any other underachieving boys in year 2?

[southeastastra]

is mine the only one?

by the way.. mine loves Mr Men too
I thought he was in a very small minority there!

my ds is 6 too and sounds very similar. He gets reward stickers just for sitting still! He has caught up a little bit this year and is at least trying to write although most of it is hard to read. He doesn't read much at all. I have found it better to let him learn at his own pace as he seems more enthusiastic. He completely switches off and gets cross if he feels I'm trying to make him learn something. I know how you feel. I bought lots of reading/writing books and phonic sets but none of it really helped. Even the extra help at school didnt seem to make much difference. He's only really started to improve now because he wants to do it. He's started to ask what words are or how to spell something. It is hard though.

Seastra, it sounds very positive that your son really is into the Mr Men books, showing he can be enthused about something. Just keep trying to find things he is into. Like dinosaurs, aeroplanes, animals, all that old fashioned boy type stuff. He needs to feel excited about learning. All the reading, writing and maths will follow if he is enthused by something. Schools follow their own agenda and only occassionally cover something the children actually want to learn about IME. Some schools are improving on this, making everything more creative and cross curricular but some are still stuck.

My ds was well below expectation throughout infants in what is a high-performing school. By end Y1 complaining "I'm bottom of the bottom group" and halfway through Y2 his teacher told us he'd failed to meet all his simple targets.

Then things turned round - he was already getting some support (had to nag for this) but he was lucky to have a brilliant Y2 teacher who spotted low self-esteem and gave him lots of confidence-boosting stuff. It really made a big, big difference. He's Y4 now and racing ahead - turned out he was probably 'late developer'.

Just keep encouraging him in what he likes and keep boosting esteem. Having good teacher does make big difference though.

thanks for the messages, i think i'll look into a tutor for him, just for a short while.

i'm in two minds about it, but think his school (in it's present state) can't offer him the extra help he needs.