Page 5 | To be fed up with primary teachers holding readers back due to ‘comprehension’?

FishChipsandKipper · 2025-10-09T06:36:40+00:00

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??

Original poster

FishChipsandKipper · 11/10/2025 11:18

@CaptainCallisto

The power of a puppet is magical. I was asking myself why?

Sadly I think children pick up on SO much - whether an adult truly loves and values them, whether an adult would rather be anywhere else than interacting with a child, whether an adult lacks confidence and feels anxious themselves about what they are doing.
The puppet is always fun and has no expectations.

OP posts:

Valeriekat · 11/10/2025 20:12

My son essentially taught himself to read and write (30 years ago). It drove me crazy then. It is always the less imaginative teachers that do this. Frustrating but he will soon be able to read his own choice of books.

Valeriekat · 11/10/2025 20:17

Acommonreader · 09/10/2025 10:23

Comprehension is really important. I have helped in primary school with reading. Several of the ‘ best’ readers could easily skip a page or paragraph and not notice because they had no idea what they were actually reading! Your dc speech delay and the reading assessment method is something to discuss with the teacher .

Yes that is the excuse that they use but I don't believe it is remotely true and if it is then that is the fault of the boring story not the reader.

Evergreen21 · 11/10/2025 20:45

We had a similar experience with our eldest. She loves to read and her reading age is well beyond her years but her teacher wanted her to read more basic texts and be able to talk about the themes. To avoid her feeling demoralised we looked at ways we could encourage her love of books beyond school. We also found in terms of the book they would read in class , dd would read ahead and when the teacher asked questions about 10 pages back dd would be slow in answering. She also responds better when working in a small group as is shy expressing herself infront of the whole class.

We worked on it by going to the library and choosing books she was interested in. She likes non fiction and retains facts really well so we looked at a book about ancient Egyptians and we worked on comprehension from there.Some questions asked were testing her direct recall, others gave her more of an option to discuss why she thought they did certain processes, what the significance could be etc. It's to get them to explore the nuances of the text and those skills are needed as they get older. So many adults take what they read as gospel and cannot read between the lines or analyse texts.

I would speak to the school and explain that he finds this demoralising and or boring and it is affecting his interest in reading. Work with them on ways in which you can support him, encouraging him to talk about books he enjoys reading. Our school also worked on doing show and tell and getting the kids to do presentations so they could practice speaking infront of others which has really helped our dd.There are lots of free comprehension exercises you can print off online to give him practice too.

Backgroundnoises · 11/10/2025 21:42

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.

This reminded me of a year 4 class I had once. We were trialling a year where all literacy teaching was done around a meaty novel for each six week period. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Kensuke's Kingdom type level. That involved me, or an able reader, reading the novel aloud for 15 minutes a day. I will never forget the severely dyslexic boy in my class that year, still struggling on basic readers, who was absolutely enthralled, listening to every word and his higher level comprehension skills were so obvious in class discussions; he outshone even my most able readers. My advice to parents always was to read quality novels to your child from as early as they can engage with them. You reading to your child is just as important as them reading to you if you want to develop higher level comprehension skills. I loved that way of teaching Literacy as I could share my love of literature without reading levels holding children back.

mugglewump · 11/10/2025 23:04

School reading books are part of a whole guided reading system which supports children's progress in all aspects of reading, usually refered to as VIPERS (vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summary). More recently prosedy has been added to this list.

This has nothing to do with reading for pleasure at home which is encouraged, nor has it anything to do with a child's ability to decode. If your child is becoming frustrated with the books they are reading through school, start to work on developing their reading skills (ie VIPERS, not decoding). If they are not getting the inference or cannot explain the author's choice of particular words or character's motivation, they will need to work on this before they can move up.
Most of all, do not rely on books from school to develop your child's reading and love of reading. Get to your local library and explore what they want to read.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 11/10/2025 23:28

I detested the reading scheme books, detested the having to read them out loud in a noisy classroom and absolutely despised whole class reading out loud as it was so painfully slow and it really didn't seem to help the kids in the class who were finding it hard to read to have us all know they were struggling - but my older brother (who was undiagnosed but looking back, was clearly autistic) explained to me - having had our mother really annoy him just beforehand by declaring that he couldn't read until he was ten - that the point of the boring books and reading them out loud was to show the teacher that you could read and understand what you had read.

And once you did that, sooner or later they'd leave you alone so you could read the stuff you were actually interested in.

The logic worked for me. Wasn't enjoyable in the slightest, though, other than perhaps in terms of ticking off another level - and I didn't appreciate the 'we've got some extension books you can read now' at all. But they did give up and let me read what I wanted from the top year's reference library by the summer term. So he was right.

Hankunamatata · 11/10/2025 23:36

Reasonable adjument - ask that in future he is given the comprehension questions in written format and writes the answers.

ILikeBigBookssandIcannotlie · 11/10/2025 23:39

Backgroundnoises · 11/10/2025 21:42

This reminded me of a year 4 class I had once. We were trialling a year where all literacy teaching was done around a meaty novel for each six week period. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Kensuke's Kingdom type level. That involved me, or an able reader, reading the novel aloud for 15 minutes a day. I will never forget the severely dyslexic boy in my class that year, still struggling on basic readers, who was absolutely enthralled, listening to every word and his higher level comprehension skills were so obvious in class discussions; he outshone even my most able readers. My advice to parents always was to read quality novels to your child from as early as they can engage with them. You reading to your child is just as important as them reading to you if you want to develop higher level comprehension skills. I loved that way of teaching Literacy as I could share my love of literature without reading levels holding children back.

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I listen to audio books with my severely dyslexic nephew, he has a gloriously eclectic taste and loves all sorts of literature. It's a total thrill for him. (I would read to him but I have a speech difficulty and can't read for long stretches)

Hankunamatata · 11/10/2025 23:40

Backgroundnoises · 11/10/2025 21:42

This reminded me of a year 4 class I had once. We were trialling a year where all literacy teaching was done around a meaty novel for each six week period. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Kensuke's Kingdom type level. That involved me, or an able reader, reading the novel aloud for 15 minutes a day. I will never forget the severely dyslexic boy in my class that year, still struggling on basic readers, who was absolutely enthralled, listening to every word and his higher level comprehension skills were so obvious in class discussions; he outshone even my most able readers. My advice to parents always was to read quality novels to your child from as early as they can engage with them. You reading to your child is just as important as them reading to you if you want to develop higher level comprehension skills. I loved that way of teaching Literacy as I could share my love of literature without reading levels holding children back.

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Love this and its true!
Two of my children are severely dyslexic. Iv always read books that I enjoyed to them at bedtime as they were never going to be able to read them themselves. One discovered a love of audiobooks at 8 and realised he could access all the books his peers were reading. Its been 6 years and teachers are often still astonished by his vocabulary and comprehension when he has the reading and writing level of someone 5 years younger.

ILikeBigBookssandIcannotlie · 11/10/2025 23:42

Valeriekat · 11/10/2025 20:12

My son essentially taught himself to read and write (30 years ago). It drove me crazy then. It is always the less imaginative teachers that do this. Frustrating but he will soon be able to read his own choice of books.

Yes in my experience the primary school teachers that you can tell were very advanced at school themselves are far more happy to give extension work in maths/get comfortable with reading outside the "reading scheme" books etc.

justasking111 · 11/10/2025 23:52

I used to get them to choose a book, then read a chapter of a book I had chosen. When older we took it in turns to read to each other.

Btw I think Tonies are lovely presents for the grandchildren.

Hereforthecommentz · 11/10/2025 23:53

I really wouldn't worry about it. Read to him at home, choose your own books. My child's school take ages to swap books, I've given up, we just read what we want at home and do the accelerated reader quizzes online based on those. I don't know why parents get so het up about moving up bands. You know what your son can read and understand that's more important than the schools tick boxes. I wouldnt get worked up about it.

Namechangeragin · 13/10/2025 10:52

Buy him books he enjoys and encourage daily reading for pleasure. Also have a harder bedtime story that you read to him and discuss. My kids could read when they started school but still had to do each level. I let school focus on that and I bought them a variety of books. And they have free access to library audio books and often listen and draw etc. I only write their own books in the logs.

They also read song lyrics so they can sing along.

All still read for pleasure and are excited when second hand book parcels arrive at home.

Reading chest is good for younger readers and brilliant for general knowledge if you focus on their non fiction range.