Please help - school report

[Reginaldperrin]

Son year 3, we’ve just had his school report and I wanted to get some opinions.

He’s working at greater depth for things like history, science, re etc. also greater depth for reading and comprehension. He’s meeting expected for most maths subjects (fractions is greater depth).

So far so good. However, his spelling and grammar is working towards. Writing and composition is meeting expectations.

Has anyone had similar, where spelling and grammar are very much a work in progress, but then they’ve significantly improved?? At this point if he hasn’t got it, is he never going to? He’s not dyslexic btw.

I think you’re being unduly negative. That’s an excellent report. Make a huge fuss of him and ask the school how you can support him at home with his spelling and grammar. It might be as simple as reading more. .

Thank you. It feels like everyone else’s kid gets greater depth for everything.

Some kids can spell some can't. Be proud he's achieving.
I was like your son, still can't spell. I love spell check

It feels like they are but they're not all getting greater depth! It's a good report- great in fact. Very normal- very year 3 and very typical of boys. Something to keep an eye on, maybe email in October and say to new teacher it's something you're hoping will improve but if she's worried, to please let you know. I wonder how his write up of science investigations are or history related writing? Please don't worry- he's doing great and so are you

I would be delighted that spelling and writing aren’t impacting his love of other subjects.

Definitely ask his teacher if there is something specific to work on, and in the meantime I would get hold of the statutory spellings for LKS2 (teacher should be able to do that, or google) and have a go at them.

How was his phonics? I know Y1 seems a long time ago, but the spellings for LKS2 are a natural progression of phase 6 phonics, looking at alternative spellings etc. Strong phonic knowledge is so important - once he can spot patterns, it will become easier to spell consistently. Until then, lots of exposure and games.

When you say writing and composition, do you mean the physical process (ie handwriting), or imagination? If the latter, something like story cubes could be a fun activity for the long holiday. If the former, watch him carefully as he forms his letters - his cohort missed a lot of crucial input/close teacher observation due to covid, and he may have formed bad habits which are making it harder to write legibly/at speed. Ask the teacher for a copy of their handwriting policy and work on it in the holidays.

BUT for a child achieving greater depth in other subjects, this is something I would absolutely expect the teachers to be picking up on and dealing with next year. I wouldn’t worry too much.

Sounds good to me .... none of us can be good at everything. The teacher will be mindful of the fact that appropriate input will be needed for his weaker subjects ... I would leave the teacher to do his/her job and big up your son for all his efforts.

His phonics was pretty bad. He definitely didn’t have a natural grasp of it in the same way that his sister does, and he now latches on to “rules” rather than instinctively seeing patterns. So for example he might write feet as “feat”, or show as “shoe”

Encourage his reading and he will naturally learn the difference. I know I have a spelling incorrect when I re read what I have wrote, however can I spell the word No 😂
Do I deliberately avoid particular words Yes
It sounds like you have a good kid encourage him, and practice spelling.

He should still have been having phonics support in Y3 if he needed it. I would focus on phonics over the holidays if you want to do anything - phase 5/6 should be a good starting point.

Having said that, phonics doesn’t work for all children and it may be that working on sight recognition for the statutory spellings is more useful for him.

With that in mind, if you want to work with him over the holiday (and I really feel that the school should be doing this, not you), I would maybe go back to all the high frequency and common exception words from Y1 onwards. Again ask for a list, or google. Hopefully this will help him.

Has he had recent eye and hearing tests? Never hurts to get them done.

Sounds like my DS. In fact that's almost identical to his year 3 report.

DS's spelling was awful until year 7 and then suddenly it just 'clicked'. Now, apart from an occasional apostrophe, he's accurate.

His handwriting still looks like the tracks of a drunken spider but as long as the examiners can read it (which they seem to), that's all you need to worry about. 🙂

I’ll print of the statutory lists. Does anyone have ideas about the best way to encourage these things to go in? Is there a method that could encourage learning particular word patterns, or is it just a question of repetition and drumming it in?

I’ll do some work with him over the summer but obviously don’t want it to become a total chore for him.

What makes you so sure there isn't some form of learning difference, dyslexia or other, going on?
For my son, the differences between his strengths and weaknesses was one of the warning signs.
FWIW, he is still thriving, and making exceptional progress in science and maths. His English, history and language teachers all say he is great verbally, but his written work is appalling. He(and I) still can't spell, or do phonics.

How would you know? I'm so pleased we had a sensible year group who never talked about reading levels / reports / tutors etc.

It sounds like a very detailed report, way more and above what mine got and it sounds very good.

Have a look at five minute mum, she has lots of games for spelling, writing etc to make it seem a bit more fun and less hard work.

@Reginaldperrin This is a really good approach to spelling, available on subscription to use at home too.

It gives children an understanding of words, rather than learnt lists. https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb/

@CatsOnTheChair thank you. We don’t know for sure in terms of official report. But we had a specialist dyslexic teacher help him last year because we were concerned and she said she was pretty sure he wasn’t. Senco at school also took a look. But obviously anything is possible.

@CatsOnTheChair And I’m glad your son is doing so well!

My son failed the phonics checks in year 1 and 2. He couldn't spell. He isn't dyslexic. However now in year 8 he is doing extremely well in written subjects. He has a physical disability and the brain has used the pathways next to phonics for other things. So it all gets a bit crossed wires. He sight reads and learnt to spell that watt, like I did by reading a lot. Phonics was and is a disaster for him. To the extent the Ed pysch (needed for the physical disability) said he wouldn't learn languages either. His French teacher laughs when we tell her that. It just took time and a computer for spelling to catch up. We all learn differently foster the live of learning in the subjects your son likes, encourage him to read in those subjects and see if it makes a difference!

And as you will see I a highly educated professional also cannot spell when typing quickly

I was about to ask how sure you are that he's not dyslexic but @CatsOnTheChair beat me to it.

My DS is in year 4. He's working at greater depth in maths, reading and writing (they don't break it down further at his school in the report) but his spelling and grammar are bottom 20%, as were his multiplication check results. He's dyslexic, compensating through his strengths - spelling is the hardest thing (along with memorizing and retrieving maths facts) and so it's where the cracks in his working memory and phonological processing show. But it's easy to miss in the classroom and he doesn't show up as high risk on basic screeners. The Senco said she'd eat her hat if he was dyslexic. Full dyslexia assessment drilled down into what was going on and unpacked the working memory and phonological processing issues that were hiding in plain sight. Like catsonthechair says, it was the discrepancies that made us suspicious - that and a strong family history of dyslexia.

Not saying the same thing is going on with your son but there might be "something" going on, a spikiness somewhere in his cognitive profile that accounts for the specific difficulties. A full assessment might be worth it, if only to set minds at rest and at the very least he'd understand more about himself and how he learns?

I'd work on spelling using multisensory approaches that are designed for dyslexic learners, they're helpful to everyone so a multisensory approach would do no harm if he isn't. We like Nessy and Wordshark, and we like Simultaneous Oral Spelling. Also being word detectives with roots and a bit of etymology. Your tutor can probably advise on good strategies for your son?

Thanks for the replies. He did pass his year 2 phonics test but I don’t know by what marks.

i just don’t know how best to help him improve. It feels like we constantly do small bits of work with him, and remind him to proof read. But I’m not sure if it’s making any difference. Tonight he wrote something with 3 different spellings for “fight”, one of which was correct.

Hiya,
It looks like he is using the correct phonics sounds but doesn't know which one to choose as there are so many that make the same sound (eg igh, ie, i_e would make fight, fiet and fite). This usually develops with lots of reading as children get to see the words written correctly and remember which one is used for particular words. You could ask for phase 3 (starting from the ai sound) and phase 5 reading books to work through in order from the school, they feature each if the phonics sounds as they are introduced.

That’s exactly it @Florad So tonight fight was spelt fight, fite and fite.

When to use ea or ee is another one.
as is ou / ow

And then sometimes it will be a case of just totally missing out entire syllables on words he doesn’t know how to spell. Like violence he might spell vilens.

Does he read much at the moment? It should be something that comes with time from seeing the correct spellings in books and then remembering them. It's really good that he has a strong understanding of phonics but he needs to remember that not all words can be spelled using phonics (eg violence). The current Year 3 and 4 children have been effected the most by covid when it comes to reading and writing as they would have missed chunks of phase 3 (sounds like ai, igh, ow) and 4 in reception and had to repeat parts in a different order in year 1 when doing phase 5 (which is your alternative sounds like ie, ou) so it's no wonder he is finding it tricky, he won't be alone with this.

Also the phase 1 skills that underpin it all like clapping syllables, stretching words out to hear the individual sounds in them etc are recapped continuously in reception and year 1 so if he's missed bits due to covid disruption there he might have forgotten those skills.
I would speak to his teacher about borrowing some books to read focusing on vowel diagraphs. If it's particular sounds they can select the books with these sounds in, every school has to use a book scheme now where the sounds run in order now so it will be easy for them to select the correct ones. There are also phonics games online for these phases that might help. It's really good that you're so keen to support him in catching up with his spelling though and it sounds like he's got the foundations there, remembering the phonics sounds is the trickier bit so he should get there with a bit more reading for the right words. X

You say he's not dyslexic - has he been formally assessed?

Does he have a secure sight vocabulary for exception words, to help him compensate for difficulties with phonics?

Has his hearing been assessed?

Has his vision been assessed, specifically for convergence insufficiency?