I've just been to parents' evening for ds.
All the children in the class have a reading record where they note down each book they have read and what score they give it. It's different to the record book we had last year that was brought home and parents could write notes in. This is just a sheet of paper that's left in school for the children to fill in themselves.
So, ds has 5 books on his sheet. We don't read every night but we probably do 4 or 5 nights out of 7. Also, we read our own books aswell as the school books. His teacher has said that 5 books is not nearly enough and that some children are on their 3rd sheets (20 books per sheet).
Later on in the conversation I raised concerns about ds' comprehension and how he has struggled with it since the beginning of school and I've always been told it was a lack of confidence. Ds went on a literacy booster last term to help with this (although at the end of it his yr3 teacher told me his reading had improved lots - that wasn't the reason for him doing it and I had thought his reading was average!) but when the teacher started looking through his notes today he said ds has a reading ability of a 10yr old!
So, on the one hand he's saying that ds is not reading enough books but the evidence is showing that he is 2 years above what is expected of him!
I'm not sure if all children are as competitive but ds' class are always trying to out-do eachother. I try to get ds to do project work and home work as independently as possible and then feel awful for him when other children turn up with projects that 'dad' spent the weekend working on!
I know it's none of my business what other people and their dc do and I should just concentrate on my own ds but I find it really annoying!!
Anyway, moan over. I know I have to follow the advice of ds' teacher by getting ds to read more I just think the system is a little off sometimes and doesn't always make sense to me!
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Primary education
Ds (Yr4) reading and a general moan!
mogs0 · 11/10/2010 17:01
He does a bit. He often brings home books with pictures and spends time looking at them too which I feel is acceptable. I think I might just get him to read to himself for 15mins before lights out every night after we have read his own book together. Why do you think your dc reads them slowly? I think for mine it's because they're not all that interesting! I do ask him to look for a good one when he's choosing!!
I'm sure the teacher knows very well who's had help but I feel like ds needs lots of encouraging (which I do all the time) and just seems to deflate a little each time something like this happens.
They had sticker charts last year and for each chart they filled they got to choose a prize from the teacher's stash but I don't think he ever got to fill his 
. I know he tries hard and I keep telling him that as long as he's tried his best then that's fine - I just don't think he believes me!
Well, I'm a bit 
about that too, tbh. Although, as ds pointed out, they haven't read 60 yet - just more than 41! Because that's a lot more plausible! He did ask if he could pretend to read some books so he could add more to his sheet.
Ds came home yesterday and said his teacher thinks he should be on a higher reading level but won't let him move up until he has quite a few more books on his sheet .
I don't know whether to have a word with his teacher about it (because it just doesn't make sense to me) or whether I should just ask ds to bring home more books and accept that I don't agree with their method but, as that seems to be the way it they do things in this class, we should just tow the line.
i don't really understand this obsession with recording every book a child reads. I understand it for scheme books, but why for everything else as some schools insist on?
Genuine question, i'd have thought it'd take the fun out... Just another example of bureaucracy? Or however you spell it 
DDs primary school had a 'reading challenge'. It may have been great for the book-gobblers, but it really put DD off - made reading seem like a chore rather than a pleasure. It was the only area where she ever got 'unsatisfactory' on her effort grades. There were too many other things she wanted to do, and I read her good books at bedtime so she was getting plenty of exposure but that didn't count. Neither did things like wildlife magazines or non-fiction.
Funnily enough, in the yr6 'Junior mastermind' - questions on half a dozen or so books - she got through the first round despite having not read all of them. And the second round... at which point some intensive cramming ensued and she won it
- obviously she'd understood and retained what she'd read better than the others. Her English teacher seemed mildly pissed off by this turn of events
Having said that, DDs spelling isn't great and I think reading more would have helped. Thankfully now she's at secondary with no 'challenge' she's happily reading for pleasure!
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