I've been into dd2's school a few times to help with reading and I'm quite shocked. Well over half the children in this reception class don't seem to readily recognise individual sounds or know how to blend them together. I'm talking about kids on L3 ORT that can't recognise all the letters in 'stop' or sound it out and kids on L2 ORT that can't read 'can' or 'red' and seem stumped when asked to identify the sounds within the word and then when I sound out for them have limited ability to work out the word.
I ended up doing alot myself with dd2 so she is making very nice progress but even if shes OK I don't want her in a class of weak readers and I'm pretty certain the majority of reception children should be able to do this. They have all been taking reading books home since Christmas, its a school with virtually no children from stereotypically difficult backgrounds, lots of parental support but very few children are beyond ORT L2.
I asked the class teacher afterwards if she wanted me to ask the children to sound out words they didn't recognise and she said 'Oh Yes'. I said that lots didn't recognise letters and found sounding out hard and she answered that its a very hard skill and needs lots of practice.
The funny thing was that this week the assessment file for one boy that could recognise hardly any sounds or soundout was open at my desk and I could see that the teacher had ticked the chart to say he knew all his lower case letters!
The head at the school has been very defensive and unhelpful when other reception parents have raised concerns this year and I suppose the governors would listen to her and the records which I'm guessing say the children know their letters.
So the thing is I'm pretty certain I'm powerless in this situation...
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bad reading teaching -am I powerless?
34 replies
camicaze · 12/07/2010 13:51
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