Am I over thinking this - school related

[rbmilliner]

DD almost 5 is in reception at an Academy run school.
She seems to have taken quite well to reading and phonics and seems to enjoy it.
However mid term the school have decided to change the entire school onto a different reading programme and it seems like she's had to start from from scratch.

The books are ridiculously boring (ok I know the other one's weren't overly interesting from my point of view but they seemed to grab her attention) and have 6 words per page and we're being told to read a page day!

They are a drastic step back and she's being given books at the level she was at at Xmas.
The schools apparent explanation for the 'big swap' is that apparently it helps with writing but I can't help but think that as an academy it's been made financially beneficial for them in some way.
Am assuming the school know best but if I'm honest I'm not sure? Happy for those with more knowledge / experience to tell me otherwise.

There will undoubtedly be a reason for it however there is nothing stopping you continuing at home doing other work with her. I had the complete opposite with my DS, he spent years trying to catch up when he finally did they advanced everything a year which pushed him and a lot back again. I dont think the school will have much choice in the matter and is more likely to be a local education board decision. Just keep doing more advanced readying at home. Good Luck

Reading programs in school are like weight loss fads. They all promise great result and to revolutionise the process but the reality is someone somewhere is making money from a gimmick.

Just continue as you were.

Buy your own reading books for at home and carry on with those, we did this with DS as he just didn’t enjoy the ones school chose, we bought proper reading ones just from different ranges. Now our school use bug club and there is plenty of variety, I was put off by it being computer based originally but my kids love it

Have you spoken to the teacher about why your child is at where she is within this scheme? If they have just switched over it maybe they they just gave everyone a book and are waiting to see results? Could you ask about the progression? Does she have a reading record - if so can you record in this thay dd read the whole book really easily? And continue for each book for a week and then ask to speak to the teacher? You probably need to give them 2-3 weeks to cycle through the class in teachers hearing them read - and if your dd is competent she won't be priority at this point - but beyond that I would just ask.

If none of this works - yes just get her reading whatever she wants at home. You'll likely find the last reading scheme books in the local library.

That's what we've been doing really, carrying on with the bus phonics book but do you it will confuse her by conflicting with what's she's learning at school?

no it won't confuse her. Reading is reading and home reading is different from school reading as it's for pleasure! every little helps and if you force her to tead boring books she will be worse off.

wonderful parent putting so much thought into your child's education, she will be great!

No it won’t confuse her, reading anything at that age is good, even if it’s a couple of words out of their bedtime story.

The reading scheme she's doing at school shouldn't stop you from enjoying books with her at home. You don't necessarily need to carry on with her phonics based reading books that she was using before - it doesn't need to be formal! You can read her picture books or simple chapter books with her sitting on your lap so she can see the words, then at the end (so you're not interrupting her enjoyment of the story) go back and get her to try reading a few words or sentences herself. If she does that by sounding out phonetically, that's fine. If she does it by using whatever the new method is , that's also fine. Once kids have got the basics of reading, the rest usually comes fairly naturally.

Welcome to the new rules for phonics teaching in schools. It’s ofsted led and shit.

My son’s school phonics books live in his book bag and we borrow a lot from the library.

You can get a lot of the reading scheme books from the library.
My daughter loved to go and choose her own at that age.

Our school have done exactly the same.

Its massively dumbed down, the brighter more able readers are bored shitless and apparently they no longer read to the teacher any more.

You can get a lot of the reading scheme books from the library

This really depends on your local library. Ours is full of old style books,repetition of high frequency words, not much decodable.

Oh and the driver behind the current policies is post Covid closing the gap. Keep up not catch up.

Otherwise known as "lower the bar until all the kids can reach it."

Reading is reading. If the words aren't split into syllables or whatever then just carry on reading as much as you like with whatever resource you have.

DS is on a reading level that he finds ridiculously easy. The school won’t move him up until he passes an assessment and demonstrates that he can do ALL of the skills needed for the next book level. I find this odd- certainly when I was at school we were just moved up when we could read the level we were on confidently. It does seem to be the way that the phonics schemes are working now though.

I’m just buying books from the band above his and we’re reading them instead. Surprise surprise- he’s absolutely fine with them.

We are at the other end of primary, but just pay lip service to school reading.
Ww do the minimum they ask for, and do our own thing for the rest. Pretty much done that since the start! We read whatever they are interested in, and have picked from the library. It's not usually school reading book style stuff!

Second hand bookshops are great for picking up first readers too if you have any. Also a lot on Amazon to buy second hand. YANBU. We read outside school schemes a lot as it's so good to nail it early.

Her longer term interest in reading and vocab will probably be far better advanced by reading her more complex books to her, giving her (age appropriate) new worlds, storylines, characters etc - which most likely you're already doing. Let her zip through the "easy" reading homework, build great confidence at her amazing reading superpowers.

Whatever reading scheme, it sound like she will get the mechanics of reading - she's well on the way to be being a good reader. She might get there slightly quicker with one scheme than another, but in her whole lifetime this really isn't worth getting stressed about. You probably do need a head wobble that's she's back to the level she was at Christmas (4 months ago).

Zip through the homework, use the saved time to read to her and engage her imagination in more complicated plots that will foster her love of stories.