Schooling Central

I am unsure how to help my child in English at home. Firstly I was really bad at literature when I was young. Secondly I did not speak English until I was about 17. I feel I am not bad in English after my graduation from University (after so much learning and essay writing), but I am not the one to judge. I suppose I am pretty sure that my English isn't very good in the eyes of native English speakers. The Americans told me that my English was good but it sounded "foreign". Certainly I also have some different cultural points of view.

When my child started school, she was not seapking much Englishl. She had 1 year preschool before that where she learned a bit of English. As she was shy and would not speak up unless she was sure, it did not help. At that time she had a teacher who was not patient. She pushed my child to try "her best" and say "anything" when the child did not know a written word. This pretty much messed my child up. She came home and could not read properly. She would just say "anything". Therefore chicken became "chocolate"; frog becomes "fog"; and so on. She was pretty messed up. It was pretty much a horror. So I decided to teach the child at home. I started her on phonics and basic sounding out of words. It corrected the problem after a few weeks but I realised it was going to be a long road.

I continued to help my child but I did not read to her because my reading was OK but wasn't "proper" like a native English speaker. So I decided to leave the reading to teachers at the school. I helped her on comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and a bit of writing (my worst area when I was young). Eventually at the middle of year 3, she has reached a level comparable to the good English performers in her school. After UNSW school competitions in English comprehension, spelling and writing, I guessed that she ranked between 5th - 3rd among all the Aussie kids in year 3 in this area. There was no doubt it was a hard and slow road because she did not speak much English at the start of the schooling.

From year 3 to year 4 (now), she has improved enormously through her own love of reading. We bought her lots of children story books. I think she manages the improvement pretty much by herself and through learning other subjects. I helped her to learn what she loved. She likes cultures, adventure stories, geography, ancient history, science, philosophy, arts, jokes, current affairs, movies, internet online games, ... She just read a lot and I asked her to look up in the dictionary or ask me when she did not know the words. She read the whole Harry Potter set and a lot of other children books. I also bought her one vocabulary enrichment book for year 3-4 and a couple of crosswords books. She also reads stuff on Internet like girls' sites and Total Girl magazines ... Right now I guess she is probably ranking overall 2nd in the school among kids in the same year and 1st in comprehension and grammar. She is pushing the 85% mark consistently in English comprehension tests and competition papers for grade 5 even though she is now in grade 4.

There is no doubt she has worked hard and done well. By now she is approaching the limit that I could help her. I can still help her in grammar and general knowledge of English, but no more than that. I suppose she can handle it on her own now. English is still her worse area comparing to her high performance in the others. I can see that she is heading into an academic future that will be extremely competitive, and I am pretty much useless to her as a resource in English. I have no intention of hiring tutor or sending her to coaching in any form.

Is there anything I could do?