For context, my grandson (I parent him) is in reception and is one of the youngest (late July birthday). I myself am a primary teacher in a different school so mostly know what is what when it comes to his education. He has always been ahead of the curve developmentally from being a tiny baby and all childcare providers he has had since being 4 months old plus a myriad of health visitors involved with him when he was on a child protection plan have evidenced this in documentation. said his first word at 8 months. combining words at 13 months and 4 and 5 word sentences by 20 months. During his preschool year he learnt all the letter sounds and was able read simple cvc words by about February time. I thought reception would be a peace of cake for him but how wrong I have been. He has always been self motivated in his learning, fascinated by animals and nature but not so keen on formal learning and unfortunately his teacher is very formal and very big on read, write inc. Anyway whilst his reading hasn't progressed as quickly as I thought it would and despite his relutance at home he started lockdown on yellow band and in the middle set for read write inc (seriously? setting 4 year olds?). During lockdown we started well but it became a daily battle to get him to read and he started regressing - forgetting even simple sounds, refusing to look at the print. I tried everything and then gave up as I felt we were getting into a negative cycle. He returned to school on Friday and tonight his teacher saw me at the gate (2m away of course) and said that he had regressed with his reading, not even recognising simple sounds and she has put him back a level. Now the thing is, I don't believe him. He is an incredibly strong willed child and I think he's deliberately pretending he can't do it to both me and his teacher. Has anybody had experience of this? What would be a way forward to preserve both his teacher and my sanity. I know he's still only 4 and I know in most countries he wouldn't be at school yet but I'm really concerned about where he is going with this and where it might end and I would like some strategies for turning things around?