Reception kids who can read and write

[notanoctopus]

My DC (reception) can write and read to a basic level. How do teachers make sure that all kids are challenged? Should I be asking teacher or leave it in current environment?Teacher does do extension activities e.g. class writes to five, extension activity is writing to ten, but that's not going to challenge DC either. Any tips or ideas? It may be that's just the way it is in reception. Thanks

Our school mix a couple of the weekly maths and English lessons between groups of reception and year one children based on ability

I would ask about it but reception is about whole child teaching, so it's great he can read and write but does he understand place value? Does he have phonics knowledge- diagraphs, trigraphs etc. Know all tricky words for reception? How about the rest of curriculum? Physical, fine motor skills, knowledge of world? How is he socially? Honestly lots of children in reception can read and write especially the older ones but have a look at the curriculum and see what areas he needs help in. If hes struggling to get himself changed for PE or make friends I wouldnt worry about challenging him in counting.

Dd could read and write in reception although she's in Year 1 now - so much if her year r was in lockdown. At this point they did ask her to do quite simillar things to the class to check she was doing it properly eg forming her letters correctly. How it was set up was very child led though, so dd could extend herself as much as she wanted. There was very little work that was directed to the extent 'write the number 1 - 5', it would be much more open ended.

Both mine could read and write in reception... DD1 was reading chapter books and writing stories. DD1 was in a mixed reception/year 1 class so was allowed to do the year 1 work. DD2 was given extension exercise but also I found it was useful for her to have all the phonics firmly embedded, even though she could read fluently.

What do you mean to a basic level? The majority of children in my daughter’s reception class can read to a basic level and lots of them can write a simple sentence.

Having had a period of isolation, I’ve now seen how they differentiate for different abilities.

Eg
General task: try and build mat using pre-printed letters. Extension - child write mat themselves. Extra- child write a sentence with mat in it.

There seems to be a lot of drawing with an extension being to label the pictures.

I’ve seen pictures where some of the children are just writing the first letter of their name and others doing drawings better than an adult. I’m amazed by how reception teachers seem to manage such a large range of ability while doing crowd control.

To the best of my knowledge he is not struggling in any areas and has made friends. Preschool taught him the phonics side, diagraphs, he knows his tricky words etc. The worksheets he gets sent home with are v similar and some are the same ones he got sent home from preschool with this time last year. School don't mix reception and year one.

@ratacat I don't know how teachers do it with such a range of abilities. I certainly couldn't. I guess if he can comfortably write a sentence, that's not challenging him either though.

I was wondering about this today. An acquaintance is a primary school teacher and taught Reception last year. A few of her pupils were still in nappies.

How do you teach a class when a minority of pupils can already read, some have limited speech and are not toilet-trained, and the rest are somewhere in between?

Ours learned to cope with being bored sometimes and worked out how to occupy their brains whilst not distracting others. They came off reading schemes and did choosing books from the library, so could find books that they found good for them.
They did get some extension activity but mainly that was at home and through extracurricular stuff.
Given an opportunity to use imagination and self directed learning, can come up with all sorts of good ways to put their brains to use - from counting the number of squares in their maths exercise books or trying to count their teeth to finding words inside words on noticeboards or translating easy reading books into French.
Bright children can fill their minds very well.

I think you just have to go with the flow really. Many children won't be reading or writing do they have to start at the beginning. There's no need for them to be able to do anything before they start school other than look after themselves and recognise their name. Continue reading with your child at home and keep reinforcing things. It's a bit early for more challenging stuff as most of reception is learning through play.

There’s no harm in asking. I would ask the teacher how your child is doing and how you can support his learning at home.

Stop focusing on what is challenging your son and focus on what he’s learning. Children don’t have to be continually ‘challenged’ in order to learn.

They are reception kids. They should be learning mostly through play. They don’t need to be ‘challenged’ at this young age.

I agree that he doesn't need challenging. Just keep reading with him at home. He'll be learning much more than you realise at school.

There's 1001 different things for children in Reception to be getting on with. Most tasks are open-ended and children can take them as far as they would like.

In the reading corner they have free choice with all the books. They can read whatever takes their fancy. They can use the non-fiction books to do their own research and write about whatever interests them.

In the writing corner they can write words, sentences, stories, or entire books if they wish. Those who can write sentences can learn about punctuation to go with them. Those who can write a lot of sentences can learn about using paragraphs.

They have a role play area and a construction area to let their imaginations take them where they would like to go. There are arts and crafts if they want to make pictures or something connected to their topic.

Outside they have toys and equipment to help them with their motor skills. They will also be learning about how to get along and how to follow the rules.

My DD started Reception being able to read pretty much anything. She and her classmates (now KS2) were recently reminiscing about their Reception year and they all agreed it was the best year by far. :o

I really wouldn't be too concerned about extension activities in Reception.

My DS could read and write really young. His school had the bright children on a table together and were given more challenging work. As DS got older he mentored another child who at 9 was still struggling with reading. It really helped them both and she was soon up to speed.

Reception is mostly play with a little bit of sitting on the carpet listening or at a table writing.

Some children will be at the art table painting stick people and having a go at writing their names, another will be writing a whole story, while another will be busy creating a robot out of junk.

Reception really isn't about sitting at a desk writing what the teacher tells them to. There will be a little bit of that, but not much. It's all about children's independent work in their play.

If your child is able to write, he will have lots of access to pens and pencils, notebooks, clipboards, post-it notes etc for him to write lists, letters and stories during his play.

DS apparently used to gather his friends around him and do his own story time. They learn how to occupy themselves. DS mainly just goes to school for the opportunity to socialise.

My son is due to start school this sept and can’t even write one letter, he can’t even copy one written out and wouldn’t even know where to start with reading!!

I think let 5 year olds be kids as that’s the most Important thing, he’ll spend the rest of his life working hard and being challenged

@OverTheRainbow88, I was the same when I started school. My mum had tried to introduce me to reading and writing, but I wasn’t interested. In reception, I still wasn’t interested and kept trying to escape from my reading group to go and play. I got into trouble for scribbling all over my work book with red crayon.

However, by the time I was eight I was doing better than average at English. At secondary school I ended up in the top set (just for English, alas, for maths I was in set... um...four).

Ours learned to cope with being bored sometimes and worked out how to occupy their brains whilst not distracting others.
Very sensible!

Do they get homework? DS1 is I think average at reading/phonics/writing I usually extend the maths homelearning for him.