Sorry I have just realised this is a monster post but I really would appreciate any advice.
I look after a little girl four days a week (Mon-Thurs). Two days a week we are rushing round with after school activities and only have a few minutes for reading and homework, but the other two days I have her all afternoon. We are not in England. Until February I had her fewer hours and she did her homework with her father, now she does it with me. Because her homework is assigned Monday and due Friday most of her reading/spelling/homework falls to me.
She is six years old and in year 2. Her father is concerned about her reading and maths and so is her teacher. The school has a dedicated reading teacher for children who are struggling but intervention doesn't begin until 2nd term of year 3 so she doesn't see this special teacher (yet). There is no special maths teacher.
She can count to 10 and back to 0. She can sort of count to 100 but sometimes gets confused at the turnover from 9, e.g. she can count 20 to 29 but gets a bit confused about what comes after 29. She can do basic addition on her fingers, even when the answer is beyond 10 but this takes her a while. She doesn't know her number facts/number bonds. E.g. if you say "what is five plus two?" she has to count it every time using her fingers.
For reading she knows her alphabet and the sounds associated with each letter (although g and j confuse her a bit). But her reading and spelling is almost non-existent. For example her spelling list this week is:
in at it he was
I had a look at her older half-sister's old notebooks and at this age her spelling list were more like:
Easter because together amazing
So very, very different. Also her sister had fifteen words to learn each week but she only has five. Her sister lives in a different house during the week so I don't see her much or have any responsibility for her. There is a big age gap too.
Anyway, although the little girl I look after knows her alphabet this doesn't translate to her spelling. For example, she knows the letter "T" and the sound it makes. But if I say "how do you spell it ?" and then enunciate it again to make an "ih-tih" noise she will be confused and say "i a" or something else inaccurate. Then I will say "what sound does it end with -tih-tih-tih" and sometimes she will click and go "T!" and get excited but other times she will stare blankly or guess random letters. This is for the same word - even if she spelled it correctly the day before or even the hour before. Another example is was - I will say "how do you spell was?" and she just said "t-h-e" (which was on her list last week). I said "was wuh-wuh-wuh" and then she got it but obviously she hadn't really got the connection - she knows her Ws and the sound it makes but she couldn't connect that was would start with a W without heavy prompting.
She brings home a new reading book every night. The first time she read to me I was amazed as she was reading so quickly and fluently but then I realised her eyes weren't looking at the right parts of the page and sometimes she would substitute synonyms that don't look anything like the word e.g. the page would say jump and she would say leap. So I realised she had memorised the words. Her teacher sits down and reads the book every afternoon and then she reads it back to the teacher before it comes home. So I am pretty sure she had memorised these books from just one read through before they come home. When I ask her to read from her picture books at home she can't read anything at all. She likes to be read to and can usually point out her spelling words from that week on a page if I ask her to. But she gets a little upset if pushed to try and read a book she hasn't had read to her before.
I play a lot of alphabet games and counting board games with her but to be honest she is at the point where she knows her alphabet and numbers - it is the next step of using them that is the challenge.
She is a very cheerful and active little girl with a good nature. She makes friends easily. She is very imaginative. She comes from a bright family. Her father is certainly clever and I understand her mother was a bright woman. Her half-sister is doing well in secondary school. No history of learning difficulties in the family.
Part of me thinks she is only six and it will come in time. But another part of me thinks there is a real problem and early intervention is key. Before Christmas she was pretty oblivious to how she compared to her classmates but she knows that she is behind now. Everyone else has moved up to the next band of reading books (or are several bands higher) but she has not really progressed. No one in her class is unkind or pointing out that she is behind them but it is becoming obvious with colour coded book schemes and different maths worksheets and not knowing the answer when the class is asked a question.
Yesterday she said "Aunty Atlas, everyone at school is better than me." 
This was the first time she had expressed to me that she felt this way but her father said she has been saying this sort of thing to him for a month now.
I want to boost her confidence and help her improve her reading, spelling and number facts but I have no teaching background.
Anyway, my main questions are:
- how do I encourage her reading, spelling, and number facts
- have you known a child like this? Were they diagnosed with anything? What strategies worked?