Auties transition to Year 1 - thread 3

[LightTripper]

This is the continuation of the thread for parents and carers of autistic children in reception year at school, going into Year 1 in the autumn. All welcome (also parents with older or younger children who want to ask questions or share their wisdom!)

Welcome!

Ds is funny, so he knows the word GO but add a T on the end for GOT in his book he says GO - T said like GOAT bless him. He does that a lot with words seems to pick words out of words.

Oh forgot to say open we haven't broken up from school yet either! Think our ds' finish the same day.

Not that I'm complaining..... I was going to ask his 1-1 this morning if by any chance they offered boarding school for the school holidays.

And if not why not.

I’ve been showing him the picture cards from Twinkl (I got these to try and sort out the b,p,d confusion). He was saying all but a couple that we were working on so last night I showed him the school cards with just the letters and for most of them he looked at me and said ‘what does it say?’ I think I’ll try the picture cards again a few more times before testing him without. He did get a couple right and for another couple he said the letters separately.

Are your level 1 books the Jolly Phonics ones?

Over the holidays I’m going to attempt some phonics, writing and maths each weekday (maybe alternating phonics and writing), knowing it won’t happen every day. But only a small amount, a few minutes of each so nothing onerous. I’ll try and mix up what we do. I bought some unifix blocks and an abacus for some maths work and have printed some mats from Twinkl for shapes and fractions. I’ve printed two so I can laminate and cut up one for matching.

Ds went into school today after 15 mins of sitting on the grass outside. Tomorrow I’m going to take him at 9 once everyone else is in. I think the other people coming in and out were bothering him today.

And the writing TUI is great!

You’d miss him if he was boarding

Happy holidays everyone! DS is very excited about starting school after the holidays. I didn’t think he “got it”, it can be so hard to figure out what he understands what with his language being so jumbled and full of echolalia. But he does seem to be saying things that suggests he understands, either that or he’s just repeating back what people have told him!

I’ve been meaning to ask, does anyone have any app recommendations for numeracy and phonics? I don’t mind paying for them but there’s such a load of crap out there! Things I hate and want to avoid; patronising American accents and comments (too risky DS will parrot them back!), capital letters, endless matching activities...I’m sure there’s more!

Jeb we had reading eggs and maths seeds (both came in the package) it cost £6.99 per month on the apple iTunes Store but ds wouldn't entertain it after a couple of weeks.. so I cancelled the subscription after a couple of months. The child plays games and moves through the levels, I thought it was quite good and not that expensive really.

We have twinkl now, I paid for the twinkl extra bundle. You can pay monthly but it requires a paypal account and I didn't have one at the time so I ummed and arrrd and paid outright for the years subscription. A few of us on here have twinkl. I do find it useful as it covers every area of learning. You can usually find whatever it is you are looking for. You can print off the worksheets, assessment and planning sheets etc etc.

Interesting you say about ds and echolalia. The bulk of ds speech is echolalia. He's always been the same.

We haven't managed any learning tasks since breaking up on Friday. However, when I was reading DS his bedtime story last night he was reading parts of it (on his own initiative).

Jeb it's lovely that DS is looking forward to school. We have little writer app which you can set to phonics - they trace the letters/numbers/shapes with their fingers. DS has always loved that one.

Unfortunately the ipad is out of commission having being knocked on the floor (and smashed to smithereens) when I was in hospital. There's also a maths one from the Educational Appstore -Maths 3-5 that he used to love but I think that he needs to go up a level now.

Open I think that my boy could give yours a run for his money in the most reluctant to do mark making/crafts stakes! By some miracle I persuaded him to make two cards for school - they were v simple though! He comes out of school with some of the best artwork in his class (as TA effectively does it). I feel quite uncomfortable about it.

Danni that's great about TUI !

Just over 2 weeks until the cast comes off and I'm desperate to get us home.

Only 2 more weeks dimples, hang in there!

I couldn’t find thank you cards I really liked so I’m just going to make them so that it looks like ds may have helped. They’ll never know... plus Ds had already written his name in all the blank cards so that seemed a waste. One of them is rather illegible, I’m wondering if I need to write it properly underneath or if they’ll know anyway who it’s from

I took ds in later this morning and he went in fine. It should be a fun day today. I don’t think much work is planned. Hopefully he’ll enjoy it.

Jeb Reading Eggs is obviously used all over and popular. Ds’ old reception teacher recommended Teach your monster to read. We have both but I can’t say how good they are as he refuses to use them. He did use Pirate Phonics for a while but the interest didn’t last long. I’ll try them again over the summer but usually he just insists on YouTube if he’s on the iPad.

37 here, phew. Ds doesn’t want to go outside, good thing as I’m sweating just from putting the washing on the line!

Official first day of the holiday here though he refused to go in the building yesterday morning so we had an unofficial start yesterday!

He refused to put shorts on this morning. He’s now wearing his pj shorts which were acceptable . I’ve ordered him some linen trousers, he can’t wear jeans all summer, especially when it’s as hot as this. He’s never been fussy about clothes until this year, It’s a real pain. He’s still waking around 4 too, it’s been a week or so now.

On the plus side he’s done some work today and is in pretty good spirits. We’re just staying at home as it’s too hot to do anything. I’m not going near the car.

I hope you’ve all had a good start. Stay cool everyone.

It's been 29 here today open, but with a nice breeze.

I've taken ds to the park this afternoon to teach him to ride his bike with no stabilisers. He's been riding his bike for a few months and I thought I'd take them off and spend the 6 week holidays trying to teach him with no stabilisers. I wasn't sure how possible it would be as he's very clumsy and unco-ordinated but i set it as my task for the holidays.

15 minutes teaching later he whizzed off pedalling for his life with no further help needed

He's only allowed to be let loose on the park though and I'm having to jog to keep up

danni that’s amazing, well done him!

You’re near the coast aren’t you? Forecast for tomorrow here is 28.

Yes we are open.

We live a 5 minute drive from the beach. We have rain forecast tomorrow and dh just said we are expecting thunder. (I like thunder though as long as I'm watching from inside) reminds me of the day we bought ds home from hospital and we had a crazy thunderstorm, I remember feeding him his bottle by the window watching it.

I've got my sister coming tomorrow and we are taking ds to McDonald's which he eats far too much of and Saturday he's at a party at tea time and Sunday he has another party (barely any parties all year then 2 in the same weekend) and then not much planned for after that, what about you? What sort of work have you been doing with ds?

Do you have a tuff tray? I've just got one from eBay with the stand, I've seen some really good ideas on Pinterest what I can do with ds, might keep him busy. There are loads of learning opportunities to be had with it too, can't wait for it to arrive.

We’ve had a bit of thunder here this evening. Also had a big storm the night before last.

We don’t have a tuff tray, usually I just use a bowl on the kitchen table. I’m going to get a storage tub so we have something bigger. Although this afternoon I asked him if he wanted to play with oats and he said yes. I used my organic oats as it was all I had and he gave it a stir and then walked off. When he was younger he’d play with them for ages.

Today he’s done some mark making - pre-writing sheets. I’ve done a few bits of maths - halving, size ordering and one more, one less. We’ve done some gross motor activities and he’s basically climbed all over the house today. He did a bit of Lego which I count as fine motor skills. I tried to play a gruffalo matching game with him but he wouldn’t really play it properly, he kept turning more cards over. We’ve done lots of reading today too (me to him). On the flip side he’s also watched a fair amount of TV, he didn’t go outside at all

I’ve got a Kumon easy crafts book and I did the first one of those. He didn’t help but I figure I may as well do them in the hope that at some point he joins in.

All fine here. I feel a bit guilty being at work out of the heat (aircon!) but DD and DS seem to be surviving. Our nanny is off today so OH is taking them to a children's theatre near us and then for lunch. DS is very excited about having chips, but DD wants to go to Paul, so will be interesting to see how that one pans out!

We've got a birthday part on Saturday (in a park, and not sure what the weather is looking like ... hopefully it will be OK!) and then a friend coming for lunch on Sunday, so hopefully will be quite relaxing.

We haven't done anything educational at all and I don't think our nanny has either! Never mind. Will hopefully go to the Library at the weekend and will try to get DD interested in some readers. She's been doing a little bit of writing herself, but less than when she was at school, so might try to think of a project for her that would make her want to do some. Last of the butterflies flew away yesterday, so we need a new project! She's still very into minibeasts, so it will definitely be bug-related I think.

We have done nothing educational either. We've had some really challenging behaviour since the end of term. Yesterday was the first day ds actually seemed relaxed. He spent all day playing with magnetic blocks and going in the paddling pool. It was 38 degrees!

His part time nanny started on Wednesday and she's with him today so maybe they will do something a bit more educational. He's mainly just getting used to her.

I had his annual review meeting on Monday, which was good. The school are very supportive but I think everyone feels that maybe ds might need to move to a special school for year 1. The SENCO is going to starting hinting at it in the review documents so if we do need to move him the LA aren't taken by surprise.

How about making a little scrap book about mini beasts? She can draw some pictures and write their names and some facts and stick it all in. I don’t think you need to worry too much since your dd is not behind academically but you’re right, it’s probably a good idea to keep her reading and writing regularly using something fun to motivate her.

liv what happened to the idea of him repeating reception next year?
Glad ds is starting to relax a bit.

A child in ds’ class is repeating reception. She has complex health issues and has only been attending part time but I’m a bit annoyed that it wasn’t an option for ds. As far as I’m aware she doesn’t have any cognitive difficulties.

Ds’ teacher has peeved me a couple of times, nice as she is. In the EHCP review she said that she believed they could meet his needs next year but that it might not be the case in the future. We know that’s a possibility but I worried she was speaking for the school in that regard. By email she also said he will find year 1 a challenge, which we had also discussed in the review. I just don’t think the point needs to be belaboured. We have no idea how he’s going to develop. He might always struggle or he might make a lot of progress. I know we need to be realistic but I don’t want him written off before he’s started either.

Yes he's still repeating reception next year open, but we're prepping for the possibility that he will have to move for year 1 the year after.

Yes I agree it's very hard to listen to points like that being laboured the whole time. We are all very well aware of our children's abilities and we are not delusional so there is no need to bang on about it. Do you like his new teacher open?

Ah, I see. I’m sure he will continue to make progress then and hopefully be more ready for year 1.

I’m a bit worried we should have pushed harder but I honestly don’t know what the right thing to do is. Too late now anyway.

His new teacher seems nice. I think he’s fairly/newly qualified which worried me but he has worked in a special school and has been a 1:1 so hopefully that’s good and relevant experience. He told me he was excited to have ds in his class 😂

I think somebody who has been a 1:1 should be in a really good position to look out for DS's needs open if he has the confidence and resources to back that up. Fingers crossed!

open I was thinking exactly that! She can collect different bugs and do a drawing and find out about them. I just need to work out if I am going to buy her a book two write in or just staple some paper together and rule some lines on it for her ... that's probably more sensible actually - then it's flexible and we don't get a meltdown if a page goes wrong! I definitely don't want to push her along academically or anything, as I think she's in the middle of the class for most things and a bit ahead for reading - just want to try to make sure the transition back to reading and writing isn't a shock in the autumn!

How about some a5 pieces of card that you can punch holes in and attach with ribbon. Then individual pages can we worked on until she’s happy and it will still look special when she’s finished. She can do her drawing and writing on regular paper and cut and stick them in.

Hopefully he’ll be good Light. He was talking about TEACCH strategies so I need to read up on that. I initially heard about it from a specialist teacher at one of the groups we went to last year so it must be something they use at special schools, at least in our area.

The thing is I think ds is an auditory learner as well as visual. He takes in a lot of information from what he hears. I think he’s very bright but, obviously, he has some barriers to learning in the way a typical child would. The key is working out how to motivate him and the best way to help him learn. I’m not sure I’ve completely worked that out yet!

TEACCH strategies are great - it’s all about how to help children engage in the classroom and how to adapt the environment and teaching approach to suit their learning style, rather than trying to change the child and make them fit around the typical classroom. Great if you’ve got a teacher that is aware of the strategies - half the battle is getting them to understand they need to change their approach let alone getting them to actually do it!