Extra help with reading?

[elliejjtiny]

Ds3 is year 6, been a free reader since year 3. He's bright but very easily distracted which made home learning during lockdown a nightmare and I'm dreading secondary school with the extra homework.

Anyway, on Friday we got a letter in his bookbag saying that some children need extra help to reach their potential and ds has been selected to get extra help with his reading.

Ds has to be nagged to do certain things but he really loves reading. He's currently reading Harry potter and the half blood prince and he gives me enthusiastic updates every so often. He loves the horrible histories books and loves anything to do with history or art.

I'm happy for him to have extra support if he needs it but don't understand why he needs extra help with reading. Writing I would understand as he is quite slow, is left handed and has awful handwriting. Dh thinks it's a gifted and talented thing but it's clear from the letter that it isn't. I'm wondering if the teacher has sent the wrong letter by mistake and it should be the writing intervention group instead.

Him performing below his potential could simply mean that based on his KS1 SATs he was predicted to achieve at greater depth in year 6 SATs and is not currently on course for that despite being able to achieve it with intervention. Achieving your potential isn't benchmarked to the average but to what's expected for you as an individual. Schools progress scores are assessed on children achieving expected progress between KS1 and KS2 not on pass rates.

Have a chat with is teacher to clarify but I'd allow him to get whatever support they think will help him progress appropriately even if he enjoys reading at home.

It probably means that he is struggling with written comprehension tasks so isn't showing off how much he understands. Can he infer things? Can he use direct evidence from the text? Does he answer questions in depth? Etc.

How is he at reading aloud? It's great that he enjoys longer books such as Harry Potter, but when he reads out loud to you, does he read with accuracy (no missing/skimmed/assumed words), obeying the punctuation well and with good expression? Does he use phonics where necessary to say new words, rather than guessing?

It's easy to lose the habit of getting them to read out loud, once they are free readers, but it's so important, to make sure that bad habits don't creep in.

It could be any/combination of accuracy, expression, comprehension or inference that need a bit of extra support.

Thankyou. He's fine with reading aloud. He does struggle with written comprehension tasks at school though so maybe that's it. He struggles to get motivated when it's a subject/book he isn't interested in. When we did home learning last year getting him to write about the wind in the willows was like pulling hens teeth but doing his half term homework about world war 2 he loved the subject so it was so much easier for both of us.