Year 3 Falling Behind in Reading and Spelling

[Redstar2015]

As the title suggests, my dd is falling behind in reading and spelling. She seems to be fine in maths though could use more regular practice for some of her times tables. However, her teacher said her fluency and comprehension are both very behind, as in below year 2 standard. They needed to read 60 words per minute and she was well below this and teacher wants 110 words per minute by the end of the year.

I know she loves school and for the first time is enjoying reading at home and likes the Isadora Moon books. I spot check to see she’s reading and understanding and thought since this had finally clicked she was doing fine so it’s been a shock.

Her little brother has had lots of health issues so for these reasons we’ve struggled to give consistent support for school at home and I feel massively guilty as a result. We aim for 10 minutes maths, 10 minutes spelling, and 10 minutes reading (only add reading if she’s not done any on her own), but I’ll have a good week then have to focus on her brother and it all falls apart.

How worried should I be? And what could I feasibly do to help her get back on track? She’s very bright and capable and catches up fast with regular practice. School already have her in a fluency reading group and rapid phonics catch up group. Her spelling is also behind which I suspect is linked with reading.

My daughter was the same. I have a severely disabled son and then o got cancer so the time spent with her was not as much as it should have been. Is a tutor an option? I got one for my daughter and she does a mixture of English/maths and makes it fun. She’s catching up (year 5)

@houseofisms , I thought about a tutor as, yes, we could afford it if it would help her. Her teacher didn't recommend it, though I'm not sure if that's a personal preference thing or what. I ordered sets of Dancing Bears and Apples & Pears, but I worry it will all go out the window when her brother gets unwell and that's the main issue. It's hard to be consistent and/or we are so exhausted that even a 'good' day it's tough to do more than the basics of feed children, bathe them and put to bed after school. She doesn't even get home until 6pm most days because she has to go to after school club.

I feel massively guilty about lack of support for her though, as I didn't realise how much she was struggling in reading and spelling.

Yep, totally understand! The teacher maybe* against it as loads of kids that age are already having tutors to prepare them for 11+!!!!
I found a tutor that plays loads of games etc for the learning (my daughter is waiting for an adhd diagnosis and ‘fun’ works with her)

Lots of kids arent even free readers till y3 so she cant be that behind.li would do 20mins reading. We only ever do about 10 min a week of spelling. They pick that up through reading and writing.

@Gritidt , her teacher has said she is about a year behind, particularly in reading fluency. I have noticed her progressively struggling since Year 1 in both reading and spelling, and she's now having special catch up sessions with the teacher for both areas. Because of the types of errors she makes in both areas, I tried a screening test from Literacy Gold which flagged potential eye tracking issues, so I'm going to look into this first as teacher agreed it would explain a lot.

My dd ultimately assessed as having a visual processing disorder- overlaps with dyslexia but narrower impact on learning. Reading is seriously hard work, which also affects ability to transcribe, etc.

when processing written text is a challenge, the resolution needs to be dual track - support the areas of deficit while also finding workarounds. Dd has extra support on reading and writing, but we also make sure she has access to loads of audiobooks, encourage teacher / parent transcription, have workarounds to minimise visual processing needs (glasses, handouts with larger font, etc. )