To get annoyed at the level of book dd sent home with

[Leena49]

Dd has gone into year 2 and her first book to read this week was so easy and most of all boring it was laughable. Afterwards dd said check some difficult words with me mum and I couldn't find one word that would have been challenging.
Can teachers not send kids home with books that match their reading ability? I'm not a tiger mummy but I just think its a pretty basic thing to get right.

We can all enjoy reading easy books! There does seem to be an obsession with levels.

The excuse about having to assess all the children and get to know their levels should be unacceptable in any decent school. We have app and stringent assessment guidelines and the previous class teacher should be passing on all relevant information. Apart from pupils who are new to the school, the teacher should start the year with a pretty good idea of where the pupils are.

There may be other reasons for giving a lower book, in which case I'm sure the teacher would be happy to discuss that with the op.

I'm a primary teacher, trained in Ireland, and the whole reading level thing baffled when me when I moved to the UK. Parents seem to be absolutely obsessed with it, to the point where they forget that reading is actually supposed to a fun enjoyable activity, not a drill exercise. If you're not happy with her school book, let her read it once for the sake of thoroughness then get her other books from the library. It doesn't matter one fig what level they're at as long as she has someone around to help her with difficult words and to explain any concepts she doesn't understand.

When I was teaching and parents used to complain about school books they used to look baffled when I suggested going to the library, as though it was some weird new-fangled idea. It was bizarre.

Just to add, they weren't necessarily complaining about the levels, which were usually right for their children, more about how boring the ORT books etc tend to be. I tried to explain that that's because they're levelled readers written by people with no writing talent whatsoever. They're a teaching aid, not the be all and end all of reading. The idea of readers is to prepare children for reading proper literature.

Don't you have books at home? Read one of those and chill out to fuck.

I was trained in England, CailinDana, and the obsession with reading levels baffles me! I am also astounded that parents don't use the public library - I loved it as a child. Sticking to reading the book that comes home from school, and worrying about the level, isn't going to produce someone who loves reading.
A new teacher should have the records but I would still want to assess them myself before I gave a book. I would err on the side of caution and give them one below their abilities to begin with - better than frighten a sensitive DC by giving them one they can't manage.

I found they always gave easier work when school went back in in the fall. I think it is to get kids back into the swing of things.

This is brilliant. We get at least six books for four pounds a week, usually more if I'm quick off the mark getting them back in the post.

You could them for free in the library + the advantage your DC gets to choose.

CailinDana PLEASE come and teach my children...
I'm not sure how being laid back is doing your child no favours OP. My experience is to the contrary. I started off being pushy, and realized that that attitude of mine was going to make school into a very stressful experience for my child. I chilled out, but I didn't completely leave it- Just concentrated on making learning fun, letting DS choose his own books, writing comic books instead of essays etc.
However, that's just my opinion and experience- You obviously feel differently.

FWIW, this has happened to DS this year. He has been given an easy book in which he has no interest. I'll make a note in his reading journal that he finds it a bit unchallenging and boring, and though he'll still read the book, I have a library book he can flit back to.

That's brilliant CreepyWee (Do you mind if I call you Creepy Wee?) :o

An involved parent is really great, but one who automatically thinks the teacher is failing if everything isn't exactly how they want it is really obstructive and unhelpful. Creating an antagonistic relationship with your child's teacher is a really bad idea. Unless the teacher is patently useless it's best to assume anything they do is for the best and that any obvious mistakes are just that, mistakes.

I think Irish parents would be a bit if any book at all got sent home in the first week. It's pretty much understood in Ireland that the first few weeks are for settling in and getting back in the swing of things, and formal work falls by the wayside until everyone is back on their feet. It seems to be more common for parents in the UK to expect work constantly, which is unrealistic when so much setting up and getting ready needs to be done at the start of term, all of which is for the child's benefit.

Reading levels are a guide to help you and the school have an idea where your child is at but it is not a rigid 'this is what your child has to read' so I second/third/fourth that let her read the book, mark in her reading log how she found it, then have her read another book of her own choosing.

They is to read, to practice, to keep doing it. And not just harder books, different books - long books with chapters, short stories, factual books, atlas, poems, plays, comics. It is about having fun.

And children have steep learning curves. DD has just been put up 2 levels at school after an accurate enough assessment at school, possibly not quite right but it did not matter. Over summer DD has gone on leaps and bounds on her own with no school books and has jumped enormously with her comprehension. The books she has now are still too easy, so we practice saying the characters' lines with different tones, talking about the story, what is going on, what is her favourite bit, character and why. And then we read our books from home. And she LOVES magazines now moshi monsters.

I rather like it IawnCont

We prefer to keep DS (5) on a level he is comfortable with because for us, and him, confidence is key. He is autistic and goes to a special school. They have their work cut out developing his social skills in large-group situations. He won't be able to utilise his academic ability without that so reading is just something we can do ourselves.

We do buy a shiny well-written book every couple of weeks for our own sanity and he has started to read them with us and to himself. He quite likes the formulaic reading-scheme style though, and often doesn't pick-up on what Biff and Chip are actually up to as he doesn't "get" jokes or implied things so they challenge him in other areas as well as just decoding words.

Reading books are not about big long word they are about understanding words and how stories are put together, leave her challanging words to her spelling words where she will be challenged

I volunteered at a school a while ago and the amount of kids who could read a book and then when you asked what they thought of the story or their favourite bit would look at you like your head had exploded. Sort of a 'what story?! ' look

Needless to say I had to work a lot on comprehension

My niece struggled a lot with this but could read the hard words, they just didn't form a story in her mind iyswim

When she read to her dad he used to always try make sure she followed what was happening an then they made a fake newspaper with an article about the book as if it happened irl

That helped her loads and loads as she was thinking as she read the sentences as opposed to just reading the individual words and them bouncing away

When she read to her dad he used to always try make sure she followed what was happening an then they made a fake newspaper with an article about the book as if it happened irl

this is genuis her dad should market the idea to schools
, I do think there is to much emphasis put on 'big words' 'hard spellings' and the point of reading books is lost, DD2 can't spell for toffee she has some LD but understands stories and has a great imagination ,

too* oops my spellings are a bit off too

I agree comprehension is a massive issue. Even in year 6 a lot of children of average ability and even above have huge problems answering even very simple questions about a text - they read word by word and don't keep track of the meaning at all. That's why it's important to get children to read a wide range of books, because it develops their notion of story by getting them interested in different narratives.

Mine's just gone back into year 2 and they were able to choose a book on their reading level at the end of year 1. Don't think they've been assessed yet but don't see why they can't just do this. Seems odd to me.

Why were you "not doing her any favours" by being laid back? What extra advantages is your daughter now availing of thanks to your pushiness?
Truly bizarre thing to say...

It's not bizarre to me!
I'm not going to go into it in detail because it needs explanation and my experience on here is that there are always a batch of people ready to have a go whatever. Let's just say it involved PTA mums who were happy to use my dd as a scapegoat. It took a more intuitive teacher to actually get to the bottom of it and now my dd is thriving. Now I make sure that I am very proactive.