When / if to ask for extra support for Year 5 daughter? Or is this just normal?

[naturemumma]

Long story, so will try to keep it brief. My DD is 9 (July baby) and just started Year 5. Last year she was exceeding in reading, but working below in maths and working towards in writing. Each year her reading seems to have got better and her writing / maths seems to have got worse.

We had her tested for dyslexia in January 2022 because she hated writing so much that she was coming home upset. She didn't fit the profile of dyslexia though. In the intelligence bit she came out as bright (top 2% on a couple of measures) and average on the more dyslexia specific bits of the test. The only areas she struggled with were handwriting / fine motor skills and non-word repetition. The dyslexia assessor said she thought there was a possibility of dyspraxic traits, but couldn't diagnose and that was that.

School have been more worried about maths than English, but haven't given extra support / help / guidance with anything and just kind of shrug. They vaguely mentioned the SENCO, but didn't follow through with anything. I'm getting concerned because she seems to be falling further behind (and further ahead with reading) and I haven't really wanted to push the school too hard.

The thing is that she is still spelling the same words differently throughout a piece of writing, missing punctuation and capitals, making lots of mistakes. She knows the punctuation. if you ask her, but can never apply it.

She has a new teacher this year who she seems to really like and seems really supportive. I've got a meeting with him next week (on the recommendation of her teacher last year). What do you think I should be asking? Should I ask to involve SENCO and see if she has any other needs? Any tips? I feel a bit lost and would love advice / experiences. Thank you!

Oh, and our DD asked for a tutor to help her with maths and so she's got a lovely one from this term. I'm hopeful this might help, but is there anything else we can do to help her?

I would push for a meeting with the SENCO, as this profile strikes me as unusual and I would hope a SENCO would agree. I am not an SEN expert (secondary English teacher), but I'd want them looking into dysgraphia and dyscalculia, as well as dyspraxia (because that's been suggested already). I hope you get some answers!

ETA: it strikes me as unusual because there is a growing gap between the different skills, but in particular because she's doing so well in reading but struggling with writing. That's not a standard dyslexia profile IME.

My handwriting was awful as I have dyspraxic traits or dyspraxia.

I was good academically accept in art/anything that needed to be well presented, and maths.

It sounds like she has her strengths and weaknesses like anyone.

Even traits of something can be very impairing.

Keep nagging them OP.

There's also such a thing as dyscalculia, you could get her tested for that.

• except. Had an early start. 😀

Find out what her challenges are in maths - is it number? Shape? Everything?

With writing, are you sure she "can't" apply it, rather than her not being interested in applying it?

You can ask to speak to the SENCO, but they can't diagnose anything. They could give advice to the teacher perhaps. If it's a very well-resourced school (few are these days), perhaps the SENCO could organize a maths or handwriting intervention.

I agree about the challenges in maths - we do need to establish this. I think it's mostly number, but her tutor has been great so far and is building up a bigger picture which will be helpful.

To be honest, I'm not really expecting any 'extra' intervention as such, but last year, for the whole year, her target was to ask when she needed help. She still wasn't asking at the end of the year. We've been through three schools (ex-military family) and she always asked for help at the previous schools so there's obviously something going on and I feel that they should have got to the bottom of that. Perhaps it's because I just didn't ask.

I work in a school in a support role, albeit secondary, and we have great strategy sheets for kids without diagnoses and I guess that's what I'd like. Just something written down that says she's better sitting at the front of the class because otherwise she gets distracted, shouldn't be marked down for presentation etc. I'm not expecting 1:1 intervention - that's why we've got her a tutor, but I think not recognising that she's finding things hard is really demoralising for her. She herself can't understand why she's one of the best readers in the class (that's also from her teacher), and fine verbally, but not able to get the answers down effectively in writing.

Not sure about the writing - that's what school has said, so that's really just me repeating it. On the other hand, I have watched her with a tutor endlessly not getting her punctuation right / copying spellings incorrectly / inconsistent with spelling when she was really engaged and loved the tutor. It also came up in her assessment last year when she was really engaged - she loves 1:1 stuff. So I think there is a reason. She told the tutor that if she didn't just get it down she would forget what she wanted to write and would then get confused.

It's all so tricky. It has helped a bit to write it all down though! It's so hard to try to help kids but not worry them. I really don't mind how she does in school particularly in terms of grades, but she's losing confidence and starting to get down about it so I think ignoring it isn't helping much.

Thank you for this - that's so useful. It does seem an odd profile to me too, so it's reassuring that you think so too.