Dear Carly, quick post, go for the 'bilan orthophoniste' loads of French kids go on a weekly basis! My son aged 8 remembered letters and sounds from school in England, he spelled everything phonetically in English and was too worn out to sit and write in English. All our bed time stories were in English. I started 6 months ago spelling out words on his back before he goes to sleep, that he had to guess, we are now up to whole sentences, he does it on my back and his spelling has much improved!!!! Its a nice time of closeness, relaxes him and improves his spelling!
Haha, my nine year old corrects me on that. From just under 8 to almost 18 I lived in SW London where 'H' is almost always dropped and it is highly likely that 'first' and 'thirst' will always be 'first'. I sometimes slip and do an F for a TH and the young woman's eyebrows raise as she tells me "Daddy, your English is less than correct today" or words to that effect in flawless Oxford English. Having been in Wales from around the time of her first birthday until coming here aged a bit under six where does that come from? This is a child the CP teacher believed needed speech therapy!
Our older daughter's is Gretchen, but then again she works in a town in an area with a particularly high number of English speaking people. On the other hand it is a very long way from you.
My Daughter was diagnosed as dyslexic in CP, went to a good Orthophoniste, You need the bilan, as it is sent to the education authorities. My daughter was awarded a third more time in all exams including Uni, she is now 29 and a Teacher. Whilst she was at Uni, she give Soutien to Lycéeiens with associated problems.
PS keep numerous photocopies of the Bilan to send out, gard the original.
When we first moved over here, we were told exactly the same thing regarding our son in CP and our daughter in CE2. All of our children are bilingual (French dad, English mum) and we had no concerns at all regarding their progress and learning - afterall it's a big change especially for those children who have already started their schooling in the UK. I was very sceptical about the whole thing but having talked it through with our local GP, we agreed to send our son to an initial assessment. Luckily, the orthophonist was sensible and came to the same conclusion as us, that it was purely a transitional issue and after one more appointment a few weeks later, we were signed off! We declined to send our daughter through the same rigmarole. Both of these children are now doing very well at collége and are in the top of their classes. I never cease to be amazed at the number of children in the school here who are constantly shuffled between medical institutions via ambulace for one reason or another. In my experience, the French here are too ready to want to "medicalise" everything and often incorrectly label minor problems - you can then get sucked into the massive institutional machine. So my advice would be to be wary and rely on your own parental instincts as to whether or not there is really a problem. On the positive side, the services of orthophonists seem to be fully reimbursed so if you have any concerns, it could put your mind at rest - just make sure that you remain in controm of the process! Good luck!
My older daughter is Down Syndrome, therefore went into a CLIS. She is now just getting back to where she was in Wales four years ago integrated in a normal class. That has little to do with your question, but wait. Our younger daughter went into CP. She had almost no French since we were just a few weeks here before school started. My wife is fluent in French since she studied in the language, lived in the Francophone part of her country for years and my own French is not the worst (or best). So she had a) just a few words, b) no French école maternelle, c) was a shy foreigner and d) because of her sister assumptions were made.
Within a week an orthophoniste was suggested! It was suggested that with the influence of her two year older sister her speech might be backward, which would impede her ability to learn. Having never heard such nonsense before we being social scientists who specialise in childhood studies had a good search for data or publications that might support that view. We found nothing in a range of languages, went back to school and had it out with the teacher. She called in the psychologist and there was a meeting. Once the psychologist had all the facts on the table about our daughter being deadly shy, no French when she arrived, 'rejected' by all but the other new girl (French but moved to the area so that they were sat together) and being very articulate and already reading and writing in English, the idea was thrown out. She suffered terribly because she had exactly the same homework as the others, sometimes far more than would be reasonable for a six year old to begin with and was exhausted from the school day to begin with.
By Christmas she was conversational, by Easter she 'adopted' French as her first choice language, at the end of the school year she came second in the class. We both dislike class ranking because it creates stratification that sets 'moulds' into which children are expected to fit. In fact, she has done just that. She is almost permanently second or third, despite her mother's Italian accented French and my gibberish at home she speaks a very 'posh' French, reads and writes much the same. In the end there was no need for any intervention, orthophonist or other.
Ironically, her big sister did not have speech therapy suggested until into her second year at the school.
If there is any problem such as a slight dyslexia or similarly inhibiting condition then speech therapy will be advisable later. To even suggest it during the hardest, most challenging and stressful school year of all is absurd. Unless children are allowed to develop their skills during that year and return refreshed to CE1, then perhaps when a child is settled in a fair assessment can be made. I would suggest the teacher's pedantry you mention is demanding too much, it certainly sounds a bit like our own experience at that stage. A large pinch of salt but with an open and objective mind and you will be better served, your son more so.
Hi Carly. Sorry to hear your son is having problems. My daughter had very similar problems , but these were picked up later, due to us living in China and her attending french school there! I agree with other comments that if his teacher advises a "bilan ortho-phonique", its because she feels there is a real need. Sometimes these problems arise with bi-lingual kids, they are taking in a helluva lot of information at an early age and they may just need more time to assimilate everything. I feel that it is very important for your child to have a good relationship with the orthophoniste (and you too). If not, find another one! My daughter went for sessions for 18 months with her first one(who i personally didn't "feel") with virtually no positive results and my daughter hating going. We found another one, who was very dynamic, understanding and fun, who pin-pointed my daughter's problems very quickly and the results were fantastic. My daughter loved going to these sessions and her confidence and school results improved dramatically. Good luck!!
My son is also in CP, but has had all his schooling in France. He has seen an orthophoniste on 2 occasions. Once when he was 3 and he started to stutter. The orthophoniste was concerned that his articles were not as good as she would have expected for a child of 3. Both his teacher and I totally ignored her! We had seen the le/la confusion with his brother. However, now in CP his (new) teacher and I have been monitoring his reading which is very slow and labourious. In January his teacher wrote us a note explaining some of the sound confusions that he had made that day, which were quite bad. He has a lot of b/d confusion and now p/q confusion letter reversal and heaps more. I googled (as you do) his symtoms and found that there is a chance he has dyslexic tendancies. In France they will not say a child in CP is dyslexic as they have to be 18months behind in their reading which would be at the end of CE1. He has now had his bilan which while not dramatic has shown up areas that we, his teacher and his orthophonise can work on - starting right back with the alphabet. He also has short term memory issues. As both his orthophoniste and his teacher use the same reading method he now goes into soutien with the children from GS for some intensive, but basic sound revision. We also got his eyes tested and as he said the words moved about the page we changed the colour of his reading, and expirimented with overlays and now coloured lenses. With the orthophoniste he plays games. Up to now I have not done any english with him as I believe that it is important to let their "scolastic" language bed in first. He now wants to learn to read in english and having talked to his orthophoniste we will probably start this during the summer and using a phonics approach. My elder son started to read in english by himself but using his french phonetics! It was funny to hear him. The feeling we have is that he is just at the beginning of his education and we need to give him as much support as possible. The Bilan will take about 1-2 hours (over several sessions) and then other sessions are just 1/2 hour. Personally I think you should have the bilan done and perhaps take the pressure off him by reducing working on english for a while. Be aware that you may have to wait several months for the bilan. We were lucky there was a new orthophinste that is just setting up and so we only had to wait a week. The last time we went we had to wait 3 months. So perhaps make the appointment and monitor the situation - you can always cancel it.
Hi Carly. I shouldn't worry. Our daughter went to the orthophoniste for five years (up to 11) and is now absolutely fluent with a perfect french accent. The orthophoniste also offered to help her with maths problems too. We also have friends who still send their children at the age of 14. I think you will find about 50% of the class has support from the orthophoniste. We took it as being free english language lessons - perhaps it will substitute for the private lesson you already have therefore not cutting into his free time. The orthophonistes I have come across are all very sympathetic and are only there to help. Your doctor will give you a prescription.
I can't add much more, particularly with respect to the therapists making it a game, which could also turn him on to working harder in general. I can only add that I've been living in France for almost 10 years now, and I still can't remember how to write sœur (Thank you Firefox autocorrect!)!
Sounds just like my French friends kids who moved to England so they had the same problem, backwards! Her middle child who is the same age as your son had to have lots of extra tuition and extra lessons which all got too much for her on top of her sporting activities. She moved the after school lesson to Sat morning, kids that age are always more receptive in the morning. Then they have all weekend to enjoy. A speech therapist will be able to teach your son in a less pedantic way and they are usually fun sessions. He should progress really quickly and even pick up tricks to remember certain sounds. Certain sounds in French are hard for English mother tongue kids to pick up as they are almost the opposite to English e/i o/au etc. Its perfectly natural that he takes a little longer to grasp them as he is still learning to read and spell. He sounds as if he's doing very well but be very careful that he doesn't get over frustrated, and that his teacher isn't overly critical. A quiet chat with her after school might help to explain that your son needs encouragement and is starting to get anxious. Good luck to him, it will all sort itself out over time.
Hi there Carly, my daughter who is 15 has been diagnosed this year as dyslexic having completed a series of tests with an Orthophonist - our only regret is not having gone through the formalities earlier - She started French school when she was 9 and we had long suspected she had a systematic problem with listening, recalling and spelling though thats really difficult to isolate from the problems of learning a new language. My advice would be to put your son through the tests sooner rather than later - The longer you leave it the more likely you may encounter problems with getting the bilan accepted by the school system - in our experience, they really dont like making concessions to students - and we had to fight hard to get her diagnosis accepted by the collège.
Everything you say makes sense, I have a little boy of that age and quite frankly he is exhausted by the time it comes to homework. He does much better on a Saturday when he is not so tired even though he has gone to football, Wednesday he does nothing except play. As your son is having extra lessons, 2 lots of sports on Wednesdays and English lessons, he must be dead on his feet. I taught my daughter English in GS and we have restarted now she is in CE1 - before then I thought it would be too much and my thoughts would be to drop the English for now as is he is making amazing progress but it may be, at this time into the school year, just be proving too much for him. It is generally accepted that CP is one of the most challenging years in the French school system.
It probably wouldn't hurt to go ahead with the test anyway, just to confirm that nothing is wrong, then you can catch up with the English during the lengthy school holidays. We use Black Hen Education for my daughter which is working out very well.
Carly, sorry I am not able to help, but I wanted to say I agree with you, it sounds like he is doing really well already. I am sure one of other SFN parents has been through this and will share their experience or one of out teacher SFNers.