How to help DD catch up a little over the holidays

[Ohidontbloodyknow]

I have a 7 year old DD and recently went to a Workshare morning at her school. I know comparison is the thief of joy- but I was really shocked about how much she is lagging behind her classmates. There were displays of beautifully handwritten stories by other children on the walls, my DD had a scribble on a piece of paper pinned up, it was completely illegible. She also seems to have minor struggles with numeracy and spelling.
The school are aware of struggles to keep up but seem fairly hopeless at helping- it is a class of 30 with one teacher and one TA, and I feel DD gets overlooked a bit. Unfortunately, changing schools is not an option due to remote location.
Anyway- to cut a long story short- I have come away from the school with a mission to help her catch up as much as possible over the holidays... However I don't know where to begin and am flailing a little.
To anybody that has tutored their own children at home- how did you do it? I mean practically. I fell well placed to offer the support but do you need to have a prescriptive schedule with a certain amount of time allocated to an area each day? do you allocate a certain amount of time per week? or do you just casually thread learning into every day activities?
You can probably tell I'm panicking a little but I really do feel that this is a prime opportunity to offer her some gentle learning time at home so that she is ready for the next academic year. I wake up in a bit of a cold sweat thinking about getting to the beginning of September and her having fallen further behind, but I just don't know how to go about helping.
Just to reassure- I also fully intend to make the holidays a time for fun, friends and being a child, but with just an hour or so of hard work each day to make September less painful for her. Any advice hugely welcome. Thanks

Could you post a picture of her work? (Or PM). How is her reading?

I've always done extra work with my dc in the holidays. We do it in the morning after breakfast so it's over and done with.
At that age it was a combination of workbooks for maths, handwriting and timestables. We also did lots of reading, drawing and painting.

Some people will be horrified at this but my dc also had a lot of fun.

The CGP one page per day books are brilliant for maths and English. For handwriting try this:
Handwriting Activity Book for Ages 6-7 (Year 2) (CGP KS1 Activity Books and Cards) https://amzn.eu/d/1GCfmeF

KS1 Handwriting Year 2 Daily Practice Book: Autumn Term (CGP Year 2 Daily Workbooks) https://amzn.eu/d/cgsw38r

This is the series I'm talking about. The daily practise books they have. She can continue using them into the new term if you get into the routine over summer. It's very doable but little and often makes a huge difference at that age.
I'd get the handwriting, maths and english.

We use these books for our kids during term time. They have maths and handwriting. I started when the youngest was still at nursery, and the eldest was left at home while they were being dropped off while I was working from home. They both like them so we’ve carried on.

We do the Collins bumper work books in the holidays. Mine get into trouble if left to their own devices too much!

IMO reading with her is the most important thing you can do at this age. Reading to her and hearing her read - both are good. Does your local library have a challenge for primary age kids? Also maths that is part of life (adding up the cost of items in the shop, talking about halves and quarters when dividing a pizza etc etc).

What's her reading like?

Agree with others that eg an 30 mins to max 1 hour after breakfast is good. Something that is a routine. I actually am not convinced by “just read and do maths as part of everyday life”. We have found that a concentrated burst of focused adult help can really make a difference for a child who risks falling behind.

I would work out what your real priorities are: does reading need help? If so you should start there! If not, is maths? If so, then age appropriate worksheet/quiz plus follow up on areas of struggle could be good. Then if those ok, handwriting might be next - good suggestions above.

Make it positive and rewarding and lots of lovely adult attention. Don’t set the standard high - your goal is to reinforce and solidify basics not “push on to harder stuff”

When mine were younger, they used to keep a diary of the summer holidays. They had A4 size books and would stick and draw things. They started by telling me about them and I would write a sentence. I would say a capital letter to start, finger spaces between the words, a full stop to end. I would also sound out the words. When they didn’t know how to write their letters, I would often write in yellow and they would write over the top. I’d give them a green dot to show them where to start. As their writing got better, they did more and more by themselves!
The children are in their 20s now and they and I like looking back at them!

We used to do holiday diaries as a way of doing writing over the summer.
You can decide for any day / week whether you are focusing on legibility, spelling, or content. We did them first thing in the morning for the previous day, or just before evening meal.

One year with DD2 we went for a more structured approach of the Apples & Pears workbooks which definitely helped but we couldn't keep going when back in school.

For maths we sat down for a known period of time using physical objects to help.

We always kept up with reading, but reading doesn't help handwriting, nor did it have any discernable positive impact on DD2's spelling / punctuation, she later turned out to be dyslexic.

Thanks so much everybody, this is exactly what I was after- some really helpful, practical tried-and-tested tips. I'm really grateful.
I think an hour or so after breakfast is sounding like a great idea, when she's not too tired.
Her reading isn't brilliant- she can just about decipher most of the words in the blue book band but she still sounds out most words. It knocks her confidence because there are free readers in her class and I think she is comparatively near the bottom for going into Y3. I will also make this a focus but without taking the enjoyment out as I am nervous of this.
@Foxesandsquirrels I'm on Amazon as we speak- thanks for the suggestions!

@Numbersarefun this is such a lovely idea! Pinching this!

For handwriting, get her to play with play dough, bake, sew anything that makes her use the different muscles in her hands.

How much time do you have? If you have an hour I would do apples and pears and dancing bears instead. Sounds like she's a fair bit behind and this is really good for kids with SEN or those that are behind. I'd avoid a whole hour of work. Better 30mins in morning and afternoon if you have that luxury.
https://www.soundfoundations.co.uk/learning-to-spell/

This too. Get therapy putty. She can work up the levels. Also work on core skills. Get her to lay on her back arms forward and legs raised, lift head and mouth towards belly button and sing happy birthday to your belly button 2x. Walking plank races under chairs etc. Make it fun. A lot of handwriting is core strength.

Twinkl is a great site for inspiration I've used it for many years getting my kids through primary years. Some of it free but worth signing up. Many schools use it too so have unlimited access You may be able to get your school setting to print off what they think would be beneficial.
Most of all I'd say just make it as fun and relaxed as possible, try and integrate as much into your normal day as possible.

@Foxesandsquirrels Thanks so much, all very helpful suggestions. Interesting what you say about core strength, I wonder if kids yoga would help as she really enjoys following the videos at home.

Make it fun, write labels for things in your house and blutac them on, have her set up a cafe and write a menu, paint words instead of writing (if you don't like paint have her paint in water on the wall/fence/ground), bath crayons to write on the side of the bath. I agree reading is critical and our local library does a reading challenge where there's a prize at the end for all those taking park. Read road signs, directions, information boards together. Play doh is great for developing fine motor skills and strengthening finger muscles. Write postcards to family if you have a day trip out. Use chalk, crayons, pens, pencils, charcoal etc to keep things interesting. It doesn't have to be all workbooks.

We’re in the same position @Ohidontbloodyknow Ds is nearly 7 and needs extra help. Maths is only a bit behind but handwriting, finger spaces etc he’s behind. We’re going down the dyslexia route at school but that will be September. I do an hour every evening, when we have clubs it gets reduced a bit. I do things throughout the holidays, we can’t leave it as he’ll forget things by the time he gets back to school. I focus on things he might be struggling with at school which helps him a lot. A big one for us is reading and retention, reading a paragraph and answering questions on it. You could start with a book you know she can read and work up the difficulty. We’re also looking at a tutor for him to see if that will help at all. The books above look a great idea though, we’ve only used the really young ones before, for some reason I didn’t think you’d get the for older ones! I’m on Amazon as we speak.

I think, for a minimum of 4 mornings a week, I would do handwriting daily, as well as her reading aloud to you.
Then 2 days I would do a grammar workbook, and potentially a maths game like maths seeds or timetables rockstara. Then 2 days a maths workbook, and potentially an app like literacy planet.

Look at homemade Montessori activities on pinterest as that is very hands on learning. I like the Kumon activity books. Reading will help with writing content. Making photo books. Turn the subtitles on when watching films. Try asking on the SEN page for app recommendations if shes not picking up stuff the conventional way there are specialist apps and programmes for reading which are very visual or which have prompts for writing. There is loads of free content on pinterest eg speech therapy and teacher pages. The school should be signed up to reading and maths apps and able to give you the log in to do some practice at home.

Just some ideas:

Ask the school to print off handwriting sheets they use and do one of those every day - 5 minutes. First ensure all letters formed correctly, then work on joins, moving on to words with a real push on correct sizing, writing on the line and consistent spaces between words. If she’s struggling with formation and joins - sensory ideas like drawing them in sand, shaving foam is a nice idea.

10 minutes of reading every day. Ask school for a list of the graphemes she needs to know and ensure she can say and spell each one.

Look up year one and two common exception words and practise writing those - also days of the week and numbers. Again make it fun with chalks, paint.

So all that will take around 20-30 mins each morning. Maybe in the afternoon practical writing for 10 or so mins. Shopping list, instructions for a recipe you are about to make, write two sentences about your favourite story, print off a picture of a book character and think of some adjectives.

You need to find out from her teacher exactly what she needs help with.

I spent 30 mins a day max over the Easter holidays working with my DD on maths to boost her confidence and ability in maths as she was border line for greater depth. It made a massive difference. She went from getting up set at maths homework to wanting to be a mathematician and she is currently writing a book about maths.

This summer we will be making sure she is secure telling the time, work on time tables as the next statutory test will be times table test in year 4, make sure she can spell all the yr 1 and yr 2 high frequency words (on twinkl website) and lots of reading.

1:1 work is very intense so I would break it into chunks of 10-15 mins at a time. Try and sneak things in by saying you can watch TV at quarter past 5 when I make dinner.

@Franklin2000 It's tough seeing them struggle isn't it? But it's encouraging that your DS will do an hour with you after school, sounds like he is keen to put in the effort to catch up- which is something I'm a bit concerned about. Hoping I won't be met with too much resistance or may have to resort to bribes!

Would it be worth getting tested for dyslexia?
You can keep helping her but maybe look into whether there are structural reasons why she is struggling?

We have always done extra work at home. I think I got accused of child abuse once. Obviously reading. But 15–20 mins of English and Maths in the holidays is more than enough.

I highly recommend the Singapore Maths books btw. My sons’ school in the US uses. I think the books are published by Maths No Problem in the UK. They are really beautiful. Also I recommend looking at the Five Minute Mum website/book. She has lots of little games to play. I think I played all of them during lockdown and the little and often approach really helps.