DD Failing KS1

[PeacefulLiz]

Feeling despondant because DD is going to get 1's for KS1 in reading and writing. Nothing seems to help her, and I am devestated that she's going to enter the juniors unable to read or write. Reading is such a struggle for her (she can't really read anything independently), and I don't see how she'll be able to cope in Y3.

Can any teachers on here tell me what it will be like for her in Y3? Lots of adults reading her work out to her so she learns she can't do anything by herself? Plus lots of extra phonics practice and flashcard work? (Which hasn't helped for the last 3 years...)

How can I keep her self confidence up?

How can I not put too much pressure on her when we read at home when I am so worried?

Her homework is always too hard for her, no matter how much I tell her teacher. What should I do about it?

(She is on the SEN register at School Action, and gets ten minutes 1:1 extra help allready. And she has had this level of support since reception.)

Phonographix and Dancing Bears could well help your daughter. They are both good programmes.
If you like, I'll send you a set of BRI: Beginning Reading Instruction books for your daughter. If you're interested do have a look at the website:
www.piperbooks.co.uk
and, in particular, at the case studies which show how the books have helped even the most struggling children. If you do a little test of where she's at - Performance Indicators - you'll know which set would be most useful for her.
If you do get a tutor you'll need to make sure that it's someone who is recommended by a number of people. Otherwise you can spend thousands of pounds and find that progress is still painfully slow. (And I say this as a one- time dyslexia tutor).
Good luck!

allchildrenreading Thank you very much. About the recommendation thing - I can't find one that is recommended and that is exactly why I'm not using one at the moment.

cat64 I am not worried that she is below average. I am worried that she is below the level the government wants all children to be at by the end of KS1 - i.e. a 2C. This puts her in the bottom 10% of the population. In 2 subjects. If she continues to make this progress throughout school she will fail GCSE's. In theory if she made the expected 2 levels of progress in KS2 she would end up with levels 3, which would give her predcited GCSE grades of D's. But as she failed to make the expected level of progress so far, a statician would predict that she would also fail to make the expected level of progress in KS2, so could well end up with only a 2 at the end of KS2. And that scares the pants of me. That is why I am doing everything I can now to help her catch up.

Why does worrying about her imply that I don't accept her for who she is? That I don't praise her? It implies that I feel it is better to get her help now, then to wait till she is even further behind. She is a wonderful kid with loads of strengths - but on this thread we are discussing helping her to learn to read.

Yes I know there are kids who are worse than her. I feel sorry for them and their parents, but again that is not what this thread is about. It is up to their parents to fight for them.

I'm not really sure what you are implying. That I should shut up and just work with school? And agree with them that she's doing fine? That I shouldn't voice my conerns on this forum? That I am a bad Mum? Well thanks. That was really the support I was looking for.

Have you looked at the resources from "Smart Kids"? They have some foam letters that I find very helpful, because the various phonic sounds are joined together and in specific colours - so the 'oa' sound, for example, comes as one piece and is a certain colour, so that if she's trying to read it, she knows to look ahead and treat it as a unit.

if she's not learning the sound-symbol pairings easily, then it sounds like you need to keep trying different methods for that. Some children get on with the method you described, of, say, a picture of a goat, makes the long-o sound, associated with the 'oa' spelling. But not all do. Can she come up with her own words/pictures for the different sounds? And introduce new ones very slowly - if she's learned some of them, stick with those for the moment, then introduce new ones gradually and keep going back over and reviewing the earlier ones. Lots of different games and activities around to practice the sounds, rather than just looking at flashcards and matching up that way.

In Year 3 there is often still some phonics teaching for those who need it, but it's often the time that I find children come for specialist dyslexia help, because the don't get nearly so much phonics as they did in KS1. If she is still enjoying books and being read to, there are lots of literacy skills that she will be getting from that. Keep reading to her, and keep talking about different types of language, interesting words, etc., and reassure her that being able to read and write them herself is not the only important thing in the classroom. It's ok for parents or TAs to do some of the writing, but children sometimes need to be reassured that this is OK, because they worry that they're not doing it themselves and others are. Otherwise all the time and attention goes just on what the child can decode or write themselves, and they miss out on a lot of other aspects of literacy that they are capable of.

Liz - you are absolutely right to be worried and the fact that alarm bells are ringing is 100% correct. I've tutored many children one-to-one who missed out because their parents were told 'not to worry' etc. A number of the children were read to every day, had houses full of books - one parent was an author, one editor of an arts magazine, and a few were teachers.

Unfortunately some teachers (not their fault) have received mixed messages and don't focus enough on the basic skills of blending and segmenting. The mixed messages confuse children, lack of focus detracts from the amount of practice that they need, and panic and confusion set in ... meanwhile the rest of the class is progressing and that is terribly painful.

'Banded' books are often an indication that schools do not fully understand how to tailor children's reading material to the appropriate level of knowledge. Hence, children who are insecure believe that they have to guess. That's one reason why confidence levels plunge.

It really is as painful as you suggest and you are right to explore the subject in depth.

Unfortunately, dyslexia tutors (and I was trained as one) tend to take a very circuituous route - it can take 10 years for reading skills to become secure.
You'll find it tremendously rewarding to read up as much as possible about 'how reading works' and you can then begin gently and unobtrusively to help your daughter. Don't let anyone convince you that you're just another fussy mother. Emphatically, you aren't!

I use the magnetic foam letters (joined oa - ch - igh etc.) that dyslexiaTeach suggests and they do help children realise that some sounds are made up of more than one letter. It can also help if you write these joined up and teach your daughter to write them joined.
Also writing the sound in a different colour help some children to remember.
Yes your daughter is behind and yes you are right to be concerned but she has you to support her and many children don't have that which is why they can fail.

PeacefulLiz,

I have loads of sympathy for you and your daughter - as have the other posters.

I do not recommend the easyread system. Please do email me and I can send you the link for my Early Years Starter Pack.

I have tried the pdfs in my unit 1 and they work fine for my computer.

Try not to be despondent, but you clearly have a good background knowledge about teaching methods and programmes, and I think that you will be the best teacher for your daughter at home if you can just take a deep breath and give it a fresh start.

Hang on in there.

[email protected] .

PeacefulLiz, you say "It's such a crying shame you can't keep kids back a year in the UK." - but have you actually talked to the school about this? Sometimes it is possible, even if they then have to "miss" a year to catch up later on, it can still be really useful if they are struggling with basics such as reading.

In my DD's year 2 class this year are 2 pupils who have "stayed down" from Yr 2 last year. At the end of this year, one is going straight up to Yr 4 (i.e. catching up with his original year group) and the other is moving on to Yr 3 with DD's year. In both cases, the additional year spent going over phonics etc has been really beneficial and will undoubtedly allow them to make faster progress later on with the basics in place.

I'm very much against keeping children back a year unless they are very delayed developmentally and will struggle to cope in all areas, as it can create far more problems than it solves

"I really wanted to respond to 'Peaceful Liz' on the Mumsnet forum but can't register (I assume they did not anticipate Australians wanting to join). If someone could post my response for me, I would be very grateful.
YM was the parent representative on the Australian enquiry into Early Reading and went through hell trying to get the right help for her son - so she knows a thing or two ...

The problem with DD is one of two things.

1. DD was taught phonics but taught so badly that she was confused and didn't immediately pick it up. Failure and embarrassment produces 'cognitive shock' which further reduces an the individual's capacity to learn. For more information about this circular process of embarrassment shutting down the learning process which leads to more embarressment, go the the Children of the Code website (if you haven't already found it) and watch the series of 'Shame' videos and then read the interview with Dr. Donald L. Nathanson - The Role of Affect in Learning to Read

How Shame Exacerbates Reading Difficulties . www.childrenofthecode.org

1. DD is a genuine, 'brain-glitch' dyslexic. While there is not yet an absolute way to identify 'brain-glitch' dyslexia from run-of-the-mill 'instructional casualties', it does exist and the research points towards a problem that the brain has in remembering sounds.

Regardless of which of the above two is the case with DD, the 'solution' is the same - good teaching of sound/letter correspndences. If DD has 'brain-glitch' dyslexia, it will take a long time and she will probably always have difficulty, but there is no alternative to phonics.

In a previous post, Liz mentioned 'alternative' ways to fix the problem. This would be like trying to fix, say, a deaf person's lack of hearing by giving them a glasses. The issue that has to be addressed is that this brain is having difficulty remembering the sound that correlates to the letter & vice versa. No amount of coming at this problem from another direction is going to address the core issue.

However, there are a few scientific studies that show a brain-glitch dyslexic brain can learn to process sounds with intensive synthetic phonics training.

If DD is a 'brain-glitch' dyslexic, then it is important to get an official label, not because the school is going to do anything different but because you will need this to get special dispensation (ie, more time in exams etc) in later years.

To work out if the problem is that phonics was taught badly in the first place, I suggest you use the DIBELS test. Skip the phonemic awareness testing and go to the testing of sound/letter corresondences. DIBELS can be downloaded free from this site;

dibels.uoregon.edu/

For kosher testing of brain-glitch dyslexia, you need real expertise, not someone who is part of the dubious dyslexia-industry. The only mob I know about in the UK are the Bangor Dyslexia Unit, Bangor University (UK)
www.dyslexia.bangor.ac.uk/research.php.en.

Kosher dyslexia researchers tend to be found in University Schools & Faculties in the medicine/ psychology/ special needs areas - not Education !!!

hi all im new to this but would like any advise please regarding my son who is nine and has difficulty with reading and writing he has not been tested for dyslexia but is being taught as though he has it. I feel that more could be done to help him perhaps it could be something else. Is there anything i should be doing?

mumsyofboys - I think you would get more replies if you start your own thread. Otherwise, people are likely to read the whole thread from the beginning and answer the original person's concerns and may well miss your question.