Ds struggling to listen/concentrate in class

[dancingbear]

My ds is in Year 1 is summer born child, he struggles to concentrate/listen/follow instructions. He has had Speech therapy to help him deal with this problem and an associated Expressive Speech Disorder. He has also suffered from temporary hearing loss due to Glue Ear this year.

Speech therapy has come to an end now that his speech is getting back on track but his listening skills are according to his teacher at rock bottom and are showing no signs of improving.

He's a very advanced reader but finds Maths tricky at school as he struggles to follow instructions - he find Maths easier at home when I explain things on a one to one basis.

Last week he was very worried as his teacher told him he would find Year 2 and 3 very difficult if he didn't start listening.

I asked him this morning to remember to ask his teacher again if he doesn't understand something in Maths- he said he can't because she said she was fed up explaining things to him over and over again. This was backed up by my dd who is in the same class.

I didn't really know what to say, I'm a bit shocked at a teacher speaking to a 5 year old like this...not sure how to progress it....should I speak to her and what can I say without making the situation worse or should we just keep our heads down till the end of term.

Does she have him sit at the front on the carpet and say his name (frequently if necessary!) to get his attention?

If he had / still has glue ear, he may have got into the habit of not listening because he couldn't hear properly anyway.

Did the speech therapist say that he has not got any receptive difficulties? can she give you any more idea of why he is finding it difficult to listen / grasp instructions?

Am that she admitted that she was fed up of explaining things over and over. Could you ask for maths activities / games that you could practise over and over with him at home? What aspects of maths is he struggling with?

He always sits at the front of the class and frequently checks his understanding after she has explained instructions.

Speech therapist say his difficulty are part slow auditory processing - he needs a little longer to think about what has been said and part - he has learned not to listen. He has had IEP targets set to help with his memory, processing and following 3 part instructions..but it doesn't seem to help him in the classroom - also she has suggested that he thinks outside the box, so he's looking for a complex answer when there's a simpler answer staring him in the face.

He just doesn't follow instructions in Maths, I pre-teach him Maths/science language at home (supplied by his teacher) so he has less to deal with in class...I am also starting him on The Listening Programme - a series of musical CD's which are supposed to help.

Really can't think of anything more I can do to help him.

Just wish his teacher would stop reinforcing the message that he can't listen and making him feel bad for something he really struggles with.

what a shame for your son db.
I think the teacher sounds like she has become really negative.
When was the last time she praised him for understanding instructions or listening?
I'm not surprised he has tuned out further if all he gets is negative feedback.
Have you seen her recently? or the head? Why not make an appt and she if you can organise a reward and praise system that might motivate him a little.

What a cow. I owuld be furious.

I would act now, before it starts affecting his self esteem. I have a 6yo who feels absolutely crap about himself. He does have behavioral issues and his teacher is on his case all day over the slightest of things - he can't see the wood for the tress and the way she reacts to him makes him very stressed. I wish I had done something sooner.

dancingbear your post really struck a chord with me - you could be describing my dd!
her teacher is very negative as well, never has a good thing to say about her - to me anyway - and dd is well aware that she's behind her peers. She has had glue ear in the past as well, and her speech has been affected - I'm going to the doctors this week to see if I can get her some speech therapy. The school aren't being very helpful, it's a high achieving state school and they only seem to be able to cater for the high flyers. dd is summer born too.

We are at a high achieving school too - in a sense that's part of the problem - he'll screw up their figures so they put lots of pressure on me to "fix" him.

Good luck at the Docs - round here waiting lists are horrendous for speech therapy, even then the service is patchy, we had to resort to a private speech therapist to get things moving along.

Today the TA told him that his writing was horrible - his writing is not the neatest but who needs to use a word like "horrible" about a child's work?

that's terrible!
dd comes home saying she is too slow, along with one of her friends who is also a day dreamer. Her books this week have been too easy for her, it's as if they've given up. Tbh we are seriously considering moving her to another school nearby, which wasn't so good a while ago but has really improved recently. We went round it today and liked it. I just hope we're doing the right thing! Not saying this is what you should do btw. It's hard isn't it, to know how to help. dd's teacher also said she would find yr 2 very hard as more is expected of them then!

I do think the school and my ds are the wrong fit, but my decision to move schools is complicated by my dd - she has settled well, has lots of friends and is pretty much the perfect student...but she'd be devastated if I moved her and I can't have two kids at different schools...logistically I couldn't pull it off. I feel torn in two.

Lots of luck PB, it's hard to choose the right school for your child when they are only 3 years old - they change so much.

I sympathise dancingbear - I only have dd so in that way it's easier for me, although it's still a hard decision!
Does your ds's class have a TA to help out? dd's did for a short period but I don't think they have one at all now. the school has their own 'standard' which is very high, she brings mini-reports home every so often which always say she is below 'their' standard in everything! I tend to ignore that bit and just read the comments.
Apparently the school we went round yesterday has had a few enquiries from parents in dd's class!

Ahh yes, that's much the same as our school -they talk about their standards, never the national standards...ends up making you feel more and more under pressure to fix your child.

The TA is the person who told him that his writing was rubbish yesterday - he says she refuses to help him when he asks - I beleive she may hold a very strong dislike of him. Things may improve next year with a new teacher, then again that's what I said last year. I am really starting to think of other options...but I know my dd will refuse to move schools and I don't see how I could force her to

Does he use a task board? It can be as simple as a laminated strip of paper, with post-it notes on it. He should work with a TA/the teacher to write/draw the instructions in stages before he goes to work on the task. As he completes each stage, he just removes one post-it note until he's finished the sequence.

The school need to be taking responsibility for teaching him "how" to listen - does he know what it means to "listen"? Have they explicitly explained to him what they expect, and supported him to do it, until he can do it on his own?

I am concerned about the way that the TA is speaking to him. I think this needs to be raised with the teacher, or failing that, the Headteacher.

Just a thought - what strategies have the written on his IEP? There should be strategies for each of his targets. If the strategies are not working, then ask for a meeting with the senco to discuss changing them. They should be things which he can use in every lesson.

dd's teacher last year was fine, so although we felt it was too pushy we stuck with it until now. Today though when dh collected dd, there was a letter in her bag from the head asking us to ring for an appointment. They'd realised we'd gone to visit another school (the schools round here are interconnected). dh did ring and ended up having a long phone conversation with the head! He couldn't tell me all of it as I'm still at work, but the head realises there are problems as a few parents seem to be doing the same as us...

do you know who your ds will have next year? dd would have a different teacher next year, but she'd end up meeting her current teacher again in yr 4!

according to dh, school are having a meeting about dd on Friday. So far they've tried to get us to 'fix' her (like your experience dancingbear), there's been no mention of an IEP or the SENCO. I am taking dd to the drs myself tomorrow. So far school won't, or can't, deal with her. We don't have the same problems with dd at home, probably because she doesn't have to listen to us talking about something for ages at a time!

How did it go at the Doctors?

Issues around listening can be very complex - as I've discovered.

Like you, we have comparatively few problems at home with listening, in fact he will happily listen to a book on tape for hours on end.
Apparently some kids find it difficult to differentiate between sounds in a noisy environment, so listening at school requires a huge effort, they get tired and switch off. At home things are quiet and so the child finds listening a lot easier. It's also possible that my ds difficulty with multi-sensory listening, so while he's listening he struggles to follow what's happening visually, when he speaks or listens to speaking he never makes eye contact.

Hope some of this helps.

the doctor said dd doesn't have AD/HD, or any kind of global delay, and really should be getting more support in school in the first instance. (basically like littlefish said in an earlier post). The head teacher now says he will 'intervene' to get her this, but dh has no confidence that this will happen as so far they've just left her to get behind. I am not 100% sure, so we're going round this other school again (with dd this time) tomorrow morning, then we'll take it from there.
how much support does your ds get in school? he sounds similar to my dd, and the school sounds similar too!

Hi Dancing Bear,

I have a 3.9 year old with receptive language delay who consequently struggles in his excellent nursery setting attached to his future school

I agree with others that your son deserves better than this.

The purpose of this post is to recommend a book written for teachers that I picked up for under a tenner called "Receptive Lanuage Difficulties".
www.amazon.co.uk/Receptive-Language-Difficulties-Liz-Baldwin/dp/1855034417

I was impressed by it - it's very practical - and if my DS2's problems haven't resolved by his school start, I'll be begging the reception teacher to read it. I'm hoping it will give you lots of amunition/ideas for positive suggestions you can make. Perhaps the teachers have run out of ideas?