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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be fed up with primary teachers holding readers back due to ‘comprehension’?

114 replies

FishChipsandKipper · 09/10/2025 07:36

DS was moving steadily through reading levels until a senior teacher decided this was all wrong and said no one can move levels until they’ve given ‘the verbal answers I approve of’ to show comprehension.

DS has now been on the same level for over a year and read some books 5 times.

DS has a speech delay, but can read well and answers multiple choice questions written down to show comprehension.

Do the school accept this? No. I’ve given up and bought my own reading books off Amazon.

Why do schools do this??

OP posts:
FishChipsandKipper · 10/10/2025 20:52

@Duechristmas

I’ve not heard of fidelity to the scheme, but that’s exactly what it is!

I can’t access this article but I bet it’s a good read!
https://www.tes.com/magazine/teaching-learning/general/sweet-spot-teacher-autonomy-and-war-against-fidelity
Brain gym drove me absolutely bonkers. I was sent on a £200 day course, and the wrath I faced if I dared to suggest that prioritising 10mins a day Brain Gym over mental maths was a ridiculous idea…
It’s fidelity to benchmarking. Rigidity. Speak this answer or stay on orange book band for evermore..,.

OP posts:
mrsconradfisher · 10/10/2025 21:03

FishChipsandKipper · 10/10/2025 20:42

@mrsconradfisher

The problem is DS has stayed in the same band for over a year, and is getting repeated reads of the same book as he has not verbally answered benchmarking questions as required. They have to get through 30 children, and I doubt this will be done again until next term.
The app he uses is multiple choice, but I sit with him when he selects and can see he is - pretty much 100% of the time choosing the correct answer.

Due to his speech, he often avoids answering questions or needs extra processing time. ‘I don’t know’ is often his verbal answer - but he wizzes through on the app.
I do think comprehension is sometimes a case of ‘guess the answer in the teacher’s head’ - and personally I think teacher’s go ‘overboard’ with the comprehension - in an almost ‘I know better’ way.

Bit like Scout in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ when you can tell the teacher’s ego is dented by Scout’s reading knowledge - and the teacher’s response is to ‘undo all the bad learning that has gone on’. Scout gets bored because she has to relearn what she already knows. Especially as Scout doesn’t ‘fit’ with the teacher’s latest fad, fashion or ‘learning method’.

I just want DS to have a new, exciting book that gives him a challenge.
Not to stagnate and read the same book 5 times until he ‘passes’ some benchmarking test that he will now have to wait another term for!

In that case, I do think the teacher is holding him back for the sake of holding him back which is ridiculous. There is a huge difference between rushing through reading levels and staying on the same level for a year. I might have missed it but what year is he in? I just wondered if he’d done SATs yet as the reading papers would have given you an idea of his compression levels.

The books we use at school have targeted comprehension questions in the back but I do sometimes add in extra ones as well. However I know the children incredibly well and in the case of your DS I would either ask him a separate question and ensure he had plenty of time to answer or he would just join in by showing me where in the text the answer to the question was. There are many many ways of “testing” comprehension without speaking. I think the reason they focus on it so much is by the time they get to Y6 and then high school there are so many children who can “read” but have no idea what they have actually read and obviously with more challenging text and work in high school they need to fully understand it. I do agree though that sometimes it goes completely overboard which is the case here.
I would also argue that by the time he has read the same book 5 times in a year, the comprehension becomes pointless as he knows it off by heart.
In your case I would be tempted to just refuse to read the school books and just let him read his own books and enjoy them.

ClassicalQueen · 10/10/2025 21:09

Go above the teacher and talk to the SENCO. I’m a primary school teacher and have colleagues who stick to the bands far too rigorously, however in my setting the TA’s coordinate this. Find out the types of books he enjoys and buy a set, advise that you read these with him at home.

FishChipsandKipper · 10/10/2025 21:28

@mrsconradfisher

Year 2. Yes, completely agree with what you are saying and you are using your discretion and knowledge of your children. That’s how comprehension should work - and of course compensation is very important. But when it’s become more a ‘tick box’ process where you just churn through the benchmarking…I think it can cause children to stagnate.
At DS’s school - book change is on a Friday. I think a TA just grabs two books from the band and chucks them in his bag. No recording as to whether it’s the same book he had a fortnight ago. The two books he got today : he’s read one three times, the other one twice already.

@ClassicalQueen I wish I could!! The SENCO, Head and Literacy Coordinator (who came back from maternity leave and was ‘shocked’ at how reception had steadily moved through the reading bands by a teacher who mysteriously left one day) are all ultra defensive. And all support each other in their war against us ‘difficult, troublesome’ parents. SENCO managed to pull off three exclusions in DS’s class by end of Year 1 - so I avoid her at all costs.

Sigh - I loved this. The downfall of ‘Brain Gym’:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/education

Charlie Brooker on the pseudoscience of Brain Gym

Charlie Brooker: Perhaps the government confused fantasy with reality the day it endorsed Brain Gym

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/education

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justasking111 · 10/10/2025 21:47

My daughter was upset because her bright child was being held back from moving up until everyone was ready. He was bored out of his skull. At home he was a great reader. Picked books at the library, charity shop, second hand book shop.

She negotiated with the headteacher that he could bring his own book in during reading sessions.

You need to be on the ball, it's the same with math.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 10/10/2025 22:28

I hate the way that any difficulty with speech or hearing is taken as being evidence of inability to understand something - but always being able to speak is shorthand for 'knows their stuff'. After all, most of us have encountered people who seem to have failed upwards in the workplace - the reason they have got to those positions must have been because they always have a smooth answer for everything; they certainly don't have the knowledge or expertise they've been credited with (in my experience at any rate).

It must be just as frustrating for people who aren't skilled at writing to have their abilities doubted, though.

RoseAlone · 10/10/2025 22:32

The school are absolutely right. Children can often decode the words but don't fully understand what they've read. This lack of comprehension is problematic for all subjects including maths, sciences, social sciences as well as daily non school life. It's good to hear about a teacher who actually knows what they're doing and doesn't give into parents who don't know what they're doing and think mechanical reading will suffice.

stichguru · 10/10/2025 22:46

TypeyMcTypeface · 10/10/2025 19:30

"I can read, but I don't feel like I've fully got the meaning of the text" is high, and often it's what people feel is holding them back in life, because in the real world you read to understand.

But is that not an entirely different skill? In your example of an adult being unable to understand a document about their workplace structure although they could read it - they similarly wouldn't understand it if it was, for example, read aloud to them.

I have a degree in English. I could 'read' a document in which someone was describing advanced physics, but I wouldn't be able to understand it. I wouldn't consider that a reflection on my reading ability, or even my comprehension skills.

In the specific case of work documents, sadly in 2025 a high percentage of them are poorly written waffle, which even the author doesn't understand - but few people are brave enough to confess this, creating an emperor's new clothes situation.

Yes and no, of course yes not everyone will understand everything. Similarly to you I have a degree in Social Science and a MA in Disability Studies and my understanding of advance physics would be about the same as yours whether I read it or someone read it to me. However, over my years as a TA with 16-18s and 18 to 30,40,50..., I could give many examples of students who could read something and not get it, but have it read to them and get it.

In my original example, yes of course there are people who wouldn't get the work place structure document whether it was read to them or they read it, but there are also people who wouldn't get it reading it themselves, but would get it being read to them. It IS two skills, but in the real world you need BOTH skills in order to gain information from texts, which is normally the point of reading (whether you are gaining that information for pleasure as in making sense of a novel, or to gain knowledge).

In OPs original post she was arguing her son shouldn't be given easy reading books just because he can't explain what he is reading, but later in life he will probably NEED to be able to read TO understand what he is reading!

Even if he is an excellent decoder for his age, if he goes through his school years being able to decode but not gain meaning, then the minute he needs to understand a text to use in coursework or understand the instructions on homework task, he will struggle to complete the task he is doing just as much as if he couldn't read the instructions. At work, if he can read instructions for machinery or how to give a medication safely, but not understand what they mean unless someone explains them orally, he will not be able to complete these tasks appropriately and safely without help any better than if he'd needed someone to read the instructions to him!

Wishing14 · 10/10/2025 22:56

I would be interested to know what they do in private schools and how different it is.

It does seem that the teachers are quite happy when parents say that they don’t think the approach is working for their child, and they choose instead to read their own books at home instead. There is no one best method for all children.

For my son as soon as I took the school pressure off and said we aren’t reading those books anymore at home his confidence grew, he reads books every night now. And enjoys it.

It’s probably not as simple as a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way. In state schools it’s what works best to get results for the most children with the available time and resources. But often that’s not what’s best for your child.

Shouldhavelovedathunderbird · 11/10/2025 00:02

I don't like the idea of a child with a speech delay being penalised for being unable to vocalise. This is how angry young men are created. Could you possibly have a chat with SENCO about how they intend to help him progress instead of staying on the same level as whatever they are doing, its not working and if he hasn't done SATs they will start piling on the pressure at yr2 or yr6 when they suddenly realise he is not quite where he should be.

I'd ignore the reading scheme completely and teach him yourself using methods tailored to your child and not what a computer has decided. There's lots of lovely books out there that you can start reading together. You read and gently help him to learn how to understand what is happening. Also, if it's Biff Chip and bloody Kipper, you have my sympathies. I did rather enjoy William and Hamid though.

k1233 · 11/10/2025 01:29

RoseAlone · 10/10/2025 22:32

The school are absolutely right. Children can often decode the words but don't fully understand what they've read. This lack of comprehension is problematic for all subjects including maths, sciences, social sciences as well as daily non school life. It's good to hear about a teacher who actually knows what they're doing and doesn't give into parents who don't know what they're doing and think mechanical reading will suffice.

I totally disagree. I could read before I went to school - taught myself because I was too impatient to wait for mum to have time. I ways read at years above my schooling level. I was lucky that we had a library at school and my parents always gave books as presents.

English teachers totally ruin good books IMO with their digging into and analysing every minute thing. I hated english as they sucked the joy out of it.

That said, after working for 30+ years, this year was the first where I actually had to respond to a document and tell the professional services firm that wrote it that Expert is not a verb. I have never had to use the term adjective, verb etc in feedback before, but my head was close to exploding after reading 50 pages that had multiple uses of expert as a verb. Initially I was correcting the wording but after around 5 pages I just highlighted the word and put the comment expert is not a verb.

ETA I'll expand on why I disagree. If you enjoy reading it is because you understand what you are reading. Who would read just to look at random words on a page, which don't create a mental image and connection with what is written. That's why people prefer genres. I'm not a fan of autobiographies, others aren't fans of fantasy novels or romance novels. You read stories you enjoy. IMO non readers are like that due to poor comprehension skills. They get nothing out of reading. Avid readers love a well written book and you would find that they all see the book slightly differently.

OPs child sounds like they are being penalised due to their speech issues, which will ultimately kill their love of reading if OP does not find other reading material for them.

ACynicalDad · 11/10/2025 01:38

Is this discrimination? If you felt that way and started using that language might things change?

FishChipsandKipper · 11/10/2025 06:19

@NeverDropYourMooncup

That’s an interesting point about the ‘smooth talkers’ getting to the top. In education I think the key skills for a great teacher are : empathy and kindness. That ability to see things from the perspective of a child and be willing to question/challenge your own understanding to provide the best possible learning environment for your class. I think great teachers can easily be trampled on by the ‘smooth talkers’ who are on a mission to get to the top - because they are sensitive.
The reception teacher who mysteriously left (literally overnight) WAS moving the class steadily through the levels and managed to teach and include the 3 children (who are now excluded).
So we are left with the 3 SLT members who potentially pushed her out, have now excluded those 3 children and are complicit in this belief that child must speak the answer that is in my head, as I am ‘all powerful’.

@Shouldhavelovedathunderbird ‘Angry young men’. I think it’s interesting that the vast majority of primary teachers are female and I do wonder if there is the potential for female bias to be applied and boys seen to be ‘failing’. I volunteer in a boy heavy environment, and my goodness they need to RUN and move. To penalise boys for not ‘sitting still’ seems unfair to me. The 3 exclusions that have happened : all boys.
@stichguru Thing is I ‘know’ he understands even though the verbal response is ‘I don’t know’ or that he will say anything to avoid being ‘put on the spot’ by an adult. If a puppet asks him a question he will give the right answer, if I write the question down he will give the right answer, if he’s doing it on an app he will give the right answer - or if I give him a written list of instructions he will pick up on things that I’ve missed! The issue is the rigidity of the benchmarking : you must verbalise this response or repeat the book 5 times.

@acynicaldad Yes it is discrimination. And compared to 20 years ago/exclusions at a record high - something is wrong and needs to change.

@Wishing14 Private schools I think are often a bit behind on latest ideas (maybe not a bad thing) but - in the school I worked in - at least two meaningful comments in reading record weekly, read daily in Year 2, no books repeated (parents would have flipped and been listened to), regular checking and moving through book bands systematically. One day a week dedicated to child finding a text/comic/magazine/anything they found interesting and reporting back. Private schools are currently v good at inclusion due to VAT hike/we need to keep our numbers up.

OP posts:
Sartre · 11/10/2025 06:27

The assessment process is crazy. My DS is 5 and can read fluently but is technically non verbal because he doesn’t effectively use communicative language yet. Because he won’t always read the phonics sheets reliably, the school can’t give him reading books so he’s unable to progress in that sense and is still being given phonics sheets with monosyllabic words.

I feel as though he’s being patronised tbh, he reads a full book to me every night with no issues. Not sure how he’d ever fare in a comprehension test because he won’t reliably answer questions.

FishChipsandKipper · 11/10/2025 06:50

@Sartre Sounds exactly like my son! I sent the school a video of him reading (cue beginning of ‘difficult parent’ label from SLT) but his reception teacher took note.
For comprehension (unfortunately it’s a paid subscription) but I really like Reading Eggs app - which we do together. This first alerted me to the fact that he does understand, even if he is not verbalising.

And DS will respond to a puppet asking questions (rather than me) - often refusing to do homework when I ask, but will do anything the puppet asks of him!

I always have a whiteboard and whiteboard pen in the living room - and I find scribing questions really helps too.

DS is 6 now and speech is disordered but much better. We have NHS speech therapy - but due to school ‘refusing’ to implement their recommendations - I have an excellent private speech therapist who he sees fortnightly. Speech therapy is amazing. Absolutely excellent service. Did a fantastic book on inference this week from a book series called ‘We Thinkers’. Barrier games are excellent too.

OP posts:
FishChipsandKipper · 11/10/2025 06:57

@Sartre DS could definitely read before he could ‘speak’, so I wouldn’t be fobbed off by any notion of ‘holding back’. It was the reading that brought on his understanding of how to speak and confidence to communicate.

OP posts:
Doodlingsquares · 11/10/2025 07:11

'There did seem to be a system of putting a large number of hoops for the ones who read well early so the official reading level gap with the others in the class wasn’t too big.'

Another poster commented this and yes this was absolutely our experience. It was obvious it was intended to slow down the stronger readers because when the slower readers eventually reached that level they were not made to do it.
At the moment in uk primary schools bright children are constantly being held baack to enable those who struggle to 'keep up'.

User37482 · 11/10/2025 07:13

I do think reading comprehension is important, ideally a child gets to the point where they can scan read and absorb the critical information to understand the text quickly. I would say however that I was an early decoder (could read fluently before reception) and comprehension just sort of clicked when I was perhaps 5 or 6, I suspect it’s a bit of an organic experience rather than a taught one for some of us.

I do understand why they hold back whilst checking because decoding is the easy bit. DD is in a holding pattern at the moment because I think her comprehension has some catching up to do with her decoding skills. I’m actually fine with this because it is the most important skill imo.

They should be trying to chuck him some books from the level up occasionally and he definitely shouldn’t be rereading books.

However when DD started reception it became clear that when the teacher was asking her comprehension questions she didn’t understand what was expected. So if you asked her what the book was about she would give a one word answer (think, camping) which is not what the teacher was looking for. So I had to read a book with her and say “if Ms Pendergast ask you what the book is about what she wants you to explain to her is this”. It wasn’t that she had an issue with reading comprehension she just wasn’t responding in the “correct” way. No-ones fault but perhaps you could have a teacher and ask what exactly they are looking for an explain it to your son? I imagine it’s a common problem for kids. For us it was easily fixed once I understood where the barrier was.

spoonbillstretford · 11/10/2025 07:16

IME schools take all the joy out of reading these days even when kids enjoy it and are good readers. All the angst over filling in reading records.

Matronic6 · 11/10/2025 07:35

RoseAlone · 10/10/2025 22:32

The school are absolutely right. Children can often decode the words but don't fully understand what they've read. This lack of comprehension is problematic for all subjects including maths, sciences, social sciences as well as daily non school life. It's good to hear about a teacher who actually knows what they're doing and doesn't give into parents who don't know what they're doing and think mechanical reading will suffice.

Nope. The school is wrong to have kept him on the same books this long. Keeping on the same books for comprehension will
limit his phonics exposure
Put him off reading (no one likes reading the same book over and over)
Clearly not give him the comprehension skills he needs to move on

He should be receiving intervention or a different support for his comprehension. Reading schemes don't actually teach kids the comprehension skills. I would want to know what is being done to actually address his comprehension understanding because rereading the same books over and over doesn't do that.

ILikeBigBookssandIcannotlie · 11/10/2025 07:47

Just buy them plenty of book at home/let them go to the library
We never just used "reading scheme" type books they are generally pretty awful. We left those for school and found all sorts of fun books for home.

And let them read the same book a few times if they want to. My son must have read the wimpey kid and 13 storey tree house books several times over.

I always focussed on my goal -.that I wanted my children to see reading as a pleasure, not a chore. Same with learning and education more generally, I wanted them to see it as a privilege and an adventure. My children both read and learn things for fun,.without being asked, and always do their homework without nagging. This is because when they were little I never made them read or do homework if they were tired or grumpy or not feeling it.

Goatinthegarden · 11/10/2025 07:51

I teach upper primary, and have done for so long, that I’m not really able to comment on how they handle reading down the school, however If I wasn’t moving a child up a level, I’d definitely find them something different to read, rather than give the same book over and over.

I have met quite a number of children at my stage of primary who can read every word fluently, but cannot clearly communicate that they have understood what they have read. It is quite common, for instance, for children with ASD to be very fluent readers from an early age, but to really struggle with understanding of a text, particularly when it comes to skills such as inference.

I teach two separate reading lessons, reading for enjoyment and reading comprehension. A child in my class can read whatever they choose from my huge choice of books when reading for enjoyment; novels, comics, puzzle books, non-fiction, picture books, etc.

When decoding texts for deeper understanding, a very able reader might struggle more than a reader who has to sound out and slowly decode each word. These texts are deliberately structured to teach different comprehension skills. A fluent reader might need a more straightforward text than a reader who has to sound out each word.

I currently teach a child, who was reading fluently before nursery and can read anything, who chooses to read books at a much younger level (Horrid Henry) because the child identifies with, understands and enjoys the characters and story at that level. They cannot follow more complicated plots, nor understand the relationships between characters. I have another child who is dyslexic and finds decoding a real struggle, but chooses very challenging novels and painstakingly trudges through, because they love the story and are able to tell me very articulately about what they have read.

FishChipsandKipper · 11/10/2025 07:53

@Matronic6

Yes, he has a learning plan that the LA gives extra funding for. I made sure reading comprehension provision was in there - but does this happen? : nope!

However the school have been recently been able to afford a shiny new outbuilding to rent out for Pilates and air conditioning units….

OP posts:
FishChipsandKipper · 11/10/2025 07:59

@Goatinthegarden

But it may be that the child is destined for a more technical career and not a creative career. I think female primary teachers tend to have a bias towards traditional female qualities : e.g writing a creative story. I think if a child is more into facts, technical, maths, black and white thinking - that does not mean they will not succeed in life.

OP posts:
FishChipsandKipper · 11/10/2025 08:03

And if we constantly try and bash our square peg children into round holes - they are going to feel like failures.

OP posts: