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I didnt understand what my ds' teacher meant at parents evening

28 replies

greedygreedyguzzler · 12/02/2009 17:13

My ds is 5.5. he is in year 1 and i went to his parents evening last night. last parents evening she said he was an 'exemplery student, a pleasure to have in the class, always does as he is told, knows all the routines and was doing brilliantly at everything apart from handwriting (which he is crap at!)

anyway, i expected the same this time. but she said she had 'concerns about his ability to process information' i wasnt sure what she meant really but she said she was going to mention it to the headmistress to see if they can find a way to help him.

she said he is always last to finish his written work.but he si very slow with everything. i would say thorough! he spends a while washing his hands after going for a wee, and ages telling a story, and ages wiping his bum etc. i think his problem is he is a 'thinker'. he remembers EVERYTHING. i once told him he should wipe his bum 3 times and then once more 'for luck' and now he religiously does it 4 times because he was told to. i think and hope that he spends so long doing everything because he is thinking about it so much. i asked him to write a sentance for me last night to see how slow he was. and instead of just writing it he said " do i have to follow all the rules for writing a sentance? do i have to do a capital at the start? does it need a comma in the middle or not?" surely other kids would just get on with it and write it?

ANYWAY........she made it seem like it was something to worry about, but i am still not sure exactly what she was trying to get at.anyone any ideas? anyone still reading?

she ended up by saying he was above average for literacy and was doing really well with maths and reading.

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Madsometimes · 15/02/2009 18:49

My dd2 is in year 1. She is not slow in her written work, but she is very slow about getting ready for PE/taking herself to the toilet. She will not be hurried.

I went as a parent helper to a school trip last Friday. I had 5 children in my group, and the only one who gave me any trouble was my own!

The teacher asked all the children to try to go to the toilet, even if they did not need to. The other children went in and out of the cubicle in one minute, saying they had tried but did not need to go. My dd spent 10 minutes in the cubicle and would not open the door. This was because she did not need to go, but sat on the toilet trying to squeeze a wee out. I was pleading with her to come out if she did not need to go, and so were the other children. She would not! I think that slowness is a typical 5 year old trait.

greedygreedyguzzler · 17/02/2009 10:58

curlyhairedassasin - its lovely to hear of other children the same as my ds! mine is also not so good at physical things and he is also quite tall (91st centile). he is very clumsy too. are you worried about your ds at school? do you think i am worrying about nothing?

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CurlyhairedAssassin · 17/02/2009 16:32

greedy, I am not too worried at the moment. It doesn't really matter at the moment if he has to finish his picture off the next day cos he has taken so long with it. But I suppose next year at school is when being too slow will matter more. I will wait to see what they say at the next parents' evening. It's frustrating because he CAN move fast when he wants to, he's just a bit of a daydreamer sometimes. I try not to rush him though because it does stress him out - he had quite a bad stammer around the age of 3 because I think I wasn't being patient enough when he was having a very drawn out conversation with me, and he was just trying to think of the right words to say. Even though it was so frustrating sometimes waiting for him to get the right words out, I made sure I did, and the stammer went. And of course he's fine at talking now, so I wonder whether this slowness at some things is all just a phase, and something that will improve over time?

I couldn't say whether you are worrying about nothing really cos I don't know your son. I would feel exactly the same as you though if the school flagged up that there may be a problem - very worried, but I suppose they have to make sure that there is no other reason for the slowness, and I suppose I would keep an open mind about it. After all, if there IS a deeper problem, you would want it sorted out asap wouldn't you?

Keep us up to date with how things go at school!

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