Worried about DD Year 1 'Below Expectations'

[Falcon1]

Just had a call from my DD's teacher. She is, as was flagged at the last parents' evening, below expectations on her end of year report for reading and writing. She's on 'meets expectations' for maths.

She didn't do brilliantly in reception either and lockdown has made things much worse. She hates reading with a passion and it is a real fight to get her to do it every night. She's on green reading band now which I thought was ok, but apparently not. Her writing has improved - it's quite neat now, but she can't spell. At all.

She is getting extra support at school and sees a tutor once a week, but I asked how she would cope with the hike in year 2 and her teacher just said she didn't know.

I'd like to help her more at home, but honestly, it causes such massive melt downs when I suggest anything even vaguely educational. (She really struggles to manage her emotions and is generally very challenging).

Feeling really stressed. Will she ever catch up? Do I need to just chill about it and hope it resolves itself as she matures? Does it sound like she may have a neurodiversity? (I've asked her teachers and they just say it's too early to tell). Just don't know how best to help her. Her self esteem is very low.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Have you had her eyes tested?

Yes, her eyes are fine

Could you have her assessed for dyslexia? DS1 was diagnosed aged 61/2 and DS2 was 8. We were looking out for signs as there is a lot of dyslexia in DH's family.

A lot of schools seem to say 'it's too early to say', which is a shame as early intervention makes a huge difference.

Does she like being read to?

Is it possible she's dyslexic? Can you make reading a bit more fun to encourage her, ie taking it in turns to read a page each - use lots of funny voices if she likes that sort of thing, can you read to her books that are at her level while she follows along just anything to get her looking at words and hearing them.

I wouldn't worry too much as like you say lockdown has happened. There is plenty of time for her to find her groove and her way of learning. The school obviously need to assess her but i wouldn't, at this age start to panic. How does she like to learn. You say she doesn't like it if she see it coming, so to speak so can you do it differently. If its fun and not obvious is how most kids prefer at this age. Aisle numbers in the supermarket, prices numbers (not the actual price yet, how many of xx can you see, write a little shopping list before you go, give her a clipboard and pen to read them and cross them off as you go. Just find out from the teacher what she needs help with and find fun ways to do it.

Assuming there's no physical reason (like dyslexia), then there's plenty of stuff you can do to help develop those skills at home that don't need to be like 'work' at all. Have a look at playhooray and five minute mum on fb/instagram. Five minute mum has a book out at the moment about the early years learning and I think she's great at taking the early years goals and making them into fun games.

She's year 1!!!

Mine made up from a not met in maths yr 1 to met in yr 2.
But we did do a lot at home.
It may just take time and practice at home. Maybe 30 min a day reading. Alternating pages. Or lines with you.
I dont think green is awful but our school aims for turquoise y1.
Things like reading chest are good as you have extra books which means too you progress during holidays.
For eg
We get 2 books only per week.
With reading chest (or a library etc) 3 extra a week.
Over a year
2x35 = 70
3x52 =156 extra books...
By band 6-8 say they can read more real bokks.

I agree with Purplemustang good idea about shopping list and supermarket shopping. Getting her to read in different ways. I think we can get blinkered it’s all just stories to focus on.
Could you get your mum/dad/auntie/uncle to write her a simple letter? Or write one yourself to her and help her read it and write back. I did this when my girls were little and they were so excited just to get Mail.
Cooking and baking; do it together just a simple recipe cup cake recipe perhaps and she gets to eat.
Does she like art? Get her to decorate those foam letters you can get and put them together or those letters you can glue tissue paper onto.

Year 1 Teacher here:
I think a lot of children will be in this position this year and I think all the lockdowns have had a particular impact on children currently in Year 1 as they have missed so much of their reception year.

Green isn't massively off the expected level which is orange/turquoise but they have to be reading with a degree of fluency and expression. They also still have another 5 weeks of Year 1.

Keep reading over the holidays- there's no reason why she can't continue to make progress in those 6 weeks. If it's a battle then take it in turns, set a timer and just read as much as you can in 5 or 10 minutes and then stop. Play 'fastest finger first' when spotting tricky words.

With regard to the writing: look up the common exception words for Year 1. These are the ones they are being assessed against and they need to read and spell them accurately.
Practice reading them- play bingo/put them on post it's around the house and have a scavenger hunt/ rainbow write them etc.

Writing proficiency generally follows reading proficiency so this should be your focus.

She'll be fine!

A tutor!

Crumbs. Is that piling on pressure?

Just concentrate on her being happy. The rest will follow.

AVoid pressure and battles.
It needs to be fun.
Nessy.com has some good apps and you can get an account. It is worth it though, I think. It can be more fun.

I thought green was really good for year one? Mines green! What about watching loads of alphablocks, alphablocks are amazing.

O and reading eggs! Its brilliant.

If she feels like she's failing at school (and she probably does) pushing her at home is going to make her feel like she's failing there too. I'd completely back off but make sure you are doing interesting and fun things that are also educational when you can, like listening to music and talking about it, telling each other stories or just flights of fancy, sending her off with her own shipping list in the supermarket (bit tricky in Covid), going to museums etc etc. Crucially, what does she like doing? I remember a nursery teacher of DD's talking about DD being 'successful' at something (in her case small world play) where I would have just said she liked it! But things we like are usually things we are successful at and therefore good for our self esteem. Get her interested in the world in a relaxed way. The rest may or may not follow but being interested in things is the first step to learning (and is positive for its own sake too). She's little and it's been a really boring and difficult time.

She’s 6, and has lived almost 1/5th of her life in lockdown! WTAF?

I'm just going to comment on the hating reading part. My dd (9) has always hated reading and this year we joined Audible and listened to stories instead of reading. After a couple of weeks she started asking for books and started reading in bed. It really got her into books and reading. It has honestly made all the difference.

Thank you for all your responses. To answer a few questions:

• Yes, she loves being read to. We have a story in bed every night, and then she has an audio book to go to sleep with. She is surrounded by books in the bedroom but shows very little interest in actually reading them.

-Good idea about writing her letter, but I tried that and it backfired massively. She had a meltdown, shouting 'I can't read!'

• I've tried reading eggs and teach your monster, but she has to be bribed to go on them. She just isn't interested.

• I have considered dyslexia. She frequently gets letters mixed up and words completely wrong. She really struggles with the concept of time (yesterday, tomorrow etc), doesn't know the days of the week or the months of the year. She also can't yet ride a bike (don't know if this is relevant).

• She has a tutor only because it is a special needs teacher who was helping her manage her emotions. She really struggled during lockdown. As they built up a good rapport, I asked her to stay on to focus on building her self esteem and helping with a bit of writing and reading.

-What does she like doing/what is she interested in? Honestly - TV. It's all she seems to enjoy. When it's on she completely zones out. It's impossible to get her attention. She does like (and is very good at) imaginative play however and I can sometimes get her to do this instead.

• Penhaligon - thank you for the reassurance and for the suggestions, that's really helpful. We did lots of that stuff during lockdown and it was successful. I just feel a bit depleted now, but I'll have to get back into it. It doesn't help that I'm working crazy hours at the moment.

• I like the idea of Reading Chest, but I'm just not sure it would encourage her to actually read them!

-I agree about concentrating on her being happy. But she isn't. She feels stupid and is very aware that she can't do the things her friends can. I worry that will only get worse as she goes up the school, if she can't catch up.

Just to add on the dyslexia front, school recommended not to go down the assessment route as they said it's too early and they wouldn't be doing anything different with her if she had a positive diagnosis anyway. Should I ignore that advice and pay for an assessment? I really don't know what is best.

As others have said, 'green' is not that far behind. I work in a large inner city school and green would be absolutely average for our intake, many of whom are still on pink and red.
Green would be nowhere near struggling in Y1 as it comes with a reading age of 5.5 - 6, which, unless an older child in the year, is pretty much age appopriate - my boy is not 6 until the end of July.
My boy has just moved to turquoise from orange and he lies in the top third (I know this because his teacher said he was one of her stronger readers and she gave me a breakdown of how many were reading at which level) in his school of mainly aspirational parents.
I have to say that reception was a HUGE battle as you describe, getting him to read. Contrary to mumsnet advise, I insisted he read everyday and just put my hard hat on. I subscribed to reading chest last summer after he scraped 'expected' for reading last year. We read every day over the summer and it clicked. He stopped battling because he knew it was one of my non negotiables. He's still not keen but will read for at least a few minutes everyday.

If she is still watching cbeebies I wouldn't worry about the TV as it's really good. Maybe she'd be interested in those TV related magazines? The BBC ones are good (esp octonauts) and the peppa pig ones were all right as far as I remember.

Do you have grandparents or other family who could actually write postcards to her to arrive through the post. Dyslexia is a big thing in my family and postcards were an enormous help. When your six nothing feels as special as getting your own mail, postcards are not long and the desire to read your own mail a message Granny had sent you (just you) can really be positive.
Comics are also good, different style it's still reading words, but more fun than a book. Reading and making recipes together.

With my DD we also used reading chest she much preferred their books to school ones and again they came through the post addressed to her.
Do you have pets? Reading to the pets rather than to you can be helpful - pets don't judge, even if we don't mean to sometimes Reading has become so pressurised that they need to read to someone who says nothing. My nephew learnt to read sitting in the dog bed reading to Granny's dog.

Ignore the school- terrible advice! Get a dyslexia assessment. Honestly I'd be looking at other assessments too- ask school for SENCO to refer for testing or go to Dr. Or contact CAHM or even better do all 3.