can anyone reassure me that if their dc was like this, they eventually catch up?

[paddingtonbear1]

Just been to speak to dd's teacher about her progress, or rather lack of it! She's been the same since pre-school - doesn't listen or concentrate, and is now a fair way behind her classmates. Her teacher says she doesn't lack ability, but basically won't apply it if it's not something she's interested in. Which seems to be most school work! We try to help at home but we don't get far either. She is summer born and young for age, would much rather play all the time.
I guess I am afraid that when she gets to year 1, she'll be left miles behind. Was/is anyone else's dc's like this, and did they catch up?

just found a similar thread further down - and re-found the dreamer thread in Education!
should have searched first...
I get the impression that dd's teacher finds it a bit frustrating that although she seems quite bright, she's not interested in doing school work unless they are on her case all the time!
She's a bit worried about what will happen when dd goes into yr 1.

She must have been just out of her three's when she started at full time school
it's not that suprising she wants to play all the time
if you push it too much you might put her off school altogether
she'll catch up academically I'm sure to her potential but I would encourage her to concentrate on other things that she is interested in so that she gets the habit

i just got the snakes and ladders out, which seemed to work quite well
she is a bit put out that she has to keep going to school every day, she would rather stay home and play! I can't really blame her. Her teacher says as there are other kids in the class with an august birthday we can't really use her age as an excuse. I've always been reluctant to push too much in case we do put her off! I think we will just practice some basic counting this week...

I wouldn't call it an excuse -- more like a reason. Gentle encouragement rather than thinking that she really ought to be feeling a certain way at a certain age. The fact is, she doesn't!

How's she doing with her reading and writing? Does she like drawing? Can you find a way of making some of the school activities have 'relevance' to her? For instance I often get dd to write little letters to friends, me, dp, Grandma and it doesn't feel so much like 'school work' to her. She's also in Reception by the way.

is she the type to develope in little spurts? i can't really comment re schoolwork, but my DS has always hit his milestones really late but whizzed through them when the time came. his evelopment just seems to in little bursts, e.g late to potty train but dry day and night permanently within 2 weeks. that sort of thing. maybe your DD will mature really quickly when she's ready and catch up quickly, then coast for a bit then catch up again.

I'm a summer born and it was a right pita the way everyone nagged me to read and write etc age 4. All I wanted to do was play. I got there in my own time and then caught up very very quickly

i have the same prob with my son born (19 aug)

i bought some flash cards with numbers, letters etc on

and turned learning them into a game and it really is working

as soon as he starts getting fed up or bored we stop (he is only 3! and in nursery)

could you maybe ask your dd teachers for some work and try and find a fun way for her to learn it? that way you could set the pace and redo what she is doing in class,

she does like drawing, and reading but she has a good memory and tends to memorise the sentences in the books. If you take the words out of context and use them somewhere else, she doesn't recognise them. We are trying to get around this by making her point to each word on the page with her finger.
She doesn't 'get' numbers really, she can count but can't relate this to actual things, eg. 3 blocks. Her writing can be ok but is a bit hit and miss. I like the letters idea imaginaryfriend!

paddington, my dd really amused us when she was first getting interested in writing when she had been told off - she got a post-it note and wrote 'to mum and dad I am fed up' we laughed so much that it spurred her on to try more writing. I think incorporating it into everyday things really helps.

Does she know her alphabet phonetically? That also really helps them to sound out words. A lot of children who know the letters by letter sounds rather than phonetic sounds struggle a bit at first I've found.

Also I remember I used to single out a few words dd had learnt, the simplest ones like 'to' and 'the' and when I was reading to her I'd stop and point at them for her to read. That helped her a lot to recognise them out of context.

Your dd is still really young though. My friend's dd was a late August birthday and it took her until half way through Y1 before she started to really progress. But her progression has been very fast since.

she does know her phonetic alphabet, but she still struggles to 'blend' - I guess this may suddenly click?
Towards the end of this week she's been trying to make more effort with her numbers, maybe her teacher has said something and it's sunk in a bit? I bought an orchard toys number puzzle to do this weekend.
I'm dreading yr 1 tbh - that's when they start giving lines as punishment! dd's writing is not good, she would end up missing breaks for a week!

You're not serious?! Lines as punishment!!! But surely they wouldn't punish a child for being a little behind in their reading / writing?

I think the 'blending' will just click. Can she do it with really short words like 'is' and 'it'? I still remember dd getting frustrated over those at the start of Reception. It's amazing now how she's moved on, once it all starts to fall into place.

oh no I put that badly! I mean lines for bad behaviour. For eg, a friend's ds (in yr 1) got lines for pushing another boy. His writing wasn't good so they took him ages!
dd can do simple words yes but she doesn't have much confidence and what little she did have seems to be ebbing away atm. We did a book tonight and she did manage to do 'Ted' and 'Red', after a bit of persuasion!