Year 2 - DS(7) still struggling with reading

[Cocodreams]

DS(7) flatly refused to try and read until halfway through Year 1, and we are now of course getting towards the end of Year 2. He tried hard and has made slow progress ever since. The school moved to phonics system Essential Letters & Sounds in January and I was told there are no book bands now until Turquoise level as a minimum and DS still hasn’t reached that. Under the previous phonics system he was on Oxford level Green in January.

Since February he has had 1-to-1 supported reading x3 per week, plus small group reading 1-2 times.

I knew a few weeks ago that he and a few other pupils had been sent to the Senco for assessment for their reading but I’ve just been told by his teacher today that she asked the Senco to assess him for any dyslexia traits. She is still waiting for her findings but is chasing this up.

Honestly, does this sound like dyslexia or maybe he’s just a bit slow to learn? He has really tried hard to read for the past year both at school and home, loves trying to write and say it’s his favourite thing to do at school (spelling can be interesting!). However he has only gone from Red to Green level in a year. He’s achieving average in maths.

We already knew that he won’t meet the KS1 standards for reading and phonics. No dyslexia in either side of the family.

[CrabbyCat]

He's had a very disrupted first 2 years. How much learning did her get over the two school closure periods?

How strictly do the school assess book bands - is it more his ability to read the words on the page or his ability to answer comprehension questions that's the difficulty?

[Cocodreams]

@CrabbyCat the school was great with online learning during the lockdowns, particularly the second one when he was in Year 1. However, for phonics and reading he would make almost no effort at all until April21 when he suddenly started trying hard.
Of course this still put him behind but after a year he has only progressed to Green book.

I’m not entirely sure how strictly they assess the book bands but from some conversations I think the emphasis is on his ability to recognise some diagraphs and common exception words etc, rather than an issue with the comprehension of a story.

He passed the phonics screening (33/40) but his teacher said he is still missing missing quite a few diagraphs which we work on at home.

His teacher said recently that while it is easy to presume that it Covid that has caused him to be so behind in reading, it could possibly have happened anyway. I think this is why he has been assessed by the Senco to see if she can see any obvious signs of dyslexia.

[kimfox]

He may be dyslexic - in which case it's better to know so that his learning can be supported appropriately. My DS1's Y2 teacher said she thought he might be dyslexic - I didn't get him assessed until he was 16 because I thought he was "fine". Dyslexia is a broad term for various specific difficulties.

[Nowisthesummerofourdiscontent]

Can you be more specific with the problems he’s facing? You mention you’re working on a few missing diagraphs. Is he struggling to build compound words? What sort of books does he like to read at home? What other types of reading does he do? What is his writing like?

[CrabbyCat]

How often do you read with him at home? I know you don't know bookbands anymore, but how much has he come on since January? Can he read picture books to himself?

If what he's struggling with towards the end of year 2 is the ability to read words in green level books, then to me that sounds more towards concerning than slow to read (as a parent of a year 2 DC, not anyone with any specialist knowledge). How does he manage in subjects like maths where a lot of it now is the ability to apply it to answer word based questions, does he need support to access them?