Keen to try for Grammar school but underperforming in yr3
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:14 pm
My eight year old has been caught up in the 11+ process and talks a lot about wanting to follow in his older sisters footsteps and to go to a grammar.
I really admire his enthusiasm but am struggling to know what to do for the best with managing his expectations.
Despite being one of the eldest in his year he seems to be one of the lower performers, his reading age is below chronological age and spelling age over a year below actual age. His writing is very difficult to understand, even if he copies something it bears little resemblance to the text he is copying, with multiple different spellings of the same words.
We wondered if he might be dyslexic so after discussion with the school the SENCO went through the 'Aston test' with him. He had very high scores in most measures, coming out at around age 11 so 2-3 years above his chronological age. The only low score was in 'Auditory Sequential Memory', this contrasted significantly with the other measures but actually was only a little below his chronological age. They say that he doesn't have a dyslexic profile.
We're not really sure what to do now, obviously the 11+ is a long way off but we don't want him to build up his hopes over all that time if he has no chance of qualifying. At the same time we are sure he is pretty intelligent so feel we should do whatever we can to tackle his under performance and help him do the best he can (whichever school he goes to) but don't really know what or how. We have lots of workbooks at home and extra spelling/writing materials from school and encourage him to do what we can but it can be a bit of a battle!
Any advice?
I really admire his enthusiasm but am struggling to know what to do for the best with managing his expectations.
Despite being one of the eldest in his year he seems to be one of the lower performers, his reading age is below chronological age and spelling age over a year below actual age. His writing is very difficult to understand, even if he copies something it bears little resemblance to the text he is copying, with multiple different spellings of the same words.
We wondered if he might be dyslexic so after discussion with the school the SENCO went through the 'Aston test' with him. He had very high scores in most measures, coming out at around age 11 so 2-3 years above his chronological age. The only low score was in 'Auditory Sequential Memory', this contrasted significantly with the other measures but actually was only a little below his chronological age. They say that he doesn't have a dyslexic profile.
We're not really sure what to do now, obviously the 11+ is a long way off but we don't want him to build up his hopes over all that time if he has no chance of qualifying. At the same time we are sure he is pretty intelligent so feel we should do whatever we can to tackle his under performance and help him do the best he can (whichever school he goes to) but don't really know what or how. We have lots of workbooks at home and extra spelling/writing materials from school and encourage him to do what we can but it can be a bit of a battle!
Any advice?