Hello, I am new here so will tell you a little about what is going on. My 6 year old son is in the 1st grade. After the 1st six weeks of school we had a parent/teacher conference and was told that he was very low on reading. His reading level was a 4. We worked very hard with him and studied and after the 2nd six weeks his reading level was brought up to a 9!! We were so proud. Well here we are after the 3rd six weeks and we are again told that he still needs assistance with reading. Teacher is concerned becasue he has trouble with certain letter groups for example, ou, oo, etc. and recognizing the sound these letter groups make. The speech therapist at school just tested him and said that he did really well. (Don’t have the official results yet)So, the teacher told me yesterday that since he did well on his test that she is going to talk to the school nurse about testing his vision?
My DH and I are just so confused! DS does really well reading outloud at home but teacher says he doesn’t do well reading outloud at school, and that he doesn’t do well in dictation. DH and I just need some advice! We think he does extremely well! No concerns in Math, he writes a little sloppy ( he IS a boy!) but his spelling is great. He recognizes high frequency sight words and always makes great scores on spelling tests.
I dodn’t do this type of work 22 years ago when I was in the 1st grade and I feel like a lot is being put on these kids! There are a lot of adults that have trouble spelling some of the words he has to write for dictation. example: amusement, employee, yesterday.
Any help or advice anyone can give us would be a great help! The teacher is already talking about holding him back in 1st grrade again and I just don’t agree! Please help! We are so confused that he can be above reading level for his age yet still she thinks that something is wrong!
Concerned Parent, I don't know what to do ! Please help
I think your instincts are right on. This does not sound like a kid who needs extra help or has any LD but he may have some anxiety about reading out loud in front of the class. For the dictation, is he having difficulty because he doesn’t hear the word correctly or are these words just unreasonable for 1st grade or maybe the teacher just goes too fast? Dictation can have so many reasons for not going well.
It doesn’t hurt to get his vision checked BUT the school nurse will not be able to do a thorough job. School testing only consists of the standard eye chart testing which doesn’t catch any vision issues that may be up close.
Re: Concerned Parent, I don't know what to do ! Please help
The eye doctor is a very good start. The eye doctor has a test designed for young children before reading starts. I took my dsylexic 2nd grader to the optomitrist. He conducted an extensive eye exam. It tells whether the eyes are functioning properly with the brain. At least you can rule that out now.
Frankly, first grade and not knowing all the vowel digraphs is pretty darned good in my book. Hey, it can’t hurt to have his vision checked but - jus tmy free opinion and worth the price - I think your gut instincts are right.