Shock school report

[FakeItUntilIMakeIt]

DD came home with her school report today and it is not great. . Some background is that DD learnt diddly squat in Reception as she has a hearing impairment and spent most of the time sat at the back of the class looking out of the window. Grommets at the end of Reception and then Y1 school report said that she was at ARE for all NC subjects apart from reading and writing where she was working towards. I was reassured by the teacher that she was only one term behind in reading and as her reading caught up her writing would as well. Both parents evenings have been positive this year will DD doing particularity well in Maths, improving in writing but easily distracted.

DD received her Y2 report today and she is below expectations in reading and working towards in most national curriculum subjects. She has also not passed the phonics screening check again! This came as a shock as at parents evening I was told she was doing well particularly in Maths (which she is now WT) and was progressing with her reading but struggled with concentration. I’ve asked if there is anything extra I should be doing at home and I’ve been told no. I’ve had to chase DDs school repeatedly as she can go weeks without being home a reading book. We always compete the spelling homework and DD normally gets 9 or 10 out of 10.

My main concern is that DD is 8 in December and is not phonically secure and struggles to read. At her age I was reading basic chapter books.
The is a drop in session to discuss reports so I will be attending that. What would you suggest I bring up with the teacher? What would to recommend to help DD catch up. My concern is that DD is a well behaved polite and friendly girls so she is easy to forget in class.

If her spelling is good, short term memory likely isn't the problem.

What she's experiencing is possibly due to hearing deficit. I'd take her to have her hearing very thoroughly checked. Phonics will be a struggle (huge understatement) for her if she has a hearing issue. Auditory processing mught also be a problem.
HH
ow is her daily speech?
How broad is her vocabulary?
Can hold sing in tune?
if shes singing or reciting a rhyme (not reading but reciting), does she get a lot of words wrong?
Can she identify rhyming words?

In the meantime, see if she can master the words up to and including her age level (this would be late 2nd grade, early 3rd grade) in the Dolch word list, to spell, to recognise and read, and to pronounce properly. It is a list of 220 words that comprise 75% iirc (perhaps 80%) of the words in literature aimed at children up to age 8. Mastering the words will boost her reading fluency and make it less of a chore, a mystery, and a struggle.

I’ve worked out myself that my child is behind other children in reading. The teacher stopped sending home books and started sending photocopied pages which had random letter combinations. This is absolutely not how you teach phonics. There was no context and I didn’t even bother because I didn’t understand it myself. Just random words, no patterns - no context - just random words.

I’ve realised it’s up to me to teach him to read. You’re going to have to intervene with your daughter and teach phonics from scratch. You can’t rely on your child’s teacher.

I noticed my child was coming home with random books and I thought I was meant to be reading them. No. The other kids in the class have been reading them themselves and doing worksheets.

There was no basic start to reading. The books that I learned to read on (very basic phonics books) were non-existent. I realised the books the kids were bringing home were from the teachers own resources. The school had no resources!!! They don’t have black boards in the classrooms but they have massive tv screens.

Eventually my child brought home a ratty-dandelion phonics book and I realised this is what I needed to start getting my child to read.

Dandelion Phonics is a UK-based phonics program designed to help beginner readers learn to read using decodable books. The program is developed by Phonic Books, a company specializing in synthetic phonics resources. Dandelion Phonics features two main series: Dandelion Readers and Dandelion Launchers, with Dandelion World as a non-fiction parallel series. These books are designed to be used alongside a synthetic phonics program, introducing sounds and blending them into words.

Anyway, you are going to have to take some time off work during the school holidays to teach your child to read or get her a tutor.

Hi, I have bilateral profound high frequency hearing loss and moderate loss across other areas. This means I do not hear certain phonics. Despite this my primary school never stopped trying to teach me to read and write by using phonics. I needed to learn to read and write by memory. When I started high school I had the reading age of a six year old. I also had persistent glue ear until I was about 11.

What helped me was finding reading material that I actually enjoyed (initially this was Harry Potter) at some point my reading took off due to this, and by the time I left high school I had read every book in my school library's classic collection. I'm still an avid reader and read fiction most days as part of my bed time routine. If I'm on holiday I can consume serval books in a week. I managed to graduate with an undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and get qualifying diplomas in my area of specialism and I now work in a professional public services role where literacy and communication is really important.

What didn't help me were assumptions from teaching staff that I was a little bit dim, pressure from my parents when I struggled with my reading with punishments for not trying hard enough, being made by school to read those awful; Biff and Chip went to the shops shite.

On another note, by all means explore dyslexia. However, I can tell you that my school reports around my behaviour were very similar. I was often described as " away with the faries", some teachers considered me wilfully disobedient and I would spend large amounts of time sat facing a wall for not listening, and because I couldn't hear well I was left behind socially and my hearing gave me a pronounced speech impediment that I was horrendously bullied for by peers, some teachers would mimic me, and my siblings were also not discourage from bulling me for it. I experienced a lot of shame about this and that impacted my capacity to build friendships. As an adult I am actually very sociable and have many meaningful and enduring friendships. With the being away with the fairies, because of my very chronic deafness and social isolation caused by this, my environment be it school or home was not stimulating enough for me, so I did spend a vast amount of time in my own world, lost in my own imagination, this could give the impression that I was not "quite the full ticket" as one teacher described me. I've had a life long complex due to being perceived by others as a child and teenager as someone who lacked intelligence.

The best advice I can give is to try not to get frustrated, encourage reading things that interest her, and look at ways you can support her with friendships and social things. Also to give her lots of positive and affirmative messages to boost her self esteem. Subtitles on the tv will also help with reading as well as enhancing her enjoyment of tv in the long run. As an adult having digital hearing aids have also helped me tremendously, even if I don't like wearing them.

Thank you so much for this. My child has autism and is being left behind at school. I’m trying to teach him myself and had no idea of this word list.

I don’t see how this is a shock , surely you know her reading level is behind if you read with her at home . The school does sound a bit lacking but how much effort are you putting in at home ? Our eldest is hearing impaired ( moderate deafness) and he was a late reader but was quite secure by mid yr 1 he didn’t get phonics at all but we didn’t realise he was deaf and he was fairly reliant on lip reading , his deafness was diagnosed at 6.5 yrs old .

They don’t have black boards in the classrooms but they have massive tv screens.

There haven't been blackboards in UK classrooms for many years. The 'massive tv screen' is probably an interactive screen on which the teacher can display all kinds of resources.

Push for a plan! Say to them how are we going to work together to get her to expected? What extra support can she get?
At home find an author she likes, read to her and ask questions so work on comprehension. Find books that she can read then read a lot. Good luck.

Do you listen to her read every day (and read to her), despite her not bringing a school book home?

My dd was behind all the way through primary and school didn't really care as she was just a bit behind. We got her a private tutor and it made the world of difference. I think primary teachers are overwhelmed with much bigger needs. Dd is now in secondary and has caught up.

Dolch Sight Words « Mrs. Perkins https://share.google/3MhoVPdXKd668eDMH

Dolch words, sometimes known as sight words.

I suspect, if she has had two teachers sharing the week between them, and since ccommunication between them and with you seems to have been pretty poor, your quiet DD may have flown well under their radar, and there may also have been overlaps in their teaching and perhaps even gaps. It all sounds like a perfect storm of inadequacy on the teaching end for a child with a known hearing issue.

Keep reading with her and to her. Rhymes are superb for helping her see and hear patterns in words. Make sure you run your finger along under the text as you read so she will see what word you're at as the sounds are spoken. Model breaking down of words into phonic sections.

I just wanted you to know that I read this and felt so much sympathy for you and frustration with the adults around you who misunderstood you and underestimated you.

Not the same as your situation at all, but I was a very late reader (childhood disability and lots of hospital stays), and my mother always prioritised stuff that was interested in, correctly assuming that I would do better with slightly harder stuff that I was motivated to read than easier stuff that I found boring or patronising. I do the same with my kid now - if she's reading something she's interested in all on her own I am not going to pull her away from it to read something less boring at this stage!

What does she like to read at home? DS constantly has his head in a book and even from nursery he would 'read' whilst looking at the pictures, he enjoyed things like investigators when he was first doing phonics etc because the words are very simple and the comic book style means there isn't loads of text. Does she track the words as you read to her?

That sounds shockingly poor. I would be fuming. I wouldn't be happy at all with her lack of progress over 3years.
I find the CPG books really good you could buy some year 2 ones and do some work over the holidays.
Which reading scheme is it and what level is she at. Is there a way you could get a few of the books to encourage a regular reading session every day over the next few weeks?

Both of my dds, reading at home helped hugely. There are tonnes of second hand early readers in secondhand bookshops, Vinted etc.

One of mine struggled and reading for 10 mins every morning when her brain was freshest helped.

CPG is really good, agree. I’d also be fuming but long experience of school tells me that reading is critical, and you have to diy given that they’re hopeless. Making a fuss is a game in itself but won’t do nearly as much good as you can.

I used to do reading at school. When it was time to get a new book they all rushed to choose them. We’d write in their notebooks how they were getting on. For a child not to take any book home would be very unusual. Have you considered that she hates reading due to her phonics struggle and might be choosing to leave books at school (and leave that problem there?)

I would help her at home if I was you. I would also ask the school for more regular updates so you can catch on early with the material you need to help her with. My child is doing ok at school not bad and not excellent. He’s grasping most of the material but sometimes he needs that extra help so I help at home on the weekend. Good luck op

Does she read at home? Do you read to her? Buy her magazines with word searches in them. You can get flash cards for the phonics, practice then at home, I used to put one on each door and around the house just so DC would get used to seeing them. There are also apps that you can download to help, fun on iPad but learning.

@EternalFogInMyNotSoSpoltlessMind
I'm sorry for all that rubbish you experienced. Absolutely disgusting behaviour but, alas, I remember teachers behaving like that too.
I am glad you are having better friendships now.

I was a natural reader and speller. So was my eldest child. I thought phonics was the key to learning to spell. My youngest child wasn't really helped by phonics - they learnt the word by visualising it. The school kept pushing phonics and he wasn't doing very well. He brought home little readers and seemed to be doing okay till he flipped two pages at once and carried on "reading" the flipped page because he'd simply memorised the story. He had no idea whatsoever about reading when I swapped him to a book he'd never had read to him before. I spent the summer holiday painstakingly teaching him the letters and their sounds. After weeks we had worked up to three letter words and I wasn't too sure he knew many of those.

I found a book called "Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World: Unlocking the Potential of Your Add Child" by Jeffrey Freed and Laurie Parsons. Now I'm prepared to admit that the science on the left brain right brain thing might be a bit dubious but they have sound strategies for children who are perhaps not learning in the accepted way. I am not saying your child has ADHD but their methods may help. My son did have ADHD as well as a hearing problem and I read many many books on the subject and this was really the only one that had solid practical advice that worked. I should say I have no connection whatsoever to the authors or any financial stake in the book.

Many years later, I realised that while I may have been taught phonetically, I visualised words just like my son - I sort of see the words in my mind. As a small child I remember teachers being surprised that I could rattle off the spelling of words without seeming to break words into syllables - and there was a reason for that. My husband who has an almost straight A degree and first class honours eventually told me he'd never really got phonics either. So phonics is not everything though the UK school system seems to act like it was and I was a child reading Jane Eyre at 11 - in the original format. At one stage I ended up in the school's slow learner's class - best days of my school life - as I spent most of my days reading novels because the work was laughably easy - I think I got nervous and failed some exam which landed me there. Eventually they worked that I didn't belong there and eventually they threw me out and back into the proper classes. I have two degrees in traditionally tough subjects and was dux of my high school. My parents definitely pushed education as very important and bought books and anything they thought would help me.

Statistically, children who sit near the "front" of the class do better. Make sure she is sitting near the front.

It is shocking that the school isn't sending home reading books with a child who is behind in reading or is your DD deliberately not bringing them home? If she had ADHD (and I'm not saying she has ADHD) I'd believe she was forgetting them. I mean the reader should go in the bag for home time immediately after she has been given it. Why don't you have reading books at home though and why aren't you reading with her or to her or whatever? We had a huge collection of secondhand books - from op shops, school fairs etc and there is always the library. Actually, I probably had too many as apparently it is beneficial to repeat read familiar books as that helps them to learn. I spent hours helping with reading and maths to get my son up to standard. Try to make it fun for the child and finish the lesson on a high note when they've succeeded at something. Let them take a turn being "teacher" and repeating the lesson they've learnt to you. Use mnemonics to remember things. Or rhymes/songs etc. My son has a university degree now so the method obviously worked. I am fairly sure his primary school teachers would have been amazed by that because he trailed miserably in primary school.

A few posts on here seem to imply that op has dropped the ball or not done enough
She hasn't done anything wrong in entrusting her child's education to the school. It's appalling that parents evening implied all was well, and the report says otherwise. I think you need a sit down meeting with the school - perhaps the SENCO/ a member of SLT, alongside the teacher.

I’d double check that the teacher has sent you the report for the correct child. Even if your DD is the only child in the class with the particular name. It seems odd that it is so out of sync with what you were told at parents’ evening

Do some people honestly believe that just leaving all education to the 6hrs of school 39 weeks a year is enough? Of course parents should be supporting learning at home as well otherwise children will end up behind

Well I'm a teacher and I think the first port of call for education should be school, yes. This child's teachers have failed her massively.

I’m honestly really shocked that you know she was behind on some areas and has struggled in the past and you aren’t doing any additional work at home…. I can’t believe you are just waiting for books to come home. If they don’t, do you just not read?
teachers have got a lot of children at different stages, you need to be helping your child more, it can’t be a surprise she failed her phonics test as presumably you are practising them at home (and she’s not getting them right). I used reading apps, bought books on Amazon and do a bit of maths every day, and practiced phonics daily until mine were totally secure.
you need to step up and stop blaming the teachers.