To be fed up with primary teachers holding readers back due to ‘comprehension’?

Part of the problem is that sometimes primary school teachers themselves are not hugely literate (or at least not people who know what it is to read avidly for pleasure) and seem almost insulted by the idea that a child might want to read ambitiously and widely. (And this has always been so; decades ago I was told, at age 7, that I should be trying to get "nine year old books" out of the tiny school library.)

We don’t read school books at home, we go to the library and buy lots of books and read for pleasure.

We have quizzes about books, marked by a computer, to see if you read it ‘properly’. I disapprove entirely! I’m considering writing to the head actually, so will use some points made here.

The school we had trouble with reading wise was a state primary. Supposedly a very high performing one. But it had not been inspected for a decade, had high staff turnover and the head had lost the plot.

Your teacher sounded quite old school @WimpoleHat . I’ve found individual teachers in state primary are often more competent than those in independent sector but the machine can crush their spirit a bit.

Have any of the diktats shared by previous posters come from independent schools?

@Medicimama Yes - my example was from an independent school.

There is a joy in words, in getting glimpses of something half understood. You can lose yourself in something that is too hard to fully understand but grips you and keeps you fascinated.

I think we have forgotten this joy in the pragmatism and the constant assessment of school. People end up reading purely as a skill not as a source of inspiration and joy. Even very young kids can feel the pleasure of good writing if they are given the chance- I still remember that from early childhood, when I was reading things I didn't fully understand.
So feet people read novels or poetry this days- they are intimidated by the feeling of not quite knowing what something means because that feeling is seen as something to hold you back.

YANBU to be fed up. Is there a penalty for not reading the atrocious school books? If not (other than not moving up their completely imaginary 'bands'), just continue reading to/letting your son read whatever he is interested in. It's reading itself that is important. It doesn't matter if it's a novel, instruction manual, recipe book or comic. I don't know why school insist on sucking all the joy out of every learning opportunity. I gave up even pretending to read the abysmal books sent home from school midway through DS's reception year. It was too soul destroying. He's now in year 5 and loves going to the bookshop and library, has favourite authors and enjoys reading/being read to for pleasure.

Comprehension is really important. I have helped in primary school with reading. Several of the ‘ best’ readers could easily skip a page or paragraph and not notice because they had no idea what they were actually reading! Your dc speech delay and the reading assessment method is something to discuss with the teacher .

My son was always held back. The books were so bland and boring that I really don't blame him for not being able to predict what happened next as there were zero clues! He is now excellent at reading comprehension

This is why I moved my DS to another school.
Similar story - a keen reader who was being actively turned off reading by an awful reading scheme and bone-headed school policy about moving through it. YANBU.

In our case they judged comprehension by a once-a-term test to see whether or not you could memorise facts from a book. Eg you’d be asked “what colour ball did Jack like best?” If you couldn’t remember (and you weren’t allowed to refer to the book to check, proving that this was about memory not about reading) then you were kept on the same band and the same five or six dull, too-easy books for another whole term.

I even offered to help fund a new reading scheme for the school but this offer was rejected by the head, so we gave up and moved school.

Of course comprehension is important, but if the child is being forced to read the same books for a year, it's obviously not working and all it's doing is turning him off reading.

We were a bookish family so constantly bought and borrowed books for my daughter, but she still felt demoralised and bored being given very basic readers at school.

And yes @FishChipsandKipper I agree with the poster above. Take your boy to the library regularly, or if you want to buy the books, take him to a bookshop and let him browse and choose. Buying books on line really isn't the answer

@FishChipsandKippercan I please recommend that you don’t order books online for your son? Take him to a library, and let him choose for himself. Online shopping cannot give a child the sense of awe of standing in front of rows of books and being allowed to look at them all, pick them up, flick through the pages and choose whichever one takes your fancy.

Stay in your lane seems to be the message here for lots of our DC. Have any of the diktats shared by previous posters come from independent schools? I moved my DC after several years on the governing body when I realised school couldn’t and wouldn’t cater to DC who wanted to strive for more as that would ‘widen the gap’ between social classes in the school. Their idea of differentiation was doing a harder worksheet while the rest of the class engaged in a lesson pitched at ‘their’ level. No spontaneity or drive to ask the rest of the class to explore a harder question for five minutes along with the more advanced DC.

Final straws were when prerecorded English lessons during Covid - using examples DC were meant to follow - included misspelt words and grammatically incorrect sentences.

And when year 3 DC asked why the earth’s core was hot when it was furtherest from the sun and her teacher told her to go away and Google it…

Unfortunately this is a fairly common issue in schools and I’m not sure you are going to be able to get round it without making your complaint to someone more senior in the school. Even then it’s a bit hit and miss.

You may manage to get them to agree to sending home more than one book. One matched to his phonics/decoding level and one to where they think his comprehension is. Obviously you can work on any comprehension skills that are an issue with the harder book but it may be easier to get the school to agree to this. Failing that, you might need to go to your local library and check out their early/beginning reader selection (if that’s the sort of level he’s on).

I would complain about him having to read the same books over and over, and carry on reading your own books at home. The library is great for this so you don't have to be continually paying out.

Can you ask the teacher what kind of questions they ask and then practice that with your son at home using a range of books?

And are you really saying that your son has never read any books apart from the ones that he gets from school? Get down to your local library and let him choose some books himself!

I have never heard of another school doing this and I disapprove in the strongest terms. To the extent that I would consider changing schools

My DD had a teacher who did this in year 2. Completely turned her off reading. We did move. A lot of the time it was just “answers I approve of” too - she didn’t spend enough time discussing the book to get a real understanding of what the child had taken from it. The final straw was when she announced that DD “hadn’t understood” a book that we’d marked in her reading record the day half term started because she couldn’t instantly remember the intricacies of the (rather mundane) plot when randomly put on the spot a week later.

Obviously in this case it’s wrong because the OP’s child can show comprehension in other ways-but usually, comprehension is surely the most important part of reading?

The reading book is just one book, children can read as many books as they want from the thousands available to buy or to borrow.
The school reading scheme is like having swimming lessons, repetitive and structured to make sure all skills are learned and embedded. Swimming lessons are once a week, the child can go to the swimming pool, the sea, as many times as they want and play and have fun, but in swimming lessons they need to work through the steps.
School reading schemes are rigid because they progress through all the necessary skills to be a fluent and competent reader as an adult. It’s easy for children to look like they are reading fluently but to be missing some of the higher comprehension skills. Many adults cannot read properly and this has a huge impact on their life chances.
Being able to answer a multiple choice question is not a good measure of comprehension.

What an exemplary way to strip any pleasure out of reading! Your poor son, how demoralising. I would definitely buy your own books, but I’d also be tempted to flag this to a different member of staff? Is there a literacy lead/head of key stage/ senco? or even the head?

There is surely a framework that allows children to progress through reading stages? A teachers gut feel that stagnates a childs development for an entire year does not seem to be an appropriate measure for progress or indicate it’s working very well. Also, if she has not allowed him to progress for that long, she should surely have introduced some intervention steps to help him by now

Obviously the whole point of reading is to understand what you have read.

I think i have understood you and the issue is your child's speech delay means he has to demonstrate understanding in a different way to the teachers expectation.

Can you email the senco and explain that and ask if a SaLT can make some recommendations?