in Norn Iron). Frankly the teachers in P1 are largely training them to sit still in a circle, take turns and develop the foundations they need before the work of P2. Sitting still for 5 year olds is quite a skill.

Yes Gerbils P1, we are probably going to be moving back to England at the end of this school year though.

Thank you elf, I just want him to achieve to his ability and not be overlooked and stagnant because he is in a big class, with quite a few children with challenging behaviours, an coasting by 'ok' IYKWIM?

I will chat to teacher when she is back.