To think that all children should be heard reading individually at school everyday

[Reallytired]

My son's infant school no longer listens to individual readers. The arguement is that its very time consuming and it does not require a skilled person to listen to a child practice reading. Instead the children do group reading once a week with the teacher.

My objection is that my son's best friend's mother cannot read. She can't read because English is her fourth language. She is attending a remedial literacy course, but her six year old son can read better than his mother.

I think its disgusting that nothing is being done to give the little boy the individual practice he needs. I think that more LSAs should be employed to listen to children read. I agree it does not require a teaching qualification to hear reading, but it does require the ablity to read yourself.

I think that is sad. At most of the schools round here voluntary parent helpers go in to help hear the children read, I used to do it myself.

Reallytired - I do go along with the argument that it not the best use of schools' limited resources to hear children read individually. School is a group experience; in an ideal world, a parent or person in loco parentis should hear a child read individually every day outside school hours (and at weekends and in the holidays too).

However, there are obviously, as you point out, families that for one good reason or another (and there are many) are unable to do this. How should resources be directed at these families such that schools' resources continue to be used for the good of the greatest number?

Most schools rely one parents volunteering to hear reading. I do once a week and there is no way I can get through the whole class in the time I am there. If I push it I can perhaps manage half the class. This is a juniors class so they may not need such intensive help obviously... but I am the only parent currently listening to the children in that year. The teacher and a classroom assistant also listen regularly but tbh if they are heard once a week overall that is as much.

Maybe you could volunteer to help yourself as you feel so strongly about this? I'm sure the school would be grateful for any help

our school has helpers and TAs to do reading, but all children read to their teacher individually at least once a week. DS has more support and does more reading as he is dyslexic

once a week at school yes, but every day? impossible

And, I should have added, the children who are the best readers in my group are often those from the most underpriviliged backgrounds. In most cases their parents/carers do not listen to them read at home (and may themselves have literacy issues). The least able readers can be from homes where the parents do listen to them regularly and have a professional background. It's not always the children you think will struggle who do....

According to ds's teacher there isn't any space in the curriculum for the teacher to listen to children individually which is why it is so important to do reading at home and to volunteer in the classroom.

Am not sure what the solution is for the child whose parent has English as their 4th language. Maybe she could ask that the TA definitely listens to him every other day.

I don't thin it is neccessary every single day- dd's scholl read individually twice a week and that seems to be enough

Much as I think it would be great, I don't think it is realistic, unless you are paying for it at private school! My DD reads to her teacher once a week, either in a group or individually and also reads individually to either the teacher or the TA who changes her reading level book with her. I'm fairly happy with that given there are 30 in the class. I think it is assumed that parents should read daily with the child also, but agree that it is hard in the case of your son's friend. We have a couple of children where English isn't their first language and I think the LEA provided some additional support initially.

I work full time. Otherwise I would volenteer.

I think that governant should make the funds available to employ an LSA to listen to children regular who are are in challening circumstances. It would a be a damm sight cheaper than the children failing to learn how to read.

Considering the things that schools fritter their money on, I don't think it would be unreasonable for them to employ additional LSAs. LSAs are paid peanuts and there is a lot of competition for jobs that fit in school hours. I imagine that an LSA could hear a whole class read for about £30 or about £6000 a year.

6K might sound a lot, but when you consider that reading recovery for one child costs 2K then its not so bad. Or the fact that schools sometimes waste money to avoid their budgets being cut the following year.

It is truely unacceptable that 20% of kids fail to learn to read. It costs more than 6K to keep someone on the dole for the rest of their life.

What sort of things does your school fritter its money on, Reallytired? I can tell you that no money gets frittered at our school; every penny is agonised over and finds a good home. And every penny that can possibly be spent on classroom staff IS spent on classroom staff - but there never is enough money to go round.

Agree reallytired - children who 'fail' to learn to read for whatever reason may well cost a great deal of money to the taxpayer in the future. I read something recently about dyslexia, which quoted a survey of a British prison where half of the inmates were found to be dyslexic. When only 10/15% of the population are actually dyslexic, figures like that are pretty appalling and you would think that the government would act on them.

I work in a special school so the children do get lots of attention on staff. The children at the school I work at have quite a lot of one to one attention. I have worked in mainstream schools.

Examples of what I consider to be frittering money that happen in mainstream schools.

*Replacing CRT monitors which work with flat screen monitors, just because the CRT monitors aren't pretty.

*Replacing old computers that are just a bit slow. (And more than three years old)

*Some times software is bought and then never used in lessons. Generally this happens because of a change of teacher, or a change in the exam syllabus.

10/15% of the population may well be dyslexic, but some kids suffer from dysparenting. Or the parents might be dyslexic, but the kids not be.

Oh, yes another complete waste of money is the gifted and talented initative.

My son best friend is extremely bright, but I think he is being held back academically by his mum's lack of literacy skills.

I'm not even sure attending a private school would guarantee being heard to read aloud everyday.

In the era before TAs, I attended an excellent private prep with 14-16 in a class and we were not heard reading every day. I think we were heard individually, 121, about once a week/10days although we might have been up to the teacher that week to also do times-tables etc.

I expect to do this with dcs at home rather than relying on the school since I don't see how it's possible.

"I'm curious about what you think are "the things schools fritter their money on"???"

See my posts above.

My school has a fanastic team of LSAs. Recently they advertised a job and had a huge number of appliciants. They recruited a very talented person.

Its not that unusual to employ an LSA part time. Infact its a way that a school can avoid paying national insurance.

Yes YABU to every day. Our school relies on parent volunteers (of which I am one) and having been in that class the teacher and TA do not stop as it is. The things which you might consider money to be frittered on often comes from PTA fundraising at our school, not from the main budget.
I am afraid it is wishful thinking to expect the children to be heard every day. I think the group reading is a good way of the teacher hearing them under the circumstances teachers have to work in.
We had it clearly explained that the learning to read was a partnership between the parents and the teachers when dd started school. It is sad that this child is missing out though. On that YANBU. There is just not the money available I guess....

Actually I think there are loads of good TA's around.

I volunteer in my local primary school once a week (through a scheme set up by my university). I often hear individual children or small groups read. When I first got there, the teacher said it was simply a matter of child/teacher ratio. My (year 2) class has a teacher, a teaching assistant and a third lady who spends all her time with a little boy with SEN. The TA only works in the morning, and, from what I've seen, spends much of her time doing admin. There's simply no way they'd have time to hear each kid read individually. There are only about 24 kids in the class, but there are 4 for whom English is a second language and about 6 (different) ones with SEN. One of the boys' Mums comes in once a week, and I suppose she gets through about ten kids each time. But that's one day of five.

There are simply not the resources there for this kind of one to one time. I reckon each class would probably need two full time TAs to achieve this.

Tax rise, anyone?

It would take a tax rise, to improve ratios of adults to children, but long term benefit to the country would be worth it

There would be savings of not having to put children through reading recovery and prehaps there would be less need for support as the children get older.

The cost to the nation of adults who cannot read is very high. A lot of criminals have reading problems.

my mum used to hear all her reception children read 3 times a week, BUT she used her (and the childrens) lunch and play times to achieve this.
every day might be unrealistic, but at least twice a week individually should be achievable for every school now.
And without a doubt twice a week does not happen for every child by a long way.