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.

It sounds like he might do better if there was less pressure on him it is not a competition, maybe he is trying his best?

Although looking at his three attempts at 'fight', seems that his phonic skills are good (they're all phonetically plausible) which suggests that he needs to develop his sight vocabulary. Phonics only works to a point in English since many words don't follow conventional spelling patterns and children who over-rely on phonics often struggle from his age onwards.

An approach like Precision Teaching might be good for this.

Don't be ridiculous op. That just isn't true. It's not like he is failing. I agree with first reply though. You're being negative. He's doing well overall but could do better in grammar and spelling. So make a plan on what you will do to support his learning and be positive.

I've taught Y3/4 for years. Lots of advice about Spelling but you don't need to score particularly highly on that to get Expected in EGPS. You need to find out which element he struggled on. The grammar part is really hard: he needs to know verbs, adjectives, adverbs, common/proper nouns, conjunctions and prepositions. The adverb in a sentence might be something like Yesterday. You need to be able to identify subordinate clauses and main clauses and the tense of sentences. There's a lot to it; certainly by Y4 most adults don't have the knowledge expected in it (past perfect tense anyone?). I'd try to look at some worksheets online or practice books.

I'd also say your school seems very keen to score children as GD. I teach some very clever children and a couple got GD on all the English and maths elements. No one got close to it across the board. There's no national standard for foundation subjects though.

My dyslexic DS passed the phonics screener too. Passing doesn't mean they can't be dyslexic. With good intensive teaching many do learn with phonics and it can be very helpful. So it doesn't rule anything out.

Phonics doesn't help with the irregular spellings, exception words and homophones. To spell the tricky bits of these words you rely on memory.

Most children, after encountering and reading and writing the word an average number of times, will have it secure in their memory. This is where dyslexic learners struggle - the average number of reps and the usual see it/copy it/remember it approaches just don't get these spellings into long term memory from where they can be retrieved when needed.

Whatever's going on for your DS, I definitely agree with all the posters saying you need to remember this is a small part of the whole. And maintaining self esteem when they are struggling with SPAG and handwriting (especially if school put emphasis on success in these areas), and maybe quite fed up and frustrated about it all, is really important.

No it seems like a lot of parents claim their child gets greater depth for everything.

Don't worry OP, my DD was just like this at that age, I couldn't understand it when she was doing well in other subjects and seemed bright to us at home. She caught up eventually (maybe Y8 I think?), achieved all 9s at GCSE, currently doing 4 x A levels and about to apply to Oxford. My DSis tells the same story about one of hers who went on to get a first from Cambridge in a humanities subject.

Your job is to encourage gently, praise a lot and make sure it doesn't become a big thing - he is doing great, so don't let him lose any confidence or enjoyment in his learning.

Also - DD was awful at phonics and had to have extra lessons through Y1 and Y2. She couldn't write her name until Y1. In Y2 she was so slow at writing, would do a sentence or two while the others did a page.

He is obviously bright so don't panic and don't go overboard on the homework. Turning him off reading and writing will be much more harmful than him being a tiny bit behind some of his classmates for a couple of years.

Op in your shoes I would step up his reading at home. Read for fun, read for rewards, read anything. Read the ingredients on a can, and a shampoo bottle. But the best for my kids was signing them up to the summer holidays reading challenge at the local library. Try him on captain underpants, diary of a wimpy kid, Harry Potter, even try him on audio books when you are in the car etc as you can get them for free with the library. He needs to see the words in real life context for them to sink in and for him to learn their, there, they're. An excellent vocabulary and great spellings can only come from reading and it's the biggest gift you can give your kids.

As for grammar, most parents I know have struggled helping their kids with it. They don't know a fronted adverbial from a concrete noun from a preposition. Is your sons speech ordered and correct? We tend to find that the innate ability to organise our words is a given but it's much harder then identifying and naming the type of words and their function within language.

It often happens that there's a lag in spelling proficiency compared to reading. My DS was a great reader - reading age always several years ahead - and had very average abilities in spelling when he was your DS's age.

Now he's a great speller and it reflects the depth of his reading better.

My DS got on by memorising tricky words in chunks, like bus-i-ness, which is not particularly refined! If children know about root words, prefixes, suffixes and general rules, it helps understanding. E.g. business is the state ('-ness') of being busy and the y has become i because the root word has been squashed by a suffix starting with a consonant.