to be upset son in year 1 has moved down 2 reading book levels over the summer holidays?

[Mumofaboy123]

My son was on red level when he completed R year and was " exceeding " in reading on his report.
We kept up the reading over the summer hols apart from the last week as we were then on holiday.
He was assessed on his first day back at school and they have given him pink books :-(
The comment written indicated this was because he sounded out all of the letters in order to blend the word although blending was strong she said.
How do I get him to blend silently in his head as he said he finds that very difficult?
Not sure now if he should have ever been on the red book to start with but I'm confused to as what's gone wrong.
My mother says I should now get in a tutor - what are your thoughts?
He is my first and only child so I haven't been here before.

I'm a librarian and literacy outreach in schools and children's centres. I also have a 7yo who drove us to distraction with his nonchalance about reading. He didn't enjoy the school reading scheme, it took him ages to be bothered to read the things he brought home, and I didn't want to push him and put him off reading for pleasure.

I knew that when he needed to he would get his act together and read. I bought him these ( www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_specialOffersDetails_tbp?calculationCode=195414&categoryId=128706&topCatId=116707&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100 ) to read at home, they tie in with the levels with the school readers and which are much more fun content-wise for a KS1 child.
He read them all from beginning to end quite slowly, and then he read all of the second pack again quite obsessively. By the end of Y2 he was exceeding expectations with his reading, and he kept up his free-reading over the holidays by working his way through the Wimpy Kid books.

Your son doesn't need a tutor. He needs to find something he likes to read, that engages him, and then he will do it without thinking about it. A tutor is likely to do more harm than good.

I have bought brilliant graded reading books really cheap from the Book People and used them with my reluctant reader. I think it helps they are not the same as the school ones so there's no comparison, they can just read at the level they enjoy, or read a few easier ones if they fancy. I did set my dd to do 10 min every evening though, and if she messed about, we used to start the time again. One of the reasons she was a poor reader was she lacked confidence so would avoid it, so was poor, a vicious circle. Once she did regular reading at home, she leaped on. You don't need a tutor for this, unless you are a very poor reader yourself.

No I'm not a poor reader and work with books daily.
He hasn't got pink=anything from me.
He's 6 shortly after Christmas and is just aware he already had that book in reception - he may not have picked up on the colour thing if it wasn't the same book!
The comment from the teacher was that she have him that one as he was sounding out all the words so obviously I explained to him that he could try to just say the easier words he knows by sight next time he reads with his teacher.
He is reluctant with me with homework and such like so I wondered if a tutor would be helpful just for extra practise that's all.
Well that and many friends in his class have tutors in already and I don't want him to feel he isn't as clever as anyone else.

They may be old fashioned, but I use the Peter and Jane books to teach my kids to read. I find that the kids learn quickly with the repetition, particularly reluctant readers. You could try some of those for reading at home. The a and b books are focused on reading and book c encourages writing too.

His friends have tutors already?! That is very odd. Do you live in an area where lots of the Yr2s sit for 7+ assessments? Tutors in Yr1 is not a normal thing at all.

We have an okay state primary here very close to a very good 7-18 private school so I am assuming that is why?
We have no intention to use private education as are happy with the state option ( currently at least! ) but maybe this is why as well over half the class have once a week tuition, the parents are all very open with that fact and my son has picked up on the fact they all can read pretty fluently and wrote in full sentences that he can't

Tutors, for 5 year olds, for reading?

What kind of bizarre world do you live in?

urg. So much wrong with the school system. Putting pressure on a child's reading is the very worst thing you or the school could do.

My DD (about 3 months younger than OP's DS) loves rereading books she has seen before.....maybe highlight to your DS how great it is to revisit old favourites. Or point out how you can tell he has improved because he is reading the same things but so much better?

Nothing wrong with repeating...nothing wrong with coming to reading later than average, nothing wrong with sounding out loud. All these things are non-issues.

I thought the tutoring was odd - many had it through reception though.
My mum is a head of a private school and also thought they were crazy, until he was lowered now and now she is also worried about the pressure he must be feeling in group reading and wondering if a tutor is wise but I just can't get on board with tutoring a 5 1/2 year old!

Let him in on the tutoring secret.

When my the 6 year old came home saying Sid was really good at maths and knew all his times tables to 12, I said, "I know, isn't he marvellous, he practices them every day before school with his mum, they've done this for 3 years already, would you like to do that, too? You'd be just as good if we did that!"

He turned down my kind offer and knew he could get there if he wanted to. A year later he asked to drill them together, we did and he picked up in 5 weeks what we could have spend the 4 years since he was 3 at.

pax exactly! I mean why just wait till you are ready to learn something and do it quickly when instead you could spend the previous 5 years drilling it and get to the same place only way more tired, fed up and demotivated?

At ds's school I don't think they do this - they automatically put them on the colour they finished reception and it's also a requirement for them to re-read some books to assist with blending fluency. It's very un pressurised and they concentrate on the enjoyment of reading first and foremost, including comprehension of the story. It suits ds, and us as parents. The school is very successful in getting children to read and most leave above average.

I dont want him to feel pressured obviously, I am just aware he is noticing he is not able to do something the majority of the other class can.

We signed up for Reading Chest - they post you books out at whatever level of Oxford Reading Tree that you specify. DD was expected to read all 40 blue books before being allowed to move on - even when they were plainly too simple so school reading books were a hoop to be jumped through and reading development took place at home. She was reading Narnia at home before she actually got off the levels at school! It also meant that when she spent several weeks 'forgetting' to change her reading book we had a constant supply of new books at the appropriate level. That was, if he's happy reading red books he can carry on doing so , just using the pink books to prove a point to his teacher.

OP the single best thing you can teach your son is that learning isn't a race. We (in the UK) have it embedded in our culture that it doesn't matter what you learn so much as how fast you get there...we value speed over depth even.

It is bull shit.

This idea really harms people later in life when they have the idea that they have 'reached their limit' or panic the first time they don't get a concept immediately. I teach undergrads and some of them are so very fragile when they can't understand something right away. I actually used to give a lecture explaining that learning isn't a one shot pass or fail thing...but something you can keep trying at. It is something you can build slowly towards.

If you can convince your son that getting there after everyone else isn't actually a negative at all...then you will have equipped him with a very important life skill and perspective for the future.

fast learning =/= deep learning.

If there are other parents tutoring at such a young age, you are surrounded by a group of very anxious parents.

DD got below average in maths at the end of yr3. I'd been telling dh I thought she wasn't progressing well but he wasn't bothered so we left it (maths is his job as he's taught it). Now he does an hour or so a week with her at my insistence, which she enjoys. She will soon catch up. The difference is DD is in yr4 and coming up 9 so I believe now is the time to start thinking about ensuring she has a good grounding in all her subjects in preparation for secondary school. But there is no pressure.

At your sons age, if he doesn't want to do his homework, I wouldn't force it and would have a chat with the teacher.

It's down to you to manage the fact that he is disappointed others are higher. We have had this with DS2. It took a while for him to catch up in Yr/1. Then he was always comparing himself with DS1 who is very academic and musical. We had to work really hard to ensure we told him we were pleased with what he achieved and convince him it was fine and irrelevant what others do. It may be that your DS needs to work on what the teacher is saying and then will fly through after that.

My DS is generally ok with the reading struggle but still gets disappointed now and then especially as other children can be so boastful like for instance on the way home his friend kept going on about moving up to the reading level above him (1 level FFS). Bizarrely after me posting the other day on this thread saying I suspected he was dyslexic, school told me yesterday they are referring him for an assessment.

Tutors for 5 year olds. Dear God. Sounds like a great way to destroy a child's natural curiosity an instinctive desire to learn.

Have a look at these:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37422429

www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en

Totally agree that reading should be pleasurable first and foremost. If it's knocked his confidence, there's nothing to stop you using a higher band book at home after he's read his school book. His new teacher will soon move him up once she realises he's flying through the books.

The alien adventure books that Gerda linked above are brilliant. Slightly tricker per band than standard ORT I found but my DS still loves them now at 6 and he's almost at free reading stage.

Please don't get a tutor just yet. Not because there's anything wrong with tutoring, but because he may think it's because there's something wrong with his reading level.

Just a thought as well but have you taken him to the opticians recently for sight checks? The school checks are very much a screening tool and we take our DC for their NHS sight test every year.

I don't think your mum is helping you keep a balanced perspective on this.
Even in a private school children can be given all of the resources and opportunities for reading from the age of 3, but just as in the state sector for some it will click later than others.
Maybe you could explain to your DS that you sometimes read books that you have read before, maybe if he wants it encourage him to read off scheme at home. Look at the internet comics different books, share the reading books, get him to read some of his baby books.
Don't get a tutor because at his age that is sending out the wrong message.
But most importantly respect his pace, reading is something he will do for the rest of his life there is no point in making it a tense show down over the colour of a strip on his book.

He is very inconsistent
He will go from knowing the word " said " straight away on every page one night to not knowing it at all, even to blend the next.

he is a tiny young kid! Of course he is not 'consistently' reading. Leave him alone - and let him learn at a normal pace

Do you realise that across Europe children his age are NOT IN SCHOOL - they are NOT learning to read - they are simply playing ALL DAY. And do you know that those children are BETTER readers/ writers/ higher achievers at later stages.

please for the love of god stop worrying about his reading - you say in one breath that you aren't putting pressure on but you are very clearly panicking aout the way he is reading particular words.

Why on earth would it matter what pace he learns to read? Who cares? If he enjoys learning to read he will get there - if you make it stressful he will internalise the idea that all that matters is being better than other people.

God the education system in this country is AWFUL - setting kids up for a life of misery, competition and stress.

My DD used to do the same with words. His brain is taking on massive amounts of information everyday. The rule always used to be reading by 7. Your ds will be fine. And will do much better if you relax.

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/20/grammar-schools-play-europe-top-education-system-finland-daycare

OP - read this article about the Finnish education system - there is no formal reading or writing until 7. They are much, much more succesful at educating children than we are.

I read with my daughter's y1 class and it sounds like he's doing fine compared to her cohort, although probably in the bottom half, not exceeding IMO. Her class ranges from only knowing a few letter sounds and no blending all the way up to gold level. I would speak to his teacher if his confidence has taken a knock and make sure she's aware of it though.