A little advice from primary school teachers please.

[cascade]

Ive posted before about dd reading books. Well we have just had parents evening im still a little unhappy with the answers given.
Before I do this are there any teachers who could give me a little bit of advice.

DD is currently working at at a level 2a and is been given ORT stage 6 books. These books are far too easy. We talked about this at parents evening and dd teacher stated she sometimes forgets full stops and capital letters so she cannot be moved up. Is this correct?

I have since found out that the KS1 co-ordinator for literacy will not allow teachers to progress the children on. All children must read certain levels in each year group. This explains why dd gets about 30 odd books for each level. This also explains that the teacher was very vague with us when we asked questions about the reading.(she is not the KS1 co-ordinator) Is this normal practice in primary schools?

We are going to see the HT after half term, but 1. I want to get my facts straight and 2 dont want to come across as pushy. But this has been going on nearly 2 years and I feel it is time to say something.

[jeffily]

Reading schemes vary so much from school to school, it's hard to say really what might be happening here. It does seem ridiculous that the KS co-ordinator would effectively hold children back- they should be given books that match their ability not their age! How did you find this information out? It sounds a little unlikely to me, so perhaps someone has misunderstood the system and passed on incorrect information. Of course, you want your DD to be making progress with her reading- is the problem that she is not reading with expression? (ie taking note of capital letters and full stops in order to put the emphasis of her reading in the right places). Perhaps you could ask what her targets are and check that they tally up with this and then work on that for a while, using these easier books. Sometimes a teacher might keep her on an easier book to allow her the freedom to just be able to focus on this rather than be trying to decode all the time- which can detract from the flow of the reading.
I would say that sometimes what a parent gets reading wise at home is different from what a teacher sees at school- there may be distractions around in the classroom or the teacher may provide less support when reading. I am sure that your DD's teacher is not deliberately under challenging her.
My personal feeling is also that she is getting the reading from those scheme books at school- if you feel that they are not enough of a challenge then get her other books from the library and read them with her. You can still read the school books and fill in her reading diary, but you can be working through more complex books together as well. As long as she is making progress and you don't feel that she is standing still or underperforming, it's not up to the school what you read with her at home.

Hope that helps a bit. Reading should be fun!

[trickerg]

'...she sometimes forgets full stops and capital letters ...'

I think jeffily is right. I think the teacher meant that she was missing punctuation when she reads.

How do you know that your daughter is working at 2A?

[cascade]

Someone who works at the school told me apparently last year there was many an argument over it (although obviously I cannot use this info to HT)
What I mean in full stops and capital letters, this is in her writing not reading.

I asked at parents evening what level she is currently working at.

[bosch]

cascade - my ds1 was allowed to skip a few books in y1 but not in y2, when he was finding them very easy.

It seemed to depend on the teacher and on whether there was something that it was felt he 'needed' to read.

If you feel that teachers don't seem to appreciate that your daughter is bored or unmotivated by the stage of the reading scheme she is on, it seems reasonable that you should be able to express this to teacher or HT.

Bear with it, when she gets to the end of the reading scheme, your dd can choose what she likes!

[primarymum]

I think it is totally ridiculous to expect a child to read every book the school holds at a specific level, if a child can read fluently, with intonation and expression and with understanding of direct and inferential content then they should be moved on. However there are some Literacy co-ordinators who have a different view ( I had one like that and I just said they had read the books even if they hadn't)
However, if that's the system you have to deal with, then, as jeffily says, simply go to the library and find some stretching books your daughter wants to read. Skip through the scheme books from school and concentrate on the more challenging books from the library.