to believe that kid's should read to their teacher/TA everyday?

[sparklyjewlz]

given today's news that 1 in 10 boys leave primary school with the reading age of a 7 yo.
When DS1 was in primary this happened. He's now 18, so that was a while ago. By the time DD (now 13) was in primary this had dropped to once or twice a week. Not sure why. Squeezed out by other government initiatives probably. DS's reading came on in leaps and bounds.
This seems a simple, basic, achievable target.

Mrs Mellow - where did you hear that children in state schools bring in £4000 a head? I think in primaries it's just over £2000, a bit more at secondary.

Clearly the basic premise should be that children are taught to read at school, with extra practice at home. Where the practice at home doesn't happen, it's hard to plug the gaps - I know that at my DC's school chldren who are not heard at home are heard at school, not every day but when staff are able to. Parents who do hear their DC read at home complain bitterly about this though (well - I don't! - but gossip on the playground is fierce, it's seen as very unfair)

our primary alterantes literacy day and numeracy day so probably does reading three times a week (so not every day) and uses parent volunteers every day for this as well as the TA.

Results at the school are way above national average (even with an above average prportion SEN) and the school is graded 1 offsted report.

Perfectly possible to have good literacy within national curriculum literacy and numeracy is weaved into virtually every subject in the curriculum in order to maximise exposure.

I would say that paretns are very engaged too which obviously makes things easier.

From my father, ClenchedB, who was head of governors in a primary school. Please do point me to some figures if I'm wrong though - just tried googling, and didn't come up with much...

I teach Reception, I hear all children read once a week but parents are given the option to come in and change books more frequently if they wish to (as long as they are chosen from the colour band they are working within). Guess what, the vast majority don't. Reading with an adult at home and being read to frequently are what really counts. YABVU to expect teachers to do daily 1-1 reading, it would never be feasible.

It's hard to look up because it varies quite considerably. But am sure that our school gets nothing like 4k per pupil!!!!!!

Hmm - according to our Council website, the budget per child in our primary is just under £3000. The school is popular and oversubscribed and most classes are full or nearly full.

A primary down the road which is undersubscribed due to having a 'bad' reputation has a budget of over £5000 per child, presumably because of smaller class sizes. So yes, it looks like it varies a lot and the factors aren't straightforward.

Cazzybabs - "the question is is reading important enough to prioritize it over everything else?" I would say yes (shoot me down in flames!)
lulurose- I agree that it would be v. difficult/impossible for the teacher to listen to all the children everyday. I am suggesting a rota of teacher/TA/volunteers.

In the school ds will be going to in September they have the best YR6 readers listening to the younger age groups (who need more practise) reading during registration times.

Ds1 reads at school twice a week normally, and reads at home everyday. I am very happy with this arrangement. Not so happy though that due to TA being off sick at the end of last week and ds1 being sick at the beginning of this week, he has not read since last Tues, so over a week ago. I asked this morning for them to change his book today as I know they will not have time for reading today as it is the last day of term and lots going on. I felt horrid asking but really think he needs a change of school book for the holiday, although we will share lots of other books at home. He is in Reception.

DD did read daily at school throughout infants - but she was in a class of 15, so much easier to deal with.

But in a state schoool of 30 children per class it is just not logistically possible ime.

This is why it is essential that parents listen to their children read as much as possible, aiming for a few minutes every day or at least every other day.

That way school can teach the skills required for reading and parents can help consolidate these with practise - bit like when you learn to drive as an adult :)

BeenBeta, your sister left school long before the National Curriculum was introduced- it was part of the Education Reform act 1988, and was brought in by a Conservative government.

Not exactly "borne of misguided left wing ideology"

Long-time lurker here, but I could not ignore this topic! I'm a year 2 teacher and I have 30 children in my class. I usually hear them all read twice a week, the less able children more frequently if at all possible.
To do this, I miss break times and some of my lunch (if I'm not running a club). It is HARD and I feel guilty that I'm not hearing them often enough, but there is literally no other time. I've had parents complain that their child's book has "only" been changed twice that week.
Someone said they used to stand by their teacher's desk and read aloud. I'd be interested to know how many teachers actually sit at their desks nowadays. My class has FIVE different ability groups ranging from the P-Scales (not even L1) to level 4. I am on my feet the whole time introducing new skills to more able whilst supporting the less able. My TA only works in the morning and there's no way I'd send her to hear readers when she is much more valuably employed working with targeted groups. She also does intervention for the three 7-year-old children who are unsure of basics like the alphabet!
Today's classes are huge and there is an incredible range of abilities to be accommodated - requiring teachers to be available, not tucked in a corner reading. Parents should be listening to their children read as often as possible, and 90% of the time it is the children who don't read at home who are the least confident readers.

tethers thanks - i thought it was 1988 too! I teach secondary so have no specific primary knowledge but do know that OFSTED would absolutely fail a lesson in which the teacher sat at their desk with a succession of readers while others "got on". Thats assuming they did "get on" and didn;t need help or discipline or a wee or anything else! TAs are great but seem to be heralded on this thread as the answer whereas on others their overuse is castigated. It HAS to come from parents primarily - and can you imagine the CRB checks needed if the army of volunteers descended on the schools!

tethers - yes you are right the National Curriculum came in during 1988.

I have though just read something that astonished me and I think explains why I feel so viscerally against the National Curriculum and the so called 'child centred learning' that underpins it and which certainly became dominant during the 1970s and precursored the National Curriculum.

It was that 'child centred approach' that my sister experienced at Primary school and the former old fashioned 'passive' approach that I experienced. My old Head at Primary was almost at the point of retiring so he had no time for 'child centred learnng'. To him a child was an empty vessel to be filled. The new Head who took over when my sister joined was very young and had been trained entirely in the new 'child centred' approach.

I just came across the Plowden Report of 1967 and a later retrospective review of that document by Bridget Plowden herself. She explains that people misunderstood what the report said about 'child centred learning'.

"We wrote that we 'endorsed the trend towards individual and active learning and "learning by acquaintance" and that we should like many more schools to be influenced by it.' Yet we gave a warning 'We certainly do not deny the value of learning "by description" or the need for the practice of skills and consolidation of knowledge'... 'Even as children differ, so do teachers. They must select those of our suggestions which their knowledge and skill enable them to put into practice in the circumstances of their own schools'. This was possibly not emphasised sufficiently."

It clear we threw the baby out with the bathwater and got rid of some old learning methods that should have been retained. That is how I feel. It has gone far too far to child centred learning and we need to bring back some of the old methods such as reading to teacher and rote learning.

As previously said, it isn't just about listening to reading though is it, it is checking for comprehension and the other skills required to be a competent reader. That takes time, and a little training/knowledge. I have read with plenty of children who can read technically, but ask them to say what they think of a character, what a word means or what happened to Laura that was so terrible they wouldn't be able to tell me. Those are all important skills.

Reception class dd is in have been heard max twice this term at school. Despite this dd is making huge progress, much more so than ds at this age, who was heard more frequently.
I do wonder about others in the class who do not have her motivation, however.

sparklyjewlz - then the teacher should hear everyone read once a day!

Our school expects parents to read with kids for 10 mins a day and I agree with this approach. TA/Teacher and parent helper usually read weekly and also change books. It works very well, most of the kids went on to free reading very early.

"I have though just read something that astonished me and I think explains why I feel so viscerally against the National Curriculum and the so called 'child centred learning' that underpins it and which certainly became dominant during the 1970s and precursored the National Curriculum."

BeenBeta: the NC was a right-wing reaction to the child-centred learning of the 1970s. To suggest that it was based on it belies your lack of knowledge in this area.

It was created to do exactly what you suggest and combat the child centred approach by standardising the curriculum. Hence the title.

You can be against both the child centred approach and the NC, but please don't confuse the two. They are borne of completely different schools of thought (pardon the pun).

I think you may need to do some research...

So what needs to change then?

If you accept that teachers cannot read with individual children regularly, and depressingly many parents won't read with their children regularly, and the current methods are failing a significant proportion of children (I am really horrified by the statistics given out today).

This is not a rhetorical question. We surely can't think it's OK to go on like this?

As teacher resources are so thin on the ground, it seems to be pretty important to support parents to help their children read. My DC's Reception staff have always been good at communicating with parents via parents' sessions, and also providing handouts on phonics and letter formation.

They also give out a new reading book whenever one has been ticked off by the parent as 'read at home'. So this could be up to five new books a week. This is heavy on admin so there is a parent rota to change the books in the schoolbags each morning. If the teacher notices that a child hasn't had a home reading book changed for a while they will gently remind the parent about the system.

Of course some parents won't ever bother to look at things that are sent home, and others will teach their children to read whatever the school do. But in the middle of the spectrum there is a set of parents who aren't unwilling, just busy or whatever, and need clear and frequent reminders of what their children are learning and what they can do to help (myself included). From experience I would say that this is also really important.

(Not to say that large class sizes isn't a problem which needs to be addressed in itself, of course.)

Meant to say 'read individually with children frequently'

Haven't read whole thread, but has anyone mentioned the irony of the op's misplaced apostrophe?

beta, you are so far down the wrong path

I am also with the poster that says that if the school can only read once a fortnight or even once every three weeks then it should be supporting and encouraging the parents to do it at home.

My experience instead was that if asked about sending more books the teacher's retort always was "you can get some nice library books".

Great but not so great if:

• your child is a very early learner and it is so difficult to find accessible reading;
• you live rurally like we do and the nearest library is miles away and closes at 4pm in the week; and even so it only has two rows of "children's books"

Yes we can buy books and we do, but often you buy some and they are not suitable, especially for the very early readers. It would be nice if the teachers sent a list of suitable books one could source at the very least.