possiblt dyslexia and spelling tests - dd utterley miserable

[bojangles]

Hi - DD is in year 1 and has been having problems at school. She is very bright but she is reading ORT level 3 but making ok progress and has been struggling with her writing. School have been pretty good and the SENCO had been involved and they were looking at assessing her. Her spelling and writing aren't great - she does lots of reversals, sometimes full mirror writing and she generally gets very fed up about any writing she has to do. Now today I'm really cross - she had her weekly spelling test and in the past she had been doing ok as the words were really easy and they seemed to be quite generous as to whether she got the correct spelling - today she had 10 words all with the 'gh' sound and she got 0/10 - all the children who got their spellings correct got a sweet and she was just left feeling fed up. So she was upset about it after school and then when I checked her reading book there was a comment about how she hadn't learnt her spellings this week! Not doing much to boost her confidence. On top of this I have realised from her reading book that she was seen 2 weeks ago by the SEN woman who visits to assess from the council and school didn't mention it to me. DD says she went into the office with her and did reading and spellings - surely you would expect school to tell me about this. Any advice? sorry for rant...

I'd have a word with the teacher also remember yr 1 DCs are v. young and we all learn to read and write at diff. ages. Sadly something that seems to have been forgotten. Don't worry.

School should have got your permission before an external agency came in to see your DD - although hopefully her visit should be positive in providing more info re: your DD's difficulties and helping the school to support your DD.
Why not make a chart to record when DD practices her spellings - simple evidence to prove that she has. Also, speak to teacher about spelling lists - pointless to set prescribed words from a list for a child with spelling difficulties, and I feel that 10 words are overloading her anyway.

Letter reversals are developmentally normal until age 7 - 8. Full mirror writing less common at this age, but still not especially unusual. Try not to worry too much, particularly make sure that your DD senses that you are calm and upbeat (don't dismiss her worries, but reassure her that it's not a race and she will get there etc). You say that school have been pretty good, so hopefully you can get back to all working together to support your DD.

And now I'm waffling, so I'll stop.

Oh (sorry, still waffling!) I bet you've done this already but just in case - do get her sight/hearing checked out too, just in case.

Are school suggesting strategies to help with the mirror writing? - Green dot and/or arrow at the top of the page to remind DD where to start?

In Y1 the spellings should really be still related to the phonics programme (which should still be ongoing) so that the words contain the grapheme/s which the instruction is currently focussing on. This should make it easier for children to cope with spellings.

How is she 'learning' the spellings? Are the children taught to break words into their component sounds and spell each sound, or are they expected to memorise the letters (and letter order) in each word? The latter is much harder.

I'm worried by any school which is using ORT for a child who is not progressing very well with their reading...

Hi all thanks for your comments - should probably have checked my own spelling in my thread title - I'll blame the wine! I spoke to the SENCO today and just she said she will find out waht has happened and get back to me. We haven't really been doing spellings with her as the teacher had previously said not to make a big deal of it and the main thing was to boost her confidence. DD usually got them right anyway but I think they were covering and showing her the word and taking the best of 3! The teaching assistant has changed and this could account for the different approach.

Do you think it is ok for a school to reward those who get their spellings right with a cake or sweet when the ones who haven't got them 'perfect' miss out?

I'm trying not to be worried about DD and her learning as I think that she will get there in the end butI get cross when something happens to undermine her confidence as she is a sensitive soul and takes it personally saying "i'm no good at writing or spelling" which is I think really sad for a 6 year old.

MaizieD - which reading scheme would you recommend for a child struggling
?

Re Reading scheme; have you seen the thread I posted 'Decodable readers'?